AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ PRONUNCIATION MASTERY OF DENTAL AND ALVEOLAR SOUNDS

Dede Juliardi, Endang Susilawati, Eusabinus Bunau English Education Study Program FKIP Untan Pontianak Emai: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract The objective of this research was to 1) to know the students’ pronunciation mastery of [θ] [ð] and alveolar plosive [] [d] sounds, 2) To find out which sound is the most mispronounced by the students. This research was classified as a descriptive research, in which the research instrument was reading texts. The population of this research was English students in Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University. The sample of this research was 30 students in Introduction to Linguistics classes. The data were collected through performance test. There were 20 sentences in the reading text with total dental fricative and alveolar plosive sounds phonetic transcription are 1200 transcriptions. The research found that 1) there were 557 correct pronunciations out of 1200 or 54.75%, 2) the percentage of students correct pronunciation was 46.41% with the mean score 43.25%, 3) from 30 students, there were only eight students above score 60 or at least they can pronounce 24 dental and alveolar plosive sounds out of 40 sounds. The most mispronounced sound was sound [ð]. There were 278 incorrect pronunciation out of 300 (92.67%). As a conclusion, the students pronunciation mastery of dental fricative and alveolar plosive sounds were ‘fair’. Keywords: Alveolar Plosive Sounds, Dental Fricative Sounds, Pronunciation Mastery

INTRODUCTION when studying English. According to English, in Indonesia, is studied as the first Sihombing (2014, p.388) mostly students foreign language. There are three language cannot speak fluently because they are lack of components that students need to consider in pronunciation of how to pronounce the words English; they are vocabulary, pronunciation, correctly. Furthermore, she explains that they and grammar. These three components are like have difficulty in their conversation the legs of a tripod and need to be studied comprehending or understanding with someone simultaneously. These components should be they talk to because lack of ability to pronounce applied in the four essential skills, such as the words. Pronunciation is essential because listening, speaking, reading, and writing. proper pronunciation will make effective Speaking skill is included as productive or communication. Pennington and Rogerson- active skills. Speaking skill, furthermore, is the Revell (2019) stated that “pronunciation is a ability to convey a message orally or in spoken much more important and pervasive feature of language. In communicating messages in communication than is generally recognized” spoken language, learners require to possess (p.1). Incorrect pronunciation can lead to a proper pronunciation. negative impression, misunderstanding, and Pronunciation is the most important and ineffective communication. challenging problem that learners must face

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Pronunciation is the most important and different meaning. If the students pronounce challenging problem that learners must face these words inaccurately, then, it can cause when studying English. Mostly the English misunderstandings. It happened because dental students in FKIP Untan cannot speak fluently fricative sounds do not exist in Indonesia. because they are lack of pronunciation of how Therefore, it is difficult for the students in to pronounce the words correctly. Furthermore, Indonesia in pronouncing these sounds. they have difficulty in their conversation Indonesian and have the comprehending or understanding with someone differences in term of phonological system. they talk to because lack of ability to pronounce According to Tiono and Yostanto (2019) there the words. Pronunciation is essential because are six consonantal sounds that do not exist in proper pronunciation will make effective Indonesian phonetic system ‒ [v], [θ], [ð], [ʒ], communication. Incorrect pronunciation can [dʒ], [ʃ], and [tʃ]. Furthermore, the way of lead to a negative impression, pronouncing one particular sound may be misunderstanding, and ineffective different based on “the position of the sound in communication. the word” (Prator & Robinett, 1972, pp. 86-88). The difficulty in learning English is caused As an illustration, [t] in ‘taking’ [t heykɪŋ] and in by many factors but the primary factors are ‘atom’ [ætəm] is pronounced in a different way. language transfer or L1 interference and It should be noted that when [t] is positioned in intralingual interference. Language transfer the initial position, it is aspirated. However, if it refers to speakers or writers use knowledge from is put in the medial position, it is no longer one language to another language. Meanwhile, aspirated. This is called or variants intralingual interference refers to the negative of a . This fact also contributes to the transfer of language items within the target area of difficulties in learning English. language. According to Richard (2014, p. 5), Pronunciation refer to the production of sentences in the target language may exhibit sounds that we use to make meaning. According interference from the mother tongue. Therefore, to Jack Richard (2002) “pronunciation is the the purpose of this study are to know the way a certain sound or sounds are produced” students’ pronunciation mastery of dental (p.429). Hornby (2010) defines pronunciation as fricative and alveolar plosive sounds. the way a language or a particular word or sound Pronunciation has two main features; those is pronounced (p.1175). Based on Dalton and are and suprasegmental features. A Seidlhofer (2001, p.3) pronunciation is the phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes production of significant sound in two senses. one word from another in a particular language. For the first one, it is used as part of a code of a Phonemes are divided into two parts: language. For the second, it is used to achieve and . Meanwhile, meaning in the context of use. That is why a suprasegmental, also called Prosodic Feature, in word can be spoken in different ways of an phonetics, refers to a speech feature such as individuals or groups based on many factors stress and intonation (Kelly, 2001, p.1). In this such as the area in which they grew, the area in research, the researcher focuses on phonemes of which they now live, their education, their social consonants features; voiced and unvoiced class, whether they have speech or sounds, especially, dental fricative sounds [θ] disorder, ethnic groups. [ð] and alveolar plosive sounds [t] [d]. In relation to pronunciation, contrastive Mostly, the students tend to pronounce /θ/ analysis should be considered since English and as /t/ and /ð/ as /d/. For example, students tend Indonesia have certain differences in the speech to pronounce ‘theme’ /θiːm/ as ‘team’ /tiːm/ and sound system. The contrastive analysis of ‘they’ /ðeɪ/ as ‘day’ /deɪ/. These words have a speech sound system between English and

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Indonesia itself has a close relation toward with the and the voicing pronunciation since mother language affects or . There are several places of both of English as foreign and second language. articulation for English consonants, namely; The similarities between English and bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatals, Indonesian will lead into positive transfer, velar, and glottal. meanwhile the differences will lead into Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011, p. negative transfer or interference. Thus, it could 196) explains when we produce bilabials [p], be inferred that both the similarities and the [b], or [m] we articulate by bringing both lips differences in the speech sound system between together. We also use our lips to form fricatives L1 and L2 have influence toward the [f] and [v], we articulate these sounds by toucing pronunciation of English as L2. the bottom lip to upper teeth. Interdentals [θ] The first group is that the group of sounds and [ð], both spelled , are pronounced by that do not exist in Indonesian sound system, for inserting the tip of the tongue between the teeth. example /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɜ:/, /v/, /θ/, and /ð/. The second However, for some speakers the tongue merely group is that sounds that exist in L1 and L2 but touches behind the teeth, making a sound more they have different phonetic feature, such as: 1) correctly called dental. Alveolars [t], [d] [n], [s], Phonetic features /b/, /d/, /g/, //, /s/, /ʧ/, and /ʤ/ [z], [l] and [r] are pronounced with the tongue do not exist in the final positions of Indonesian raised in various ways to the alveolar ridge. words, 2) Phonemic features /p/, /t/, /k/ are never Palatas [ʃ], [ʒ], [ʧ], [ʤ], and [j], the constriction aspirated in Indonesian words wherever they occurs by raising the front part of the tongue to occur, 3) Phonemic features /r/ is never the palate. Velars [k], [g] and [ŋ], another class pronounced clearly wherever it occur in the of sounds is produced by raising the back of the words. The third group is that the spelling of tongue to the soft palate or velum. The initial English words. For example, /s/ is sometimes and final sounds of the words back, bag and pronounced as /z/ in English, and /a/ is also bang are all velar sounds. Glottals [h] [ʔ], the sometimes pronounced as /æ/, /ə/, and /e/. As a sound of [h] is from the flow of air through the result, the L2 learners fail to produce English open glottis, and past the tongue and lips as they words fluently and accurately. prepare to pronounce a sound, which According to Kelly (2001, p.9), the twenty- always follow [h]. If the air is stopped four distinct phonemes of English completely at the glottis by tightly closed vocal can be distinguished along three dimensions: cords, the sound upon release of the cords is a voicing (whether or not the vocal cord is [ʔ]. vibrated), (where the Manner of articulation is another sounds are made), and manner of articulation distinguishing feature of how consonants are (how the airflow is affected). produced. If the place of articulation is which Voicing or phonation is divided into two speech organs are in which position for a basic positions, namely voiceless or unvoiced consonant sound to be created, manner of sound and voiced sound. Voiceless sound means articulation is how those various speech organs when the vocal fold in the larynx is not vibrated, interact with each other, providing a further while voiced sound means when the fold in the dimension to how consonants are articulated. As larynx is vibrated while someone is producing mentioned, sounds are produced by air moving words or sounds. from the lungs through the articulatory organs The place of articulation of a consonant is and being released through the oral and nasal the specific location of where the obstruction passages. Whereas vowel sounds are articulated takes place in the vocal tract between a part of with a free airflow, consonant sounds involve the tongue and the top of the mouth together

3 some narrowing of the articulatory passageway word ‘theme’ has voiceless dental fricative or some obstruction of the airflow. sound [θ] in the initial sound. Meanwhile, the In the production of consonant sounds, the word ‘team’ has voiceless alveolar plosive air is moving through an obstacle course created sound in the initial sound. Another example, by different configurations of the speech organs. ‘worthy’ and ‘wordy’ are also different in the As the air encounters these obstacles, different term of sound and meaning. ‘worthy’ has voiced kinds of sounds are produced. The type of dental fricative in the medial sound and ‘wordy’ obstacle course the air takes referred to as the has voiced alveolar plosive in the medial sound. manner of articulation. There are several Therefore, the speakers need to have an accurate manners of articulation for consonants, namely; pronunciation to avoid misunderstanding stop, fricative, , nasal, liquid, and glide. between the speaker and the listener. In English there are 44 phonemes which are The researcher used minimal pairs to consisted by 24 consonants, 12 vowels and eight identify students’ pronunciation. Minimal pairs diphthongs. Consonants are defined are sets of words or phrases that differ in just one phonetically as sounds made by a closure or sound and have different meanings in a specific narrowing in the vocal tract so that the airflow language in the study of the sound system. It is is either completely blocked, or restricted with used to differentiate two sounds in a language. an audible friction. Consonants are classified Minimal pairs are pairs of words that merely according to 1) place of articulation, 2) manner distinct in one phoneme in the same position of articulation and 3) voicing or phonation. (Zsiga, 2013; Yule, 2017). As an example, for Different from consonants, vowel is a sound in English consonants, the pair thin and tin can be the production of which the air stream does not used to show that the sound [θ] in thin and [t] in meet an obstruction and the is no noise tin exemplify the difference between phonemes component. Vowels are classified according to; /θ/ and /t/. An example for English vowels, the 1) tongue height, 2) tongue position, 3) lip pair rich and reach can be used to show that the position, and 4) vowel length. sound [ɪ] in rich and [i] in reach exemplify the It is important for the learners to study difference between phonemes /ɪ/ and /i/. pronunciation correctly because different sound In short, accurate pronunciation is really can change the meaning of utterances. Yet, necessary for the learners to learn. Inaccurate according to Burns (2003, p. 5) it is more pronunciation can make a different sound and important for the learners to achieve meaning in delivering messages. It can cause intelligibility, comprehensibility, misunderstanding and ineffective interpretability. Intelligibility refers to the communication between the speaker and the speaker produces sound patterns which are listener. Therefore, to avoid the ineffectiveness recognizable as English, comprehensibility of communication, the learners need to have a refers to the listener is able to understand the good pronunciation. meaning what is said, and interpretability refers to the listener is able to understand the purpose RESEARCH METHOD of what is said. However, in order to achieve the In carrying out the research, it is effectiveness of communication between the necessary to describe the method that was used speaker and the listener, they need to have an to achieve the goal. Various kinds of method can accurate pronunciation. be applied to achieve the goal of the research, For example, when the speakers intend to and the appropriate one to be used in this say the word ‘theme’ [θim], but they tend to say research was descriptive research. Knupfer and it as ‘team’ [tim]. ‘Theme’ and ‘team’ are McLellan (1996) stated that the descriptive different in term of sound and meaning. The research is a research that involves gathering

4 data that describe events and the organizes, sentences. Those sentences contain dental tabulates, depicts, and describes the data fricative [θ] [ð] and alveolar plosive [t] [d] collection. Descriptive research also plays an sounds in English words. For example, thigh, important role in educational research; it is tie, then and den. Thigh contains voiceless essential to understand the nature and function dental fricative sound, tie contains voiced of such research because educational events alveolar plosive, then contains voiced dental cannot be reduced to a controlled laboratory fricative and den contains voiced alveolar environment. This research applies descriptive plosive. research as the form of this research where it After performance test was conducted, the uncovers the problems from this research. As recorded data were analyzed. There are three the researcher had described on the background ways in analyzing the data: that there are some problems faced by students 1. Coding in pronouncing dental fricative consonant and Coding means to change the information alveolar plosive sounds. into symbols either letter or in number. It is The population of this research is the fourth necessary to organize the data and to make them semester English students of English Study easier to be analyzed. Here, the researcher is Program in FKIP Untan in academic year transcribing phonetically the students’ 2018/2019. The numbers of students are 57 pronunciation into phonetic transcription. The students. In this research, the researcher uses students’ pronunciation can be identified after purposive sampling. The researcher chooses the listening to the students’ pronunciation from the fourth semester English students which takes recorded data for several times. Introduction to Linguistics. In this research the 2. Organizing researcher selects fifteen students each class. After the data are coded, then the For this purpose, the total number of samples on researcher organizes the data into several this research is thirty students. Fifteen students divisions based on the pronunciation rubric. In for each class are considered representative to order to measure the pronunciation quality of the population being targeted, as Cohen et al, dental fricative and alveolar plosive consonant (2005, p.93) stated “a sample size of thirty is sounds. The researcher adapts the criteria as held by many to be the minimum number of follow: cases if researchers plan to use some form of statistical analysis on their data”. Table 1 Pronunciation Rubric In this research, the researcher analyzed the students’ pronunciation in dental fricative and Criteria Symbol alveolar plosive sounds by using minimal pair ✔ performance test. The performance test consists Correct/intelligible of twenty sentences which include dental fricative and alveolar plosive sounds. Gronlund Mispronounce dental fricative ✘ (1977) defined that the performance test is a test consonant sound ✘ that concern with skill outcome (p.87). It Incorrect/mispronounce words focuses on the procedure, the product or some combination of the two. Thus, the performance test mainly focused on testing the students’ oral 3. Scoring activity than their written as the learning The next step of the analysis was outcome. calculating the students’ performance where the The tool of data collection in this research researcher looks at the individual score, the was reading texts which consist of twenty

5 mean score of the total of the students, and then Table 3. The Total Number and Percentage analyzing the criteria to interpret the final data. of Students’ Pronunciation Pronunciation Number Percentage Student’s Individual Score: Correct 557 46.67%

∑Q Incorrect 643 53.58% = x 100% ∑N x : the student’s individual score According to the categories above, the ∑Q : the sum of the correct pronunciation students’ pronunciation of dental fricative and ∑N : the sum of all pronunciation alveolar plosive sounds are considered as “Fair”. There are only 8 students with score Student’s Mean Score: above 60 or can produce at least 24 dental fricative and alveolar plosive words over 40. It ∑ is very low score, where students and teachers 1 = x 100% ∑ need to pay attention to the pronunciation of M1 : the students’ mean or average score English consonants because many students still ∑x : the sum of the student’s score made incorrect pronunciation of [θ], [ð], [t], and ∑N : the sum of total number of students [d].

Criterion for Interpreting Data Discussion The researcher uses certain criterion to Based on each pair that the students have know how good the students pronounce the pronounced, the pair of [θ] and [t], [ð] and [d], English dental fricative and alveolar stops. The they all have different numbers of incorrect criterion is as follow: pronunciation. The first was minimal pair of [θ] and [t]. This pair consists of word thigh and tie, Table 2. Percentage of Student’s Mean thread and tread, thin and tin, and torn, Score theme and team, thug and tug, both and boat, Categories Percentage of Students’ death and debt, faith and fate, ether and eater. Mean Score In the first part of the total number of Excellent 76% - 100% students who made incorrect pronunciation of Good 51% - 75% word “thigh” were 23 students and “tie” were 0 Fair 26% - 50% students, “thread” were 27 students and “tread” Poor 0% - 25% were 21 students, “thin” were 15 and “tin” were 0 students, “thorn” were 17 students and “torn”

were 3 students, “theme” were 16 students and RESULT AND DISCUSSION “team” were 1 students, “thug” were 15 students Result and “tug” were 1 students, “both” were 10 There were 20 sentences which consist 20 students and “boat” were 7 students, “death” dental fricative and 20 alveolar plosive words were 11 students and “debt” were 21 students, pronounced by 30 students. Therefore, there “faith” were 14 students and “fate” were 15 were 1200 phonetic pronunciation students, “ether” were 28 and “eater” were 6 transcriptions of dental fricative and alveolar students. plosive words altogether. From those 1200 In the second part of the total number of phonetic transcription, the researcher found that students who made incorrect pronunciation of there were 557 correct pronunciations. The rest word “then” were 23 students and “den” were 5 of it 669 were mispronounced words. students, “there” were 23 students and “dare”

were 0 students, “breathe” were 30 students and

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“breed” were 22 students, “lather” were 30 Therefore, they are reluctant to pronounce it students and larder were 3 students, “worthy” correctly even they know it. were 30 students and “wordy” were 1 students, “loathe” were 30 students and “load” were 28 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION students, “wreathe” were 30 students and “reed” Conclusion were 30 students, “scythe” were 29 students and It was found that from 30 students, only “side” were 29 students, “southern” were 26 eight students with score above 60 which is students and sudden were 26 students. considered as “good” in pronouncing dental Based on the data, all the alveolar plosive fricative and alveolar plosive sounds. The mean sounds have lower number than dental fricative score from all the students is 43.25 which means words errors, where the total number for the students’ pronunciation of dental fricative incorrect pronunciation of dental fricative is 454 and alveolar plosive are “fair”. This research and for alveolar plosive is 227. It happened found that the most mispronounced sound by because dental fricative sounds are not found in FKIP Untan English Department students was Indonesia. voiced dental fricative sound. There were 278 In accordance with the result of the incorrect pronunciation out of 300 (92.67%). research, the researcher concluded that the Pronunciation problems faced by the students fourth semester students of English Department are the differences between the learners’ in FKIP Untan have problem in pronouncing language and the target language. The dental fricative sounds because the students are proportion of incorrect pronunciation between confused to distinguished among [θ], [ð], [t] and each pair of dental fricative and alveolar plosive [d]. This confusion happened because the are different. The incorrect pronunciation of students are unaware of incorrect pronunciation dental fricative sounds is always bigger than the of the dental fricative and alveolar plosive alveolar plosive. In short, the problem happened sounds in English words. because there are no dental fricative sounds The students were difficult to pronounce found in Indonesia. From the mistakes which words containing dental fricative. It can be seen was found in this research, some students tend from the table of number of incorrect to pronounce dental fricative words into alveolar pronunciations per word and category that many plosive words. The students tend to generalize students made incorrect pronunciations in dental dental fricative with alveolar plosive. The fricative words such as, breathe [brið], lather absence of dental fricatives and alveolar plosive [ˈlæð ər], worthy [ˈwɜr ði], loathe [loʊð], sounds affect the incorrectness of students’ wreathe [rið], scythe [saɪð], reed [rid]. pronunciation. The students tend to generalize the sounds of [t] and [d], and [θ] and [ð]. For example, the Suggestion word “side” [saɪd] tend to be pronounced as After observing to the result of data site[saɪt], “theme” [θim] tend to be pronounced analysis, the researcher would like to provide as team [tim] and “load” [loʊd] tend to be some suggestions related to the students’ pronounced as [loʊt]. problem in pronouncing dental fricative and Besides, it was not familiar for the students alveolar plosive sounds, namely; 1) the first is a to pronounce dental fricative sounds, perhaps book by Gerald Kelly in 2001 entitled “How to the students believe that the pronunciation of Teach Pronunciation”. This book provides t3he those dental fricative and alveolar plosive reader the description of speech, teaching sounds will not matter very much with the pronunciation, the characteristics of vowels and meaning as long as they have the context. consonants, word and sentence stress, etc, 2) Another book that also recommended for the

7 students are a book by Elizabeth . Zsiga in Gronlund, E. N. (1977) Constructing 2013 entitled “The Sounds of Language: An achievement test. Englewood Cliffs: Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology”. This Prentice-Hall book will help the students in elaborating basic Kelly, G. (2001). How to Teach Pronunciation. of articulation and phonetic transcription, 3) Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Besides books, the students can learn from the Knupfer, N. N., & McLellan, H. (1996). dictionary software such as Cambridge Descriptive Research Methodologies. In dictionary and Oxford dictionary or students can Research Methodologies in Educational learn from the dictionary websites such as Communication and Technology. Kansas: dictionary.com and vocabulary.com, 4) the Kansas State University. result of this research can be used by English Prator, C., & Robinett, B. (1972). Manual of Study Program, especially to the lecturers that American English pronunciation (3rded.). will be teaching phonology in Linguistics class New York: Holt, Reinehart and Winston. so they will have basic information of their Richards, J. C. (2014). Error analysis: students. As students of EESP, the students need Perspectives on second language to have good pronunciation because they are acquisition. New York: Routledge. going to be a teacher and become model for their Sihombing, M. G. N. A. (2014). The Correlation students. between the Students' Pronunciation Mastery and Their Ability in Speaking. The REFERENCES Second International Conference on Burns, A. (2003). Clearly speaking: Education and Language (2nd ICEL) 2014, pronunciation in action for teachers. Vol 2, 388–393. Sydney: National Center for English Tiono, N. I., & Yostanto, A. M. (2008). A Study Language Teaching and Research, of English Phonological Errors Produced Macquaire University. by English Department Students. k@Ta, Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2005). 10(1), 79–112. doi: 10.9744/kata.10.1.79- Research Method in Education (5th ed). 112 New York: Taylor & Francis or Pennington, M. C., & Rogerson-Revell, P. Routledge's. (2019). English pronunciation teaching and Dalton, C., & Seidlhofer, B. (2001). research: Contemporary perspectives. Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University London: Palgrave Macmillan. Press. Phonological Systems. International Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2011). Journal of English Language Education. An Introduction to Language (Ninth ed.). Vol 1, No 3. Warsworth Cencage Learning. Zsiga, E. C. (2013). The Sounds of Language: An introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

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