The Causes of English Sound Change

15 4 Fusion Fusion refers to the process of blending of two separated sounds becoming one single sound Crowley, 1992: p. 46. Fusion is included as common occurrence in the phenomenon of sound change. The fusion occurs when there is an addition of phonetic feature to a single sound from following another sound. The example is the process of prefix me- addition in Indonesian word kira, where the central mid sound ə in prefix me- blends with voiceless velar stop k sound in kira word resulting the appearance of velar nasal ŋ in word mengira. 5 Unpacking Unpacking is the phonetic process that is just the opposite of phonetic fusion Crowley, 1992: p. 48. If fusion is the combination or blending of two separated sounds becoming one single sound, unpacking is the process of separating one single sound into two saeparated sound. Certain phonetic features in a single sound then are divided as seen in word word. [w :d] where it is common for Indonesian people to separate the central mid vowel : into mid back ᴐ: and post-alveolar roll r. 6 Vowel breaking Vowel breaking refers to the change of a single vowel to become a diphthong Crowley, 1992: p. 49. The change includes an addition of a certain glide following or preceding the original sound of a vowel. For example, some 16 Americans pronounce bad [bæd] into [bæ əd] by adding neutral schwa sound ə after the low front vowel æ. 7 Assimilation Assimilation refers to sound change due to the influence of one sound upon the other that results in the two sounds becoming similar Crowley, 1992: p. 49. Certain sounds, which become more similar to another sounds Campbell, 2004: p. 28 effect to the increase of the efficiency of articulation through a simplification of the articulation O‟Grady, 1996: p. 319. This instance is found when a vowel is nasalized due to the existence of adjacent nasal consonant such as the example word, band Yulia Ena, 2004. 8 Dissimilation Dissimilation refers to the opposite change of the assimilation where the result is that two sounds end up becoming less similar Crowley, 1992: p. 56. It can be defined also as a sound change in which sounds become less similar to one another Campbell, 2004: p. 30. Dissimilation reduces the number of shared phonetics features between two sounds Crowley, 1992: p. 56. This type of change typically occurs when it will be difficult to articulate or perceive two similar sounds in close proximity. O‟Grady, 1996: p. 321 This phenomenon is apparent in the pronunciation of the sequence of two fricative f ϴ in „diphthong‟ with p ϴ by many English speakers Yulia Ena, 2004. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 17 9 Abnormal Sound Changes Abnormal sound changes are the sound changes that would appear, at first glance, to be abnormal, in the sense that they do not obviously fit into any of the categories that have mentioned above Crowley, 1992: p. 57. For example there is the tendency of Indonesian speakers to pronounce the word push [p ʊʃ] into [p ʊs]. The change from [ ʃ] to [s] is not included in the previous eight types. Therefore, the unidentified type of such sound change phenomenon belongs to abnormal sound changes.

3. English Sound Pronunciation

Since the research discusses about the sound change in non-native English speakers‟ pronunciation, the researcher also reviews the English sound production. The sound production covers three kinds of sounds: consonant, vowel, and diphthong.

a. Consonant Sounds

Consonant is a speech sound which typically occurs at the margins of the syllable Collins Mees, 2003: p. 72. It exists before or after a vowel or diphthong to form a syllable. Indriani 2005 expands English consonants into twenty-four namely, [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], [f], [v], [s], [z], [ ʃ], [ʒ], [tʃ], [dʒ], [ө], [ð], [m], [n], [ŋ], [h], [l], [r], [w], [j] p. 8. Table 2.1 shows the articulation of the English consonant sounds. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI