Aspiration Vowel Reduction Nataia Phonological Processes
68
The six characteristic sounds of English L2 above prove to be ‘unknown’ to the speakers of Nataia L1. Unknown sounds, Flege 1987 argues, are new
phones in L2 which have no counterparts in L1. The presence of these ‘unknown’ sounds, Flege asserts, is a big challenge for native speakers of L1
who are learning English phonology. Firstly, native speakers of L1 speakers of Nataia will find it difficult to pronounce these sounds correctly. Secondly, in an
effort to surmount the difficulty, native speakers of Nataia tend to apply their native phonetic system to compensate for the ‘unknown’ sounds, resulting in
‘pronunciation errors’. CA proponents refer to these pronunciation errors as clear indications of the first language L1 interference.
In order to get a clearer picture of L1 Nataia phonological interference, recently the writer asked Junita Ia 20 and Maria Lali 19 to
pronounce 18 English words containing the six L2 English‘unknown sounds’. The pronunciations of the two Nataia girls who are now taking up non-English
programs in two different universities in Yogyakarta, were recorded and subsequently analyzed. The data indicator words used for the recording are thin,
author, breath, then, leather, breathe, shin, rashes, rush, genre, measure, rouge, church, kitchen, pitch, jelly, bludgeon, and fudge. These words contain [θ], [ð],
[ʃ],[ʒ], [tʃ] and [dʒ] in three different positions. Following is the table of distribution of the six English sounds that are ‘unknown’ to Nataia speakers.
69
Table 4.20 Sounds Unknown To Nataia Speakers Finegan, 2004 : 85.
It turned out that the two young Nataia informants failed to pronounce correctly all the six ‘unknown’ sounds in three different positions. They
substituted θ in the initial, medial and final positions with [t], thus, θɪn tɪn, ᴐ:θər ᴐ:tər and brɛθ brɛt. They pronounced ð in the initial and medial
position as [d], thus ðɛn dɛn, lɛðɛr lɛdɛr. In the final position, [ð] turned into [s], thus bri:ð bri:s. They pronounced [ʃ] in all the three
positions as [s], thus ʃɪn sɪn, ræʃɪs ræsis and rʌʃ rʌs. In all the three positions, [ʒ] was pronounced as [z], thus ʒʌŋrəzʌŋrə, mɛʒə mɛzɛ
and ru:ʒ ru:z. In all the three positions, [tʃ] was pronounced as [c], thus tʃə:tʃ cə:c, kɪtʃən kɪcən, and pɪtʃ pɪc. Finally, [dʒ] was pronounced
as [j], thus dʒɛlɪ jɛlɪ, blɑdʒən blajən, and fʌdʒ fʌj. The present writer considers it necessary to make an analysis of the phonetic
representations of each incorrect pronunciation. The phonetic representations refer to the results of transferring abstract sounds in the speakers’ minds into
real sounds in the pronunciations.