Unpacking The Types of English Sound Change of ELESP Students of Victory
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word foreign was experienced another case. The [ ə] sound was changed into [eɪ]
diphthong in the word foreign [fɒr
ən] [foreɪn]. In this case, Yulia and Ena 2004 say that Indonesian spellings, which are congruent with the pronunciation,
may influence the speakers’ way of pronouncing English word. For instance, the
word foreign was pronounced as [foreɪn] as its spelling indicated. 6.
Assimilation
Assimilation refers to the process of when one sound causes another sound to change so that the two sounds end up bing more similar to each other in some
way Crowley, 1992, p. 49. Furthermore, Crowley 1992, p. 9-56 describes that assimilation contains Palatalization or the change from a non-palatal sound into a
palatal sound, nazalization or the change from non-nasal sound into a nasal sound, and final devoicing or the change of the ending sound from voiced into voiceless.
From this definition, the researcher found two kinds of assimilation in the participants pronunciation. They were palatalization and final devoicing. The
words will be presented on the table 4.7 below.
Table 4.7 The Words Classifies as Assimilation
Types of Sound
Change Words
Oxford Dictionary
Longman Dictionary
Students’ Pronunciation
Ass imil
a tio
n P
a la
ta li
- za
tio n
Pronunciation [pr
ənʌnsɪeɪʃn] [pr
ənʌnsɪeɪʃn] [pronʌnʃeʃən]
F ina
l Dev
o icing
Appears [
əpɪə ʳz]
[ əpɪə
ʳz] [
əpərs] Afraid
[ əfreɪd]
[ əfreɪd]
[ əfreit]
Believe [bɪli:v]
[bɪli:v] [bɪli:f]
Does [dʌz]
[dʌz] [dʌs]
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Crowley 1992, p. 53 explains that palatalization is a change of a non palatal sound i.e. a dental, an alveolar, a velar, and so on becomes a palatal
sound, usually before a front vowel such as [i] or [e], or before the semi-vowel [j]. This perfectly found in the word pronounciation [pr
ənʌnsɪeɪʃn] [pronʌnʃeʃ
ən]. The sound [s] which is an alveolar sound was changed into [ʃ] sound which is a palatal sound even both of them are voiceless.
The second assimilation was final devoicing where sounds at the end of a word were often changed from being voiced into voiceless. In this research, there
were three cases happened. They were the change of alveolar fricative [z] into [s], alveolar stop[d] into [t], and labiodental fricative [v] into [f]. Yulia and Ena
2004 state that this changes happened because Indonesian English learners do not perceive the two voiced and voiceless sounds as distinct sound that makes a
difference to meaning.