IN WHAT WAY AFFECT THE BAD USE OF THE PLACE OF ARTICULATIONS IN

LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION
Having a correct pronunciation ensures that the message sent is correct and will be understood.
When you have a good pronunciation you have more desire to talk and communicate with other
people. Pronunciation is very important when learning English as it avoids communication
problems. Pronunciation can be practiced by reading aloud.
1. Place Of Articulation
In order to have a good oral ability, certain physiological mechanisms are involved, this is called
joint sites. According to Peña Casanova cited Alicia García-Rayo and María Inmaculada Calatrava,
the articulation places are defined as follows:
“The position adopted by the organs at the moment of producing a sound is called
articulation. The basic areas of the joint reside in the oral cavity. It is made up of the
lips, cheeks, teeth, the palatal vault (hard and soft palate) and the
tongue.”(Anatomical, physiological and neurological bases of language. Its
importance in the intervention in the audio and language classroom, 2008 p. 6).
According to this, the articulation apparatus is responsible for correctly producing each of the
sounds in order to have an adequate pronunciation. The organs of the articulation system are those
that play an important role since without the correct use of air there would be no loudness in
pronunciation and a determining rhythm to speak. The phonation organs are also involved in this
process; for phonation to occur, a source of energy that corresponds to air is necessary; a vibrating
organ that is nothing more than the vocal cords; a soundboard that involves the nostrils, oral cavity
and pharynx; a sound articulation system that is the lips, tongue and teeth; a central nervous system
that regulates and synchronizes the whole set; and finally the larynx. According to García-Rayo and
Calatrava, the phonation process is as follows: “The air is exhaled passes from the trachea to the
larynx. When we speak the vocal cords come together and the glottis closes. The hardened and
tensioned vocal cords approach the midline, but the pressure of the air pushed from the lungs causes
them to ajar. Instantly and, due to their elasticity, they close again, producing in this way the
vibration of the vocal cords and generating a sound that we call voice.

2. The Bad Pronunciation At The Time Of Expressing Orally

The Pronunciation is a very important element for learning a foreign language. For some
researchers like Brown, Encina, Dieling and Hirscheld:
“Pronunciation is not only a production but also a perception of speech sounds.”
(Pronunciation in foreign language class, 2005)
If the pronunciation is not adequate, the interlocutor will demand more attention and may get tired,
lose patience or even make fun of the pronunciation or the speaker's efforts to be understood. If the
pronunciation in the English language is adequate, there are no obstacles in the communication and
it will develop smoothly so, the materialization of the oral language is both production and
perception, hence the importance to be able to communicate successfully. Derived from the above,
pronunciation plays a very important role in communication, since if a word is not pronounced
correctly it can completely obstruct the message that is intended to be released. Hence the
pronunciation goes beyond the production of sounds, but aspects such as accent and intonation are
also taken into account.

3. Bad Communication
Phonetic symbols are used to know the correct intonation of each word. Mary Sprat, Alan
Pulverness and Melanie Williams, indicate that:
“The phonetic symbols help the reader to know exactly the pronunciation of each
sound within a word” (SPRAT, et al., 2005 p. 13).
Which means that each phonetic symbol has a sound and joining all the phonetic symbols into a
word will indicate the correct pronunciation of that word. For example, the word cat is how it is
written and the representation with phonetic symbols is / kæt / which is the correct way to
pronounce the word.
Starting from this, it can be mentioned that phonetics is nothing more than the set of sounds that are
used to speak a language and the way they are pronounced to convey a certain idea.
To improve the pronunciation of the students, the teacher must help with very important skills in the
English language.

4. Consonant Pronunciation Problems

“Consonants are basic speech sounds which are classified according to their place of
articulation and manner of articulation” (Yule, 2010).
As far as consonant sounds are concerned, the EFL learners encounter a great amount of problems.
A well-known pronunciation problem, which even the highest-level students find it hard to deal
with, is the fact that Spanish has no word-initial consonant clusters such as /sl-,sm-, sn-, st-, sp-,
sk-/. Therefore, Spanish words similar to English ones which start with /s/ usually have an initial
/es/ sound instead (school/escuela). It is a common mistake for the Spanish students to say that they
are from “Espain” instead of “Spain”.
The pronunciation of the English letter /r/ is another major issue for the Spanish EFL learners. The
basic difference between the Spanish and the English sound of the letter is that the former can be
either an alveolar tap. In other words, the English [ɹ] is softer and weaker than the Spanish one.
According to my observations, this makes the students either confuse it with the sound [w] or
substitute the post alveolar approximant [ɹ] with the much easier for them alveolar tap.
Moreover, as the letter /h/ is not pronounced in Spanish, the students have the tendency not to
pronounce the voiceless consonant in words such as “hat” or “hate”, hence uttering the words “at”
and “ate”. The majority of my students were helped when I referred to the similar sound of the
Spanish letter /j/ (jota) in order for them to pronounce the words correctly.

The sound of the consonant blend /th/ is quite confusing for the Spanish speaking learners of
English. As it can be either a voiced dental fricative [ð] or a voiceless dental fricative [θ], the
students don‟t usually know which sound to use in order to utter the word. One of the most
common mistakes that my students do is to confuse the words “though” /ðəʊ/ and “thought” /θɔːt/.
As I have also observed, low-level students are inclined to confuse the sound [θ] with the sound [s].
For instance, instead of “thing” /θɪŋ/ they say “sing” /sɪŋ/. This phenomenon, which I find quite
difficult to explain, may cause total lack of comprehension.
Miscomprehension can also be caused by the students’ tendency to confuse the consonant blends
/ch/ and /sh/. As the latter doesn’t exist in the Spanish phonetic alphabet, a “ship” can be called
“cheap”. This can be even more complicated with words such as “champagne”, where /ch/ is
actually pronounced as /sh/ [ʃ]

5. Vowel Pronunciation Problems

“Vowels are analyzed by their Point of articulation, the degree of lip rounding, the level of
the tongue, and their length” (Herbst, English Linguistics: A Coursebook for students of
English, 2010).
One of the most important differences between Spanish and English is that the former has only five
vowel sounds whereas the latter has more than fourteen. This is the reason for one of the biggest
pronunciation problems that Spanish speaking learners confront, which is the fact that, unlike
English, there is no distinction between long and short vowels in their language. Therefore, they
tend to confuse words such as “ship” and “sheep” or “bit” and “beat”.
Additionally, they find it really difficult to utter certain diphthongs such as /əʊ/ in “boat”, /eɪ/ in
“great” and /aɪ/ in “right”. Throughout my teaching experience, I have observed that my students
tend to pronounce these words in the exact way they are written, since they are used to uttering
exactly what they read. Moreover, it is impossible for them to pronounce correctly the words that
carry the vowel sound [æ] such as “cat”, “fat” or “apple”. As this sound doesn’t exist in the Spanish
phonological system, the students tend to substitute it with [ɛ] or [a]. Likewise, the absence of the
schwa [ə] in the Spanish IPA creates confusion to the Spanish speaking learners of English, who
substitute the sound with another letter based on the spelling of the word. As I have already
mentioned, Spanish letters are written as pronounced. However, the schwa sound is the most
common English vowel: [ə]. As a consequence, the mispronunciation of the specific sound causes
miscomprehension. One of the most common mistakes my students make is the pronunciation of
the word “comfortable” /kʌmfətəbl/. The written form of this word is exactly the same in Spanish,
but the spoken form differs significantly. Therefore, my students usually substitute the two schwas
with the Spanish sounds of the letter they read, i.e. [ɒ] and [a].