INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU

KEMENTERIAN PENDIDIKAN MALAYSIA

KAMPUS IPOH, 31150 HULU KINTA
PERAK DARUL RIDZUAN

TSLB 3043
ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY- REPORT
Name : WOI MIN XUAN
NATASHA BINTI ROSLAN
HANNANI BINTI FAKHARUZZAMAN
I/C No. : 010315-05-0088
010803-07-0678
010607-10-0112
Index number : 2020242340200
2020242340188
2020242340184
Program : PISMP
Intake : JUNE 2020
Unit : V10
Lecturer’s Name : MDM SULIANA BINTI WAN
CHIK
Submission Date : 8 MARCH 2021
STUDENT’S RECOGNITION
I admit that this course work is my own work except for the excerpts and summaries of which I
have explained the source.

Student’s Signature:__________________________ Date : _____________________

EXAMINER MODERATOR
Marks Marks

Signature Signature

Cop Cop

Date Date

STUDENT’S VALIDATION
I confirm that the feedback given by the lecturers has been helpful and understandable.

Student’s Signature:__________________________Date : _____________________

Acknowledgements

Throughout the assignment period our group had successfully completed this assignment
without a hitch. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help of
many individuals. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of them.

Firstly, we would like to thank our lecturer for her guidance and constant supervision as
well as for providing necessary information regarding the assignment and also for their support
throughout this period.

Secondly, we would like to express our gratitude towards the members of our friends and
family for their encouragement which helped us in the completion of this assignment. A special
thanks and appreciation also go to the people who are directly or indirectly helped us out in
developing the assignment.
Task 1: Report Writing (30%) – Group Task

In communicating English language, learners must have good competencies in speaking. In

each oral discourse there must be something to be relayed and understood. It often happens
that it is difficult to comprehend because of the English pronunciation of what learners are used
to and what learners say differently or wrongly in the target language. Therefore, correct
pronunciation is very important to be learned so as not to experience the wrong meaning in
English conversation (Yousef Bani Ahmad, 2018)

With close reference to the above excerpt, listen to the discourse of non-native speaker’s
speech and analyse it linguistically.

In groups of THREE

1. Record a video clip of an interview between you and an ESL speaker. Ask the speaker
to talk about himself/herself. The clip should be about three minutes in length.

2. Based in the clip, transcribe the verbatim into broad phonetic transcription showing the
features of connected speech as spoken by the subject.

3. Analyse the transcription and diagnose the student speakers’ segmental aspects of
pronunciation errors and causes for the errors with evidence from the literature.

4. For any pronunciation problems found, propose the solutions to address the identified
problems with evidence from the literature.

The length of your writing should not be more than 1000 words (excluding references)
1.0 Introduction

For the purpose of this report for our course TSLB 3043, we have interviewed Nurafiqah
Izzati binti Ahmad Paizal. The ESL learner is a native of Malaysia, where she grew up with Bahasa
Melayu as her first language and learned Mandarin and English since she was in primary school.
She had graciously allowed one of our members to interview her for our coursework report, and
we express our gratitude for her help.

2.0 Analysis of video

There are a few mispronounced words during the interview session. One of the
mispronounced words is ‘unofficially’. This word is supposed to be pronounce as /ʌnəˈfɪʃəli/ but
was pronounced as /ʌnɒfɪʃəli/. Furthermore, she also mispronounced the word ‘in’. She
accidentally pronounced the sound of the consonant letter /d/, thus it became /ɪnd/ instead of /ɪn/.

Furthermore, she pronounced the word ‘Islamic’ as /ɪslɑːmɪk/ instead of /ɪzlɑːmɪk/. The
word ‘university’ is often mispronounced by non-native speakers. She did not pronounce the
sound of consonant letter /t/, but replaced it with the consonant letter /d/. In this video she
pronounced ‘Malaysia’ as in /məˈleɪʃiə/ instead of the correct pronunciation /məˈleɪziə/.

Another consonant that is mispronounced by the participant is /ʧ/, when she

mispronounces the word ‘actually’ as /akʤəli/ instead of /ˈækʧʊəli/. The participant also
mispronounced the word ‘young’ as /jaŋ/ instead of /jʌŋ/, which is incorrect. The word ‘overview’
is also mispronounced as /ˈəʊvəfjuː/, which should be pronounced as /ˈəʊvəvjuː/. Besides that,
she also mispronounced the word ‘okay’ as /oˈkeɪ/ instead of the correct pronunciations which is
/əʊˈkeɪ/.

The sounds of the consonant letter /d/ is usually not pronounced by non-native speakers.
For example, the word “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” both end with the phoneme /d/. However, the
interviewee was missing the /d/ sound after the consonant /n/ which is a frequent
mispronunciation.
 Additionally, the word ‘Tim’ is mispronounced as /ti:m/, which is supposed to be a short
vowel instead of a long vowel. The word ‘main’ is also mispronounced as /mɛɪn/ instead of the
shorter vowel sound /meɪn/. Besides that, the word ‘don’t’ is mispronounced as /dəʊn/, which
completely disregards the glottal stop at the end. Finally, the last word that is mispronounced is
“gift”. The interviewee was stressing the vowel sound “/i:/” instead of using “/ɪ/”. The correct way
to pronounce it is that the vowel sound should be shorter. Besides that, she also did not pronounce
the consonant “/t/” sound in the end.

3.0 Diagnosis of Video

One of the causes for such pronunciation errors is interlingual transfer related with first
language interference. Some errors resulting from first language interference are the absence of
certain second language (English) into first language (Malay). The absence of the ch [ʧ] and dg
[ʤ] phonemes in Bahasa Melayu creates problems when Malaysians encounter such sounds in
English words. Consequently, in their effort to be understood, the participant randomly tries to
adjust the English sounds above to the closest sounds they have in Bahasa Melayu. This can be
seen when the participant mispronounces the word ‘actually’ as /akju:əli/, and the word ‘watched’
as /wɒju:/.

The participant also mispronounces the voiced and voiceless labiodentals-fricatives /v/
and /f/. These consonants are almost never pronounced as such for Bahasa Melayu. For instance,
the participant mispronounces the /v/ sound and replaces it with /f/ sound, for example the word
‘overview’ in this case becomes ‘overfiew’. In Bahasa Melayu, the diphthongs are
monophthongised 'ow' ([əʊ] or [oʊ]) becomes [o], which is why the participant pronounces the
word ‘okay’ as /oˈkeɪ/. The diphthong is unstressed and causes the phonemic symbol to change
from /əʊ/ to /o/.

Additionally, it is clear that our interviewee has trouble pronouncing words with consonant
clusters. Although our native language, Bahasa Melayu also has some forms of consonant
clusters, it is not similar to English. For example, the word “gift” and “friend” have the clusters “/ft/”
and “/nd/” which may be challenging for them to say.
 Lastly, lack of exposure to the native pronunciation especially on word stress may be one
of the causes of these mispronunciations. This is one of the major problems she faced. Moving
on, it is evident that non-natives have trouble when and where to stress or unstress their vowel
words. For instance, the word “gifts” only requires a short vowel sound “/ɪ/” instead of “/:i/”. Another
example, when she pronounced the phrase ‘International Islamic University Malaysia’. She
pronounced the phrase as in /ɪslʌmɪk juːnɪvɜːsədi məleɪʃiə/ instead of /ˈɪslʌmɪk juːnɪˈvɜːsəti
məˈleɪʃiə/. Another example are the words ‘main’ and ‘Tim’, which are short vowel sounds but the
participant had pronounced them as long vowel sounds. This is because in Bahasa Melayu, the
long and short vowels tend to have the same length.

4.0 Solutions

One of the effective ways to teach about stress intonation in the target language that can
be carried out in ESL classrooms is the Audiolingual method. Teachers can use drills to teach
students the proper pronunciation of words, and set phrases are to be memorised with focus on
intonation.

Another way to quickly decrease the influence of mother tongue is a full immersion into
the linguistic and cultural environment of the target language. Students should be exposed to as
much content in the target language as possible. The important thing here is that it doesn’t mean
doing more language exercises or studying more textbooks – immersion presupposes interaction
in the classroom with the target language in a natural environment.

The final solution is to make sure that teachers give students the passion of learning a
language. This passion will be the driving force that makes us feel motivated to do all those
pronunciation exercises as well as avoiding the incorrect pronunciations in the first place. No
matter how many years we learn English, unless we change our mindset, our speaking skills
might stay the same.
5.0 Conclusion

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the participant has problems pronouncing
words in English correctly due to mother tongue influence and lack of exposure. It is also found
that the most common errors when pronouncing words in English are fricative consonants, pure
short vowels and diphthongs. This situation can be prevented by applying the solutions suggested
above practically in daily life.

(1018 words)
References

Al-Sobhi, B. M & Preece, A.S. (2018). Teaching English Speaking Skills to the Arab
Students in the Saudi School in Kuala Lumpur: Problems and Solutions.
International Journal of Education & Literacy Studies. Vol 6(1). Retrieved from:
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1172338.pdf

British Council. (2020). Consonant Cluster. Retrieved from British Council:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/consonant-cluster

Hart, C. (1969). Some English Pronunciation Difficulties in Malaysia. ELT Journal,

Volume XXIII (3). 270-273. Retrieved from: https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-
abstract/XXIII/3/270/435687?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Jumrina. (2014). An Analysis of Students’ pronunciation errors in English. Retrieved from

http://eprints.ung.ac.id/1115/

Maddieson, I. (2013). Presence of Uncommon Consonants. Retrieved from:

https://wals.info/chapter/19

Rajadurai, J. (2006). Pronunciation Issues In Non-Native Contexts: A Malaysian Case

Study. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255593836_Pronunciation_Issues_In_
Non-Native_Contexts_A_Malaysian_Case_Study

Shak, P, Lee, C. S. & Stephen, J. (2016). Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study on

English Pronunciation Errors of Low Proficient. International Journal of
Language Education and Applied Linguistics (IJLEAL). Pahang: Penerbit
Universiti Malaysia Pahang. 04 (25-35) Retrieved from:
https://journal.ump.edu.my/ijleal/article/download/483/97/

Tools for Clear Speech. (2021). Introduction to Stress. Retrieved from Tools for Clear
Speech. Retrieved from: https://tfcs.baruch.cuny.edu/stress/

Weiler, A. (2011, July 20). Language Learning Passion. Retrieved from:

https://www.strategiesinlanguagelearning.com/language-learning-passion/
Yazid, N. S. & Zaiyadi, Z. A. (2017). PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS AMONG KUIS
STUDENTS. Retrieved from:
http://conference.kuis.edu.my/npreus/2017/document/10-
Nur%20Syahida%20Mohd%20Yazid.pdf

Yuichiro, S. (2000) Pronunciation and Grammar of English in Malaysia. Retrieved from:

www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/classes/zemi/s1papers2000/sakiyama.rtf
Appendix: Transcription of Video
Dialogue 1:
Sure, so I am Nurafiqah ‘Izzati binti Ahmad Paizal and i am unofficially 20 years old this
year and I studied in International Islamic University Malaysia Campus Gombak and my major
is in laws.

Transcription 1:
/ʃʊə, səʊ aɪ æm nʊrʌfɪkʌh ɪzzʌtɪ bɪntɪ ʌhmʌd paɪzʌl ænd aɪ æm ʌnɒfɪʃəli twenti jɪəs əʊl dɪs
jɪər ænd aɪ stʌdid ɪnd ɪntnæʃənəl ɪslʌmɪk juːnɪvɜːsədi məleɪʃiə kæmpəs gɒmbʌk ænd maɪ
mæʒə gɒmbʌk ɪn lɔːs. /

Dialogue 2:
Yes, I mean nine out of ten people in this world who ever watched romance movie, you
know.

Transcription 2:
/jes, aɪ miːn naɪn aʊt ɒv ten piː.pəl ɪn dɪs wɜːl huː evər wɒtʃ rəʊmæns muːvi:, jʊ nəʊ ./

Dialogue 3:

So, one of the romance movies I've ever watched is, the title is ‘About time’. I mean, the
title is ‘About Time’, okay. An overview about the story itself is, the main actor, who is Tim, he
actually discovered that he can time travel, and he can change his past. So the young Tim is
actually have a very very boring life. All he knows is about work , instead of enjoying his life. He
don’t even ever experience love when he is young So, when he knows that he can time travel
he decided to do so.

Transcription 3:
/səʊ, wʌn ɒv ðə rəʊmæns muːviz aɪv ɛvə wɒʧt ɪz, ðə taɪtl ɪz əbaʊt taɪm. aɪ miːn, ðə taɪtl
ɪz əbaʊt taɪm, okeɪ. ən əʊvəvjuː əbaʊt ðə stɔːri ɪtsɛlf ɪz, ðə mɛɪn æktə, huː ɪz ti:m, hiː ækʃəli
dɪskʌvəd ðæt hiː kæn taɪm trævl, ænd hiː kæn ʧeɪnʤ hɪz pɑːst. səʊ ðə jʌŋ ti:m ɪz ækʃəli hæv ə
vɛri vɛri bɔːrɪŋ laɪf. ɔːl hiː nəʊz ɪz əbaʊt wəːk , ɪnstɛd ɒv ɪnʤɔɪɪŋ hɪz laɪf. hiː dəɒn iːvən ɛvər
ɪkspɪərɪəns lʌv wɛn hiː ɪz jɒŋ. səʊ, wɛn hiː nəʊz ðæt hiː kæn taɪm trævl hiː dɪsaɪdɪd tuː duː səʊ /
Dialogue 4:

So that he can actually (eksheli) find the love of his life. And he can actually (eksheli)
experience love. So, what I really like about this movie is how the director itself is trying to portray
about the reality of love but all we could see nowadays… I mean, nowadays romance movie is all
about all those ringey love story, the (de) boyfriend (boifren) and girlfriend (gerlfren) arguing
and giving their partner gifts (geefs) or having cute dates twenty-four seven instead of portraying
the reality about love in this real world. I love how the director itself is trying to portray that.

Transcription 4:

/səʊ dæt hiː kæn ækʃəli faɪnd də lʌv ɒv hɪz laɪf. ænd hiː kæn ækʃəli ɪkspɪərɪəns lʌv. səʊ,
wɒt aɪ rɪəli laɪk əbaʊt dɪs muːvi ɪz haʊ ðə dɪrɛktər ɪtsɛlf ɪz traɪɪŋ tuː pɔːtreɪ əbaʊt də ri(ː) ælɪti ɒv
lʌv bʌt ɔːl wiː kʊd siː naʊədeɪz… aɪ miːn naʊədeɪz rəʊmæns muːvi ɪz ɔːl əbaʊt ɔːl dəʊz krɪndʒi:
lʌv stɒri, də bɔɪˌfrɛn ænd gɜːlˌfrɛn ɑːgjuːɪŋ ænd gɪvɪŋ dea pɑːtnə gi:fs ɔː hævɪŋ kjuːt deɪts
twɛnti-fɔː sɛvn ɪnstɛd ɒv pɔːtreɪɪŋ ðə ri(ː) ælɪti əbaʊt lʌv ɪn dɪs rɪəl wɜːld. aɪ lʌv haʊ də dɪrɛktər
ɪtsɛlf ɪz traɪɪŋ tuː pɔːtreɪ dæt./