2.2.2 Suprasegmental Features
A suprasegmental is a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment in an utterance http:www.sil.orglinguisticsGlossaryOfLinguisticTermsWhatIsA
Suprasegmental.htm. There are four kinds of suprasegmental features, they are:
a. tone; it is produced because of pitch rhythm,
b. length; it is duration of speech sound,
c. stress; it is a property of syllables, and
d. intonation; it is produced because of different pitches
http:cmaps.conectate.gob.paservletSBReadResourceServlet?rid=11805555069 97_417330781_2849partName=htmltext.
2.3 Pronunciation Problems
Our mother tongue has some differences from English in pronunciation. In our language, there is no significant difference between the spelling and the
pronunciation. However, in English the spelling and the pronunciation is different. For example, the word here is pronounced
[h
I
ə]
; however, in Indonesian we pronounce [here]. It is not to be denied that students often make mistakes in learning
English; but doing as mistake is part of learning the language itself. According to Edge on ‘Mistakes and Correction’ as quoted by Harmer 2000:
99 ‘Mistakes can be divided into three broad categories: ‘slips’ that is mistakes which students can correct themselves once the mistake can be pointed out to them,
‘errors’ mistakes which they cannot correct themselves---and which therefore need
explanation, and ‘attempts’ that is when a student tries to say something but not yet know the correct way of saying it’ . From the three categories, it can be said that
error is the most important thing for the teacher to be concerned with. The students cannot correct themselves unless the teacher’s help.
There are two kinds of mistakes that might cause the students to make mistakes: L1 interference and developmental error. Ramelan 1985: 6-7 states some reasons
about why students make mistake in their pronunciation: Students face such problems as follows:
a. the existence of a given sound in the latter, which is not found in the former,
b. sounds, which have the same phonetic features in both languages but differ in
their distribution, c.
similar sounds in two languages, which differ only slightly in their phonetic features, and
d. sounds that have the same qualities in both languages may constitute some
learning problem if they occur in a cluster or sequence of sounds, Ramelan, 1985: 6-7.
An English learner should give attention to the reasons of pronunciation problems mentioned above. He must be sure that the right rules of pronunciation
guide the way he should speak. Therefore, he does not depend on the first language itself. Of course, it would be difficult for the learners since they are not native
speakers of English. Since there is a different pronunciation system for every language, the pronunciation problems will always happen.
‘There is no difference between the way we actually pronounce sounds and the way we think of them or store them in our memory. That is why pronunciation
problems will be found in speaking’ Nikelas, 1988:128.
Moreover, Ramelan 1996: 6 states that there are some reasons why pronunciation problems exist in learning to speak English:
a. non-existence of English sounds in the native speakers’ language. For
example, the sounds [æ], [e
I
], etc are not found in the Indonesian language, b.
some consonants may occur in both languages but they have different allophones. “Allophones are conditioned variant of significant group of
sounds which occurs in a fixed and predictable environment” Ramelan, 1996:6. For example in English, the consonants [p], [t], and [k] are aspirated
in stressed syllables such as in the words paper [p
h
e
I
p ər], pen [p
h
en], table [t
h
e
I
bl], keen [k
h
i
:n], kid [k
h
I
d], etc. whereas in Indonesian, there is no such aspiration in these sounds whatever position they occur. For example, the
consonants [p], [t], and [k] occur in words such as papan, peka, pesan, etc. but they are not aspirated,
c. some sounds are found in both languages but they have different
distributions. The consonants [b], [d], and [g] are found both in Indonesian and English but they are different in their distribution. Indeed, those
consonants exist in both Indonesian and English but in Indonesian they do not occur in final position. In English those consonants occur in all positions of
utterance whether initial, medial, final, such as in the words book [buk], ago [
ə’
g
əu], sad [sæd], lend [lend], etc. Whereas in Indonesian the letters [b], [d], and [g] are sometimes found at a word final position but they are pronounced
as voiceless stops [p], [t], and [k] respectively such as in words sebab, abad, grobag
. In this case, the learner has a problem in pronouncing the final voived stops [b], [d], and [
g
], d.
there are some diphthongs in English but they are not found in Indonesian language. For example, in words no [n
ǝu], game [
g
e
I
m], code [k ǝud], etc.
However, Indonesian has the diphthong [
ƆI
] for instance in words, amboi, sepoi-sepoi,
e. there are different consonant clusters or sequences of sounds between English
and Indonesian. An Indonesian learner may have difficulty in pronouncing English clusters. Dealing with positions of consonant cluster in words, there
are three kinds of them such as in initial, medial, and final position. For example in words speak [sp
i
:k], street [str
i
:
t], scream [skr
i
:m], etc. The medial clusters are found in words complete [k
əm’pl
i
:t], heartbeat [ha:tb
i
:t], newspaper
[njuzpe
I
p ə], etc. and the final clusters are found in words such as
little [l
I
tl], risk [r
I
sk], etc. so there is a difficult for an Indonesian learner to pronounce the consonant clusters well.
2.4 Words in Isolation
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