The aim of the study
The study aims at finding out if HTU learners have difficulties in pronouncing English word final consonants and what the causes of these problems are The results will provide an overview of learners‟ pronunciation at HTU and give suggestions for teachers to improve the situation The findings of this research will hopefully help HTU students to raise their awareness of learning correct pronunciation so as to produce English word-final consonants properly.
Hypothesis
1 HTU learners have difficulties in pronouncing English word-final consonants
2 Their problems may be caused by mother tongue interference.
The scope of the study
This research presents several analyses on the pronunciation of the five consonants occurring in some selected words using for recording namely /s/, /tʃ/, /ð/, /t/, /p/ in final these consonants are pronounced in Vietnamese-like way Basing on the findings, problems in pronouncing these sounds and the causes of them will be pointed out with solutions.
Research method
In the study, the author intends to figure out if HTU students have difficulties in pronouncing some English word final consonants and how different their pronunciation of these sounds is in comparison with that described in the analytical framework basing on Received Pronunciation (RP) standard A combination of different data collection methods was used including recording the participants‟ pronunciation of prepared words and observing their spoken English in class Details of methodology applied in the study are discussed in Chapter 2 of Part two.
Organization of the study
The study composes of three parts:
Part one, Introduction, includes the rationale, aims, research question, scope, method and organization of the study
Part two, Development, consists of two chapters Chapter one, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background relevant to the research The first section describes the basic concepts of phonetics, phonology and articulatory phonetics The second section offers a theoretical presentation of consonants, English consonants and the consonants under study
The last section summarizes the review of previous research related to consonant pronunciation Chapter two, the Study, describes the context of the study, the participants, the method, the findings and discussion
Part three, Conclusion, summarizes the findings and gives suggestions for improving
English final pronunciation for HTU students.
LITERATURE REVIEW 9
Phonetics
Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds It is concerned with various aspects relevant for the physical characteristics of sounds Several branches of phonetics can further be distinguished, depending on the narrower domain of interest of the respective field There are three main areas of phonetics: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics, (Jack C.R et al, 1997)
Articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced Sound are usually classified according to the position of lips and the tongue, how far open the mouth is, whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating and so on
Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air When a speech sound is produced it causes minor air disturbances (sound waves) Various instruments are used to measure the characteristics of these sound waves
Auditory phonetics deals with how speech sounds are perceived by the listener,
Phonology
Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language, (Ladefoged, 2001:23) It involves studying a language to determine its distinctive sounds and to find out which sounds convey a difference in meaning When two sounds can be used to differentiate words, they are said to belong to different phonemes
There must be a phonemic difference if two words (such as “white” and “right” or “cat” and
“bat”) differ in only a single sound
"Phonology deals with the speakers‟ knowledge of the sound system of a language It is into two branches: (1) segmental phonology and (2) suprasegmental phonology" (Skandera
Phonology is primarily concerned with how we interpret and systematize sounds It deals with the system and pattern of the sounds which exists within particular languages The study of phonology of English looks at the vowels, consonants and superasemental features of the language Within the disciplines of phonology, when we talk about vowels and consonants we are referring to the different sounds we make when speaking, and not the vowel and consonants letters we refer to when talking about spelling
When we describe the sound patterns that occur in English, we want to be able to say that in some sense there are always the same underlying sounds may change depending on the context in which they occur The phonology of a language is the set of rules that describe the changes in the underlying sounds, the abstract units called phonemes When we transcribe a word in a way that shows none of the details of the pronunciation that are predictable by phonological rules, we are making a phonemic transcription, (Ladefoged,
2001) The variants of the phonemes that occur in details phonetic transcriptions are known as allophones They are generated as a result of applying the phonological rule to the underlying phonemes
This research aims at finding out if HTU students have difficulties in pronouncing the five chosen English consonants in the final position It takes the problems of their pronunciation into consideration which concerns with the way they use their organs of articulation pronouncing such sounds This is also what articulatory phonetics study, so the theoretical background of it is presented with more details as follows.
Articulatory phonetics
Articulatory phonetics, one of three main branches of phonetics, is the study of the organs of speech and their use in producing speech sounds The term 'organs of speech' refers to those parts of the human body that are concerned in various ways with the production of speech A lot of them are only secondarily concerned with the production of speech- their primary functions have to do with eating, chewing, and swallowing food, and respiration
Those parts of the body below (not the lungs) belong to the vocal tract The vocal tract is divided into the supraglottal and the subglottal tract (as shown in Picture1),(Ladefoged,
In nearly all speech sounds, the basic source of power is the respiratory system pushing air of the lungs Air from the lungs goes up the windpipe and into the larynx at which point it must pass between two small muscular folds called the vocal folds If the folds are apart, as they normal are when breathing out, the air from the lungs will have a relatively free passage into the pharynx and the mouth But the vocal folds are adjusted so that there is only a narrow passage between them, the airstream will cause them to vibrate Sounds produced when the vocal folds are vibrating are said to be voiced , as opposed to those in which the vocal folds are apart, which are said to be voiceless The air passages above the larynx are known as the vocal tract The shape of the vocal tract is very important factor in the production of speech
The parts of the vocal tract that can be used to form sounds are called articulators The articulators that form the lower surface of the vocal tract often move towards those that form the upper surface
The names of principal parts of upper surface of the vocal tract are the upper lip, upper teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate and soft palate or velum The soft palate is a muscular flap that can be raised to press against the back wall of the pharynx and shut off the nasal tract, preventing air from going out through the nose At the lower end of the soft palate is a small appendage hanging down that is known as the uvula The part between the uvula and the larynx is the pharynx
The lower lip and the specific names for different parts of the tongue form the lower surface of the vocal tract The tip and the blade of the tongue are the most mobile parts
Behind the blade is what technically called the front of the tongue: it is actually the forward part of the body of the tongue, and it lies underneath the hard palate when the tongue is at rest The remainder of the body of the tongue may be divided into the center which is partly beneath the hard palate and partly beneath the soft palate; the back, which is beneath the soft palate; and the root, which is opposite the back wall of the pharynx
Picture 1: The organs of speech
Articulatory phonetics deals with the major aspects of speech production They are the air stream mechanism, the state of vocal cords, the state of velum, the place and the manner of articulation, ( Davenport & Hannahs, 1998) On the other hand, this study is paid attention to consonants, particularly the five studied consonants; therefore, the manner, the place of articulation and voicing- the three main features of consonants are discussed with more interest later.
Consonants
A consonant is a speech sound where the air stream from the lungs is completely blocked (STOP), partially blocked (LATERAL) or where the opening is so narrow that the air escapes with audible fiction (FRICATIVE) With some consonants (NASALS) the air stream is blocked in the mouth but allowed to escape through the nose (Richard et al, 1997)
A consonant is a speech sound that functions at the margins of syllables, produced when the vocal tract is either blocked or so restricted that there is audible friction (Crystal,
From a phonetic point of view, they are articulated in one of two ways: either there is a closing movement of one of the vocal organs, forming such a narrow constriction that it is possible to hear the sound of the air passing through; or the closing movement is complete, giving a total blockage The closing movement may involve the lips, the tongue, or the throat But in each case the overall effect is very different from the relatively open and unimpeded articulation found in vowels In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is charactized by closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence, (Crystal, 2003:242)
Consonants, actually, are sounds made with closed or nearly closed articulations As a consequence, they tend to break up the stream up speech, defining a perceptual and articulatory edge, or margin, for a unit (word or syllable in a word) that includes one or more vowels
Consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or diverting the airflow in a variety of ways They can be divided into different kinds in accordance with three categories, i.e the degree of vocal cord vibration, the place and the manner of articulation Some consonants involve the vibration of the vocal cords: these are the voiced consonants Others have no vocal cord vibration: these are the voiceless consonants However, the distinction is not absolute: depending on where in a word consonant appears, there may be degrees of voicing,( Kelly, 2000 : 5-7)
The manner of articulation refers to the interaction between the various articulators act in such way that the air is temporarily trapped, and then suddenly released Consonants classified based on the manners of articulation are plosive, affricate, fricative, nasal, lateral, approximant, (Kelly, 2000)
Plosive a complete closure is made somewhere in the vocal tract, and the soft palate is also raised Air pressure increases behind the closure, and is then released „explosively‟
Affricate a complete closure is made somewhere in the mouth, and the soft palate is raised Air pressure increases behind the closure, and is then released more slowly than in plosives
Fricative when two vocal organs come close enough together for the movement of air between them to be heard
Nasal a closure is made by the lips, or by the tongue against the palate, the soft palate is lowered, and air escapes through the nose
Lateral a partial closure is made by the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge Air is able to flow around the sides of the tongue,
ApproximantVocal organs come near to each other, but not so close as to cause audible friction
The place of articulation focuses more on what the various articulators actually do The place of articulation defines both the area of the oral-pharyngeal vocal tract where the constriction is made and the part of the tongue used to form the constriction The sounds of this classification include bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar palato-alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal, (Kelly, 2000)
With regards to the place of articulation, the following table summarizes the main movements of the various articulators:
Bilabial Using closing movement of both lips
Labio-dental Using the lower lip and the upper teeth
Dental The tongue tip is used either between the teeth or close to the upper teeth
Alveolar The blade of the tongue is used close to the alveolar ridge
The blade (or tip) of the tongue is used just behind the alveolar ridge
Palatal The front of the tongue is raised close to the palate
Velar The back of the tongue is against the soft palate
Glottal The gap between the vocal cords is used to make audible friction,
1.4.1.3 The degree of vocal cord vibration
Voicing is also one the main categories that consonants have to base on when being described The vocal folds may be held against each other at just the right tension so that the air flowing past them from the lungs will cause them to vibrate against each other This process is called voicing Sounds that are made with vocal fold vibration are said to be voiced
Sounds made without vocal fold vibration are said to be voiceless There are several pairs of sounds in English which differ only in voicing that is, the two sounds have identical places and manners of articulation, but one has vocal fold vibration and the other doesn't, for example, /s, z/ or /θ, ð/
Describing the force of articulation, the terms fortis or strong and lenis or weak are often used In spoken English, fortis happens to equate with unvoiced sounds, which require a more forcefully expelled airstreams than lenis sounds which in English happen to be voiced As far as English consonants are concerned, the distinction is most useful when it comes to distinguishing between sounds that are articulated in essentially the same way, one using the voice, the other not An example pair is /p/ (unvoiced, and fortis), and /b/ (voiced, and lenis), (Kelly, 2000)
Most dialects of English have about 24 distinctive (phonemic) consonant sounds divided according to three different categories: voicing, place and manner of articulation, as shown in the table 1 with the rows for places of articulation and the columns for manners of articulation (Kelly, 2000)
A stop cuts off airflow through either the mouth or the nose so there are oral and nasal stops Oral stops are often called plosives: [p, b], [t, d], [k, g] Nasal stops are usually called nasals: [m], [n] and [l] English fricatives include [f, v], [θ ð], [s, z], [ʃ, ʒ] and [h] English approximants are [j], [w], [.1], and [I] Affricates can be seen as a sequence of a stop and a fricative which have the same or similar place of articulation, and there are only two affricative sounds in English [ tʃ ] [dʒ], (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) The summary of English consonants is shown in Table 1 below:
Bilabial labio- dental dental Alveolar Post- alveolar palatal velar glottal
Table 1: Consonants of English, (Kelly, 2000)
(Table 1 shows the places and manners of articulation for consonants Whenever a cell has two consonants, the voiceless is placed to the left and the voiced is to the right.)
The studied consonants can be called in different terms: Plosive or stop /p, t/, affricate /tʃ/, fricative /ð/ if basing on the manner of articulation; bilabial /p/, alveolar /t, s/, dental /ð / and post- (palato) alveolar / tʃ/ if basing on place of articulation /p/, /t/, and /tʃ / are strong and long fiction
When we speak English, we do not only pronounce individual sounds, but the strings of phonemes which make up utterances In connected speech, sounds are not sometimes produced as they have to, but some changes happen to them In other words, some of them can be assimilated, elided or linked For example, the phoneme/t/ can become bilabial before a bilabial consonant as in He‟s a rather fat boy (/t/ assimilates to /p/) In the sentence: We arrived the next day (/t/ elided between /ks/ and /d/), /p/ or /t/ and /d/ may be elided when they appear within a consonant cluster (Kelly, 2000)
Assimilation is the change of one sound into another sound because of the influence of neighboring sounds, as the change of underlying[n] to [m] in „input‟[imput] or of underlying[z] to [ʒ] in „does she‟ [dʌ ʒʃ ] (Ladefoged, 2000: 271)
Elision is the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech For example, in rapid speech in
English, suppose is often pronounced as [spouz], factory ['fổktri],( Richard et all, 1992: 121)
Review of previous research
There have been a number of studies about Vietnamese‟ difficulties in pronouncing
English consonants Important findings were drawn and become a valuable basis for this research
Osburne (1996:164-181) analyzed a case study from her subject - a Vietnamese native speaker who came to the United States in 1972 - then drew the conclusion that: “In additional to cluster reduction, optional deletion of single syllable-final consonants, especially fricatives, which is attested for Vietnamese L1 speakers […] was found”, and
“Consonants omitted, however, were always final consonants not permitted by Vietnamese
She also stated that Vietnamese is non-rhotic so there is no /r/ sound at the end of English syllables spoken by Vietnamese What can be concluded from this study is that Vietnamese learners have a tendency to: firstly move strange English ending sounds towards similar sounds which exist in their mother tongue, secondly omit the sounds that are too difficult for them and thirdly reduce final clusters
In the article “Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English”
Tam (2005) pointed out the two main problems in pronunciation of Vietnamese learners, that is, sound omission and sound confusion Relating to English final consonant pronunciation, she stated that Vietnamese speakers omitted ending sound most frequently A reason for sound omitting is a negative transference of their L1 due to the habit of “swallowing” the ending sound in the mother tongue The following table shows her research results on problems of mispronunciation of the informants in the study
Thao (2007) in the paper "Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English: Final
Consonants " proved that English word-final consonants are not pronounced in a native-like way by Vietnamese speakers And Vietnamese effort to pronounce English word-final consonants is towards omitting, adding schwa or replacing them by sounds closer to those existing in their mother-tongue
In the M.A Thesis „A Study on Pronunciation of Some English Consonants by
Vietnamese‟ by Hanh (2007) also concluded that main problem relating to pronunciation by
Vietnamese are either the mispronunciation or sound omission, especially when the consonants are in the final position
The above studies are all about problems of Vietnamese learners in pronouncing English consonants in general, none of them was done with certain consonants that seem to be difficult for Vietnamese learners from one of the central provinces in Vietnam Therefore, this research was carried out to find out if HTU students have difficulties when pronouncing the five chosen consonants /s, tʃ, ð, t, p/ in the final position.
THE STUDY 23
Research questions
The research focuses on analyzing the HTU students‟ pronunciation of five English consonant /s, tʃ, ð, t, p / in the final position to find out if they have problems in producing these sounds The study was set up to answer the following questions
1 Do the subjects under study have problems in pronouncing consonants: /s, t ʃ , ð, t, p/ in word final?
2 What are the causes of their mispronunciations?
Data collection instruments
In order to get the data for the study, the researcher designed two tasks and asked the informants to read out aloud to record Task one is a list of 34 separate words containing the five chosen consonants at final position Theses words are extracted from Lifelines (pre- intermediate) book by Tom Hutchinson published by Oxford University Press which is the main syllabus for General English credit being studied by first year majored English students at HTU
Sounds are not always pronounced individually but in utterances; therefore, the author provided task 2 including ten sentences using some of the words in the task 1 The informants asked to do task 2 the same as task 1 This task aims at checking if the subjects have the same problems in producing utterances as they do with single words The words chosen as data collection instruments for the study can be seen in the Appendix.
Data collection procedures
The data collection was collected via observation and recordings By recording, the informants were told to read out aloud the 34 prepared words three times in task 1 and once with 10 sentences in task 1 What they read was directly recorded into the recorder The recording was done in a classroom in HTU in November 2009 just after one month since the informants became HTU students
Observation was done when the subjects were speaking English naturally without awareness of being observed in the classroom lasting from my start of teaching the subjects‟ carefully in a notebook immediately At the time of the study, I have been teaching the informants about 30 hours
The data was analyzed in the light of articulatory phonetics to find out how different their pronunciation of the five chosen consonants when they speak English naturally in the class and when recorded in comparision with the analytical framework From the data analysis how often they mispronounced such consonants and what the mispronunciations were like will be pointed out.
The subjects
The subjects of the study consist of 10 female English majored freshmen of HTU They are chosen at random basing on their order number in the attendance register then the name attached to these numbers were collected They are from 18 to 19 years old These informants are coded as A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9 and A10
All of them have learned English since 6 th grade (about 12 years old) at the least They come from different districts of Ha Tinh province where the facilities for learning English are not good The learning aid is only a cassette player Most of them can do written English tasks quite well, but they speak English very badly with a lot of mispronounced words They know a little about phonetics
The above things can conclude that the subjects of the study are compatible in terms of age, gender and knowledge of both mother tongue and foreign language It can be said that the words used to record are suitable and obviously at their level of competence.
Analytical framework
The following section presents an analytical framework which describes how each consonant under study is articulated and its variants basing on Received Pronunciation (RP)
This analytical framework will be used to analyze the pronunciation of the subjects of study
When producing a plosive, a complete closure is made at some point in the vocal tract, with the soft palate raised; air pressure builds up behind the closure, which is then released explosively ( Kelly, 2000)
To give a completed description of a plosive consonant we must describe what happens at each of three following four phases in its production (Roach, 1983) i, The first phase, closure phase, is when the articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for the plosive ii, The second phase, hold phase, is when the compressed air is stopped from escaping iii, The third phase, release phase, is when the articulators used to form the stricture are moved so as to allow air to escape iv, The fourth phase, post- release phase, is what happens immediately after iii,
When /p/ is produced, the total closure is made using both lips The soft palate is raised
/p/ is voiceless and fortis It happens as in pen, lip, happen
In articulation consonant /t/, closure is made by the tongue blade against the alveolar ridge The soft palate is raised /t/ is voiceless and fortis /t/ sound occurs as in hat and hotter
/t/ becomes bilabial before bilabial consonants /p/, /b/, and /m/;
/t/ assimilates to /k/ before /k/ or /g/ as in that cat;
/t/ and /j/ coalesce to form / tʃ/ as in didn‟t you
In pronouncing an affricative, a complete closure is made at some point in the vocal tract, with the soft palate raised; air pressure builds up behind the closure, which is then released relatively slowly
In the articulation of /tʃ/ the tongue tip, blade and rims close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth Air pressure builds up behind the closure The front of the tongue is raised, and when the air is released, there is audible friction The soft palate is also raised /tʃ/ is voiced and lenis as in church, teacher, cheap, watch
When producing fricatives, two vocal organs come so close together that the movement of air between them can be heard as in /ð, s/
The alveolar fricative /s/ is articulated with the soft palate being raised and the tongue blade makes light contact with the alveolar ridge /s/ is a fortis or voiceless
In articulating dental fricatives /ð/, the tongue tip makes light contact with the back of the top, front teeth The soft palate is raised /ð/ is voiced and lenis It is often omitted in clusters in formal speech.
Data analysis
The data analysis is presented based on the degree of mispronunciation of the five sounds from the highest to the smallest They are analyzed in the light of articulatory phonetics which is described in the Literature Review
The following table (Table 3) shows number of the informants mispronouncing the five studied consonants The percentages are calculated by the operation a=b*100/c; in which a is the percentage of each sound mispronounced by each subject; b is the real number of each sounds mispronounced by each subject, multiplied by 100 percent and the divide c which is the total number of each sound appearing in both tasks multiplied by 10 subject
Table 3: Mispronunciation across the subjects
As can be seen from this table, all of the subjects have problems in pronouncing English word-final consonants, 80 % mispronounced all the five consonants sounds, 20% mispronounced 3 out of the five consonants
The mispronunciation of the five studied consonants was mostly sound omission and sound deviation which is shown in the following table 4 and 5 below
Table 4: Sound omission made by informants
In producing isolating words, the frequency of sound deviation is higher than sound omission It seems that the informants tried to pronounce the words correctly, but they failed
Their mispronunciations are shown as follows:
1 /ð/ is usually pronounced like /t h / in Vietnamese or /z/ or sometimes /θ/
2 /tʃ / is mispronounced as /s, ʃ , t/ and /c/ in Vietnamese
Of all five studied sounds, the rate of mispronunciation made of final /ð/ is the highest
The voiced /ð/ is most confused with /z/ by A1, A2 and with voiceless /θ/ by A2, A7 and A8
Consonant /ð/ in bathe, breathe and smooth is made as /θ/ by A6 with schwa addition Most of the subjects except for A2 and A7 pronounced /ð/ in “clothe” A1, A2 and A3 made it as /z/ and A5, A3 produced it as /zə/ “With” was produced as /wiz/ (40%), as /wiθ/ (40%) and as /wis/ (20%)
Only A5 pronounced the word “smooth” correctly When pronouncing this consonant most of the subjects did not put the tongue tip making light contact with the back of the top, front teeth or they did not protrude the tongue tip between upper and lower teeth, so they could not pronounce this sound correctly
The phoneme p is realized as 3 allophones, for example the p in „pen‟ is likely to be aspirated, in „happy‟ is not aspirated and in „stop‟ is not aspirated strongly or not completely released, (Vo Dai Quang: 24) When p is not aspirated, the air escaping through the vocals cords does not make a sound like h, when p it is non - released the air is not escaped
Regarding to /p/ sound, most of the informants produced word-final /p/ without aspiration (A5, A7) In another word /p/ was not pronounced strong enough After the total closure, the air was not released explosively Moreover, some made it as a voiced /b/ (A7, A9) or even as /s/ (A10) /p/ was also pronounced as /f/ by A5
The alveo-palatal affricate /tʃ/ is articulated with the tongue tip, blade and rims close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth and there is audible friction However, when pronouncing this sound, most of the informants could not do like this According to Kelly
(2000), after the complete closure the air releases slowly and then there is audible friction, but some of them could not make this friction (A1, A3, A5) The data shows that /tʃ/ was pronounced like /c/ in Vietnamese Each was produced like ích and teach like tích in
Vietnamese Besides, /tʃ/ was made as /s/ in much by A5 and A8 and /t/ by A3, A4, A5 and
Most of /t/ sounds appearing in the two tasks were omitted Mostly, /t/ was pronounced like /t/ in Vietnamese, that is, it is not strongly aspirated in word final (by A1, A3, A4, A5 and A6) /t/ was produced like /s/ by A2, A3, A4 and A5 Of all the ten informants, A9 pronounced best She rarely mispronounced the sounds under study and other consonants in word final
Of all five studied sounds, the confusion made with final /s/ in the word list is the smallest It was only made as /z/ by A2 Most of the subjects pronounced it correctly
However, /s/ was also dropped out as much as other consonants under study in connected speech
In connected speech, most of the consonants under study were omitted Only those in words at the end of the sentences were pronounced Of all words containing sounds under study only the words: trip map, cat, smooth and march are pronounced, but /ð/ in smooth was made as /ðə/ and /t∫/in march as /t∫ə/; /p, t/ was made without aspiration by all the informants Most of the subjects produced /p, t/ without releasing the air explosively The data analysis pointed out that 100% of the subjects omitted the final consonants A3 and A8
„forgot‟ most the final sounds They dropped 21 out of total 34 sounds appearing in the word list, followed by A2 (18) then A6 (15) A7 and A9 seemed to remember these sounds, but mispronounced them One of the most interesting things can be seen is that when the consonants under study ended with letter „e‟ such as in breathe, bathe, escape, or clothe, they are always added to schwa
Generally speaking, the omission of the consonants under study in word final in isolating words or within utterances is a serious problem for the subjects of the study They dropped out all the sounds under study as the habit of “swallowing” sounds in Vietnamese
Additionally, the data shows that they did not use any phonological rules such as assimilation or elision or r linking mentioned when they spoke English naturally in casual or in rapid speech
Discussion and findings
The results from recordings and observation show that all the subjects have problems in pronouncing the five studied consonants /s, ð, p, tʃ, t/ in word final when they are in isolating words as well as within utterances With the English consonants which are strange, HTU learners firstly move them towards similar sounds which exist in their mother tongue, secondly omit the sounds that are too difficult for them Sound omission is very popular among HTU learners Consonant sounds that do exist in Vietnamese were dropped very often by the subjects of the study The frequency of mispronouncing /ð/ is the highest (90%) this indicates that /ð/ is the most troublesome sound to articulate for HTU students
Concerning sound deviation, the most salient feature can be found is that all /p, t/ in word final are not aspirated There is certainly confusion between voiced and voiceless sounds which happens fairly common between /p, b/ and /ð, θ/
/ð/ was mispronounced as /z/, /θ/ or /t h / in Vietnamese The reasons for these problems are firstly /ð / does not exist in Vietnamese; therefore, the students find it difficult to learn its articulation with the tongue tip making light contact with the back of the top front teeth
Secondly, the way it looks in letters the same as it does in Vietnamese, i.e „th‟ also made the students automatically pronounce it as the way it is in their native language Moreover, the letter „th‟ can be pronounced like /ð/ or / θ/, thus, the informants also get confused /ð/ with / θ/
Relating to /p, t/ sounds, all of the subjects pronounced them as they did Vietnamese codas Nearly 100 % of /p/ and /t/ appearing in word final in the data were omitted Some informants confused voiceless /p/ with voiced /b/ (A7, A9)
In writing form, /tʃ/ looks the same as the letter „ch‟ in Vietnamese; but their articulation is different with the tongue tip; blade & rim close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth, the front of the tongue raised When the air is released, there is audible friction
/tʃ/ is a strange sound to Vietnamese learners, thus it was mispronounced very often
In articulating /p, t, tʃ/ in word final, the subjects of the study did not pronounce them strongly enough; thus there is no audible friction made with /tʃ/ And /p, t / were not aspirated strongly enough They made these sounds softer than they are
/s/ is one of the popular sounds of English; it is not too difficult to pronounce this sound Therefore, the informants have better awareness of pronouncing this sound The number of errors made with final /s/ in the word list is comparatively small It was only confused as /z/ by A2 However, it is still a foreign consonant to the informants so they cannot avoid these errors when it comes to the sentences
It can be inferred that the more closed the English consonants to the Vietnamese ones are the more frequently the subjects omitted these sounds It is the habit of „swallowing‟ final sounds in Vietnamese that interfere with the pronunciation of English word-final consonants of HTU students Another problem is that despite the transcription attached to the chosen words, these informants still mispronounced the words It is more surprising when they made many consonants as a completely different sound For example, A8 and A2 made some final consonants as /s/ This indicated that they did not remember the IPA, one of the basic matters of phonetics Although the students had preparation and managed to pronounce those sounds consciously they still could not speak automatically in class Some of them could pronounce single words correctly, but failed in producing the whole utterances and vice versa
In brief, most of the subjects of the study had difficulties in pronouncing the five studied consonants in word final to different extend Their problems are sound omission and sound deviation Most of the consonants are not produced correctly by all informants as compared to the analytical framework described earlier The consonants nearer to Vietnamese including voiceless stops /p, t/ and fricative / tʃ/ are identified as their first language‟s own coda /p, t, c/
In Vietnamese, there are only six final consonants: /p/, /t/, /k/ (c/ch), /m/, /n/, /N/
(ng/nh) and two final semivowels: /i/ (i/y), /u/ (o/u)( Ngo, 2005), whereas almost every English consonant appears word-finally, except for /h/, /w/ and /j/, (Cummins, 1998)
Dealing with consonants that are new and different from their coda, HTU students either omitted them or reduced them to the sounds that exist in Vietnamese Besides, they tended to addition was also made between consonants to make new syllables in some cases As a result, their English is very “Vietnamese” The causes of the subjects‟ mispronunciation are due to the negative transference from L1 to L2 of HTU learners or their carelessness when pronouncing these sounds or maybe due to their lack of phonetic knowledge
In conclusion, English final consonants play a very important role in conveying the meaning of the words Many English words that differ only in their coda for example, white, wife and wine They also play important roles in grammar for singular or plural and tenses
The inability to produce exact word-final consonants may prevent speakers from being understood by others when speaking English, and more importantly, may affect their communicative process
The analysis results of English final pronunciation of HTU students proved that these students have the same difficulties as the majority of Vietnamese learners face It can be affirmed that these are systematic errors However, it does not means there are no solutions to these problems Teaching and learning phonetic matters must be paid much more attention The most important thing is to get students involved in practicing pronunciation more and more outside the class
Yet, it must be admitted that there is no guarantee that the data taken also included mistakes of pronunciation included by psychological factors such as anxiety, nervousness or noises and so on About the data taken by observing the subjects‟ performance in class, on one hand, it cannot be something absolutely true because the observer (the researcher) does not have as good ears as the native speaker does to recognize a hundred percent exact mistakes made by her students Furthermore, sometimes the researcher probably let in her background knowledge of the subjects‟ language competence that made her automatically understand what her students were talking about even when they spoke unclearly and incorrectly On the other hand, those data can partially be the evidence for fortifying the results taken from the students‟ recordings, which helps study the researcher come to an implication and a conclusion of the study
Correct pronunciation plays a very important part in communication Word final consonants convey the meaning of the words Mispronunciation of them can lead to misunderstanding and communication process can easily break down That is why in the process of teaching, teachers of English should be more aware of the significance of word final consonants and their correct pronunciation
Implications
Learning a foreign language is a long term process Oral communication requires correct pronunciation Learners may meet a lot of challenges when they learn how to pronounce properly For Vietnamese learners in general and HTU students in particular, it is extremely difficult to master English sounds as many of them do not exist in Vietnamese language
That is why teaching English pronunciation has been paid much more attention and it needs to be taught properly at the very beginning of language study Therefore, the teachers of English should get the students aware of the importance of correct pronunciation in practice so that they would spend more time on pronunciation from the beginning
In designing or selecting materials for pronunciation it is important to take into account the purpose of the learners‟ language study, whether it is to acquire a native like accent or for intelligibility in international communication In most cases it - the accent selected - should be comprehensible to the greatest number of persons not sharing that particular language
To improve HTU learners‟ pronunciation of English consonant in word final, first of all, the teachers should help students be aware of the significance of final sounds
In order to minimize the language interference, it is necessary for teachers provide the learners with the detailed description of consonant sounds such as their manner and place of articulation, the variants of each phoneme Besides, Vietnamese special features should be taken into account
The limit of phonetic knowledge happens maybe owing to the carelessness of the learners or the teaching induced errors Therefore, firstly, teachers ought to teach correct pronunciation Secondly, it is essential to teach students theoretical matters related to pronunciation At the same time, teachers should ask the students to practice them in isolating words as well as in connected speech More importantly they should get students involved in learning how to pronounce words correctly and practice as often as possible
Learning environment is also one of the disadvantages for HTU students learning English as there are few English natives and speaking English people there Thus, the best way for them to get used to various English accents is to listen from multimedia
In short, despite the fact that HTU learners meet many challenges in learning pronouncing final English consonants due to the differences in the two languages, there are still ways to improve their English competence, in which none is better than practice
The findings of this paper could be useful for teachers of English at HTU in improving their students‟ English final consonant pronunciation in particular and pronunciation in general.
Limitations and suggestions for further study
Although this study has found out the answers to the questions relating to HTU pronunciation of English final consonants set up in the research questions, it still has some limitations
First, the study only focuses on the five English consonants not all English consonants in word final The combination of these sounds with other sounds is not typical enough to find out various problems such as consonant clusters, linkage of sounds and so on Second, the study is likely not generalized due to limited in the number of subjects (ten informants)
The results of the research would be more valid if a survey was included for the data some unavoidable factors such as anxiety and nervousness Consequently, the recorded sounds were not as closed to their nature they should be
For further study, a thorough experimental study should be done to confirm the findings It is a good idea to do research on how HTU learners use intonation or other aspects of connected speech when speaking English
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1 Makes [meiks] 12 Smooth [ smu:] 23 each [i:t∫]
2 Yes [jes] 13 Clothe [ klouð] 24 watch [wɔ t∫]
3 House [haus] 14 With [wið] 25 match [mổ t∫]
4 Box [bɔ ks] 15 Trip [trip] 26 Cat [kổt]
5 Miss [mis] 16 Keep [ki:p] 27 Late [leit]
6 Course [kɔ :s] 17 Stop [stop] 28 Light [ lait]
7 Class [kla:s] 18 Map [mổp] 29 tonight [tə‟nait]
8 Price [prais] 19 Escape [ik‟skeip] 30 Past [pa:st]
9 Police [pə'lis] 20 Jump [ dʒʌ mp] 31 Boat [but]
10 Bathe [beið] 21 Teach [ti:t∫] 32 Fruit [fru:t]
11 Breathe [bri:ð] 22 Much [mʌ t∫] 33 what [steit]
1 The course starts in March
3 You watch TV too much
4 Each professor will teach us a subject
5 I often bathe with soap to make my skin smooth