Pronunciation Errors

Phonemic Type of
No Correct Phonemic
Pronunciation error Transcription of Pronunciation
. Transcription
Error Error
/rd/ /rad/ The
a) Riding
2. b) arrived /rv/ /rav/ mispronunciation
c) hiding
/hd/ /had/ of diphthong /a/
Influence of
6. Another /n/ // /n/ spelling on
pronunciation
Influence of
3. Bouquets /bkjts/ /bkes/ spelling on
pronunciation
Inability to
1. Pot /pt/ /pt/ produce aspiration
of plosive /p/
a) whos , /hu:/ /hu:z/ Omission of
4.
b) grandmothers /gran(d)m/ /gran(d)mz/ possession s
The

a) through /ra/ /ru/ mispronunciation

5.
b) could /kad/ /kd/ of vowel /u/
and //

Analysis of Pupils Pronunciation Errors

 Pronunciation plays an important role in our life, especially in daily
conversation. Correct pronunciation is the basis for the effective communication in
English, and also for other languages. A study had been done to investigate the
pronunciation error among the primary school students. A student of age nine had
been chosen for this study. She is an Indian student who is brought up in a Tamil
speaking family. She goes to a convent school and has fair English reading and
speaking skills. She was requested to read a story text entitled Red Riding Hood.
There were a few pronunciation errors were detected during her reading.

One of the errors was mispronunciation of diphthong /a/. For instance, she
mispronounced the word riding as /rd/, the word arrived as /rv/ and the word
hiding as /hd/. This is due to overgeneralisation of the vowel // sound. This may
be caused by the influence of Malay language whereby the sound made by the vowel
i is pronounced as /i:/ or //. It is crucial to avoid generalisations based on a couple
of languages because there are a number of distinct structural possibilities on
diphthong and vowel sounds (Clark, Yallop, & Fletcher, 2007). To cope with this
problem, the teacher can show how the articulation of the diphthong /a/ sounds like
by saying it out and points out the place and manner of articulation, thus ask the
students to imitate him. Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (2010) mention that listen
and imitate method has traditionally been used and still used nowadays with
enhancement by the use of tapes or video recorders.

The next pronunciation error made was due to influence of spelling on

pronunciation. She mispronounced the word another as two separate words, which
are an and other. This is because she looked at the word separately and read it as
two separate words. It showed that she was not aware of the pronunciation of the
words as one. It may occur to other words such as anesthetic and anesthesia.
Next, the word bouquets pronounced as /bkjts/, which was probably based on
her first language acquisition. When I asked her whether she knew the pronunciation
of the word bouquet, her answer was no. However, she was trying to pronounce the
word based on her own knowledge of the sound of consonant /q/. Avery and Ehrlich,
(cited in Thanasoulas, 2003) point out that the sound system of the first language
can influence the learners pronunciation of second language. Abbas Pourhossein
Gilakjani (2011) states that students should be taught that there are standard ways of
pronouncing the sounds. Therefore, teachers should encourage the students to read
more during every lessons, take note on the errors made and correct them
immediately so that the students are able to pick up the correct pronunciation.
 The next error that occurred frequently throughout her reading was the
inability to produce the aspirated plosive /p/ sound. She pronounced the consonant
/p/ as voiced plosive instead of voiceless plosive consonant. The word pronounced
was pot. This may be caused by mother tongue interference because according to
Spencer (2005), aspirated plosive sound seems to be slightly different for different
dialects or languages. For instance, voiceless plosives can be said to be noticeably
aspirated in English. (Clark et al., 2007, p. 53). However, in Tamil language, there is
no aspirated plosive consonant sound. Thus, she pronounced consonant /p/ with no
aspiration. Therefore, the teacher could apply the minimal pairs, which is by giving
the students pairs of words which only differ by one consonant sound or vowel
sound (Hewings, 2004, p. 3), such as pit/bit to show difference between a voiced
consonant sound and a voiceless consonant sound.

Besides, there was a noticeable error, which is the omission of possessive

s. For instance, she pronounced grandmothers as /gran(d)m/ and whos
as /hu:/. This happens because Tamil language usually does not possess the
consonant sound /s/ at the end of the words. Therefore, this error is due to mother
tongue interference as the student pronounce English words with possessive s
without consonant sound /s/. Avery and Ehrlich, (cited in Thanasoulas, 2003) point
out that the rules of combining sounds into words in the target language are different
in the learners mother tongue, which cause problems for learners as they vary from
one language to another. To avoid this error, teacher can remind the students the
importance of s endings in English and allow the students to read words with s
endings repeatedly so that they get use to the pronunciation of /s/ or /z/ at the back of
plural nouns, singular verbs and possessive s (Hewings, 2004, p. 179).

Mispronunciation of vowel /u:/ and // also occurred. She pronounced

through as /ra/ instead of /ru/ and could as /kad/ instead of /kd/. She
pronounced both long and short vowel /u:/ and // as /a/. This may be caused by
the overgeneralisation of the pronunciation /a/. For instance, the words couch and
pouch are pronounced as /kat/ and /pat/, which causing the student to
pronounce vowels combination ou as /a/. According to Spencer (2005), diphthong
is basically two vowels pronounced as a single vowel. Therefore, students should be
aware about the difference of diphthong and vowel sounds. To overcome this
problem, the teacher can prepare a list of words that consists of vowel and diphthong
pronunciations and ask the students to group them according to the correct
pronunciation or phonemic transcription after explaining to them the difference of
those sounds.
 In conclusion, pronunciation is significant to the way a person speaks or
reads. Hewings (2004) states that difficulties with pronunciation might mean students
fail to get their message across, even when the right words are being used.
Therefore, the teachers should play their role to overcome the pronunciation errors
among students so that they will have better pronunciation and will not arouse
confusion to their listeners.