examples of voiced and unvoiced words. Examples
11
: Voiced
Unvoiced
z zoo
s Sue
b bill
p pill
g goat
k coat From the consonants above, the unvoiced are p, t, k, f, s,
ʃ, ʧ, θ, and h, and voiced are b, d, g,
ʤ, v, ð, z, ʒ, m, n, ɳ, l, r, y, and w. According to the place of articulation, the consonant can be divided into
12
: 1.
Bilabial : Articulation is done by bringing both lips.
e.g.: b, p, m, w 2.
Labio-dental : Articlated by placing the upper teeth againts the lower lip. e.g.: f, v
3. Dental
: They are pronunced by inserting the tip of the tongue between the teeth
e.g.: θ, ð
4. Alveolar
: The tip of the tongue is raised and touches the ridge e.g.: t, d, l, n, s, z.
5. Palato-alveolar : It produced by raising the front part of the tongue to the
palate e.g.:
ʧ, ʤ, j 6.
Velar : It produced by raising the back part of the tongue to the
soft or the velum e.g.: k, g,
ɳ 7.
Glottal : a narrowing causing friction but not vibration, between the
vocal cords e.g.: h
The illustration of consonant sound based on the the place of articulation is
11
Sue.F Miller. Targeting Pronunciation : The Intonation, Sound, and Rhythm of American English. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000, p. xv.
12
Kelly, op. cit., p. 6.
below
13
:
Figure 2.2 Consonant Sounds Based on Place of Articulation
Based on manner of articulation the consonant can be divide into
14
: 1.
Stops : There is blocking of the vocal tract, and no nasal air flow, so the
air flow stops completely. e.g.: p, b, t, k, g,
2. Fricative : the consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel
made by placing two articulators close together. e.g.: f, v,
θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ 3. Affricates : which produced by blocking off the breath stream between the
tongue and gum ridge. e.g.:
ʧ, ʤ,
13
Felicity Cox. Australian English: Pronunciation and Transcription. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 26.
14
Gorge Yule. The Study of Language: Fourth Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 31
—32.
4. Nasals : which produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape
freely through the nose. e.g.: m, n,
ɳ 5. Liquids
: a partial closure is made by the blade of the tongue againts the alveolar ridge.
e.g.: r, l 6. Glides
: The conconant categories are usually included by semi-vowels in functional grounds, but they are more properly treated as vowel glides.
e.g.: w, j In the figure below will show the summary of voicing, manner, and place of
articulation.
15
The table will differentiate the place of the voiceless phonems and voiced phonems. A shaded backgound for voiceless phonems and a white
backgroud for voiced phonems.
Figure 2.3 Figure of English Consonant Phonems
Place of Articulation Front Back
B il
ab il
al Labi
o -
dent al
D ent
al al
ve ol
ar Pal
at o
- al
veo la
r P
al at
al V
el ar
G lot
tal
Ma nne
r o f ar
ti cu
lat ion
Plosive
p b
T d
k g
Affricative
ʧ ʤ
Fricative
f v
Θ ð S z ʃ ʒ h
Nasal
M n
ɳ
Lateral
l
Approximant
W r
j
Adapted from Gerald Kelly: How to Teach Pronunciation. 2000, p.7
15
Kelly, op. cit., p. 7.
Voiceless Voiced
2 Vowels
Vowels are speech sounds that derived by vocal cord. Vowels are articulation that happen when a voiced airstream shaped by using the tongue and
the lips to modify all of shape of the mouth.
16
The number of vowel that used in any particular language is small but actually the possible number of vowel is
large. The linguist made some analyses of English vowels. The different number of vowel recognized that the different symbols and combination represented of
vowels and used different term to describe them. There are two reasons different analyses of English vowel
17
: a.
Different dialect have influence in system of vowel. The different dialect is not a big problem in communication with English speakers, but it can be
noticeable. b.
The linguists have the importan of different feature, such as: physical feature. Diphthongs are part of vowels. Diphthong is a sound that occurs by the
movement of one vowel to another. This table will show the examples of vowels and diphthongs.
18
Examples of vowel and diphthongs:
Table 2.3 The example of vowels and diphthongs
Vowels Diphthongs
i: Bead
E ı
Cake I
Hit ɔı
Toy ʊ
Book A
ı High
u: Food
ıə Beer
E Left
ʊə Fewer
ə About
e ə
Where ɜ:
Shirt əʊ
Go
16
Kelly, op. cit. p. 29.
17
Kreidler, op. cit. p. 45.
18
Kelly, op. cit., p. 2.
ɔ: Call
a ʊ
House Æ
Hat ʌ
Run ɑ:
Far O
Dog
Adapted from Gerald Kelly: How to Teach Pronunciation, 2000, p.2
b. Supra segmental features
Supra segmental are the characteristic of speech that used into groups of segments or phonemes. Stress and intonation is the important feature in English.
The supra-segmental feature of stress, rhythm, and intonation are much important for clear pronunciation than producing native
– like vowels and consonants. Meanwhile, definition of word stress is stressed syllables in words, and stressed
words in phrases, and sentences, that represented by capital letters, examples: APple, aPartment, and underSTAND.
19
Whereas, intonation is the way to falls or rises pitch of voice as direction of sentence.
20
Based on definition about word stress and intonation can be conclude that when someone pronunce words it must
understand about stress and intonation of words, because someone who pronounce words with different stress and intonation, it means that words also have different
meaning.
3. Factors that Affect in Pronunciation
The native language has an important factor to pronounce English. Foreign accents have some characteristic of sound for the native language learners. There
are 4 factors that affect in pronunciation: interference of mother tongue, learner’s
age, learner’s attitude and psychological and prior pronunciation instruction.
21
a. Interference of mother tongue
Stress and intonation is become couse errors in the target language. It is interference from the first language. Learners have difficulty to produce a
19
Sue F Miller, op. cit. p. xiv.
20
Ibid., p. xv.
21
Fachun Zhang and Pengpen. A Study of Pronnciation Problems of English in China. China: Asian Social Science, Vol:5 no: 6, 2009. p. 143.
particularsound which does not exist in the native language. b.
Learner’s age Someone who was learning second language from the child, commonly their
can pronounce like a native. Its differ with person who does not begin learning second language until adult, they will never have a native like accent even though
they have the same aspect of language such as vocabulary or syntax. Adult learners have limited to distinguish and produce native-like sounds.
c. Learner’s attitude and psychological
Something that can influence achievement in pronunciation is attitude of target language learning. A good attitude can support learners to develop pronunciation
skill. A person has strong determiners of the acquisition of accurate pronunciation of a foreign language if they have sense of identity and feeling group affiliation.
Some learners focus on their pronunciation, they often statements about how bad their pronunciation. Sometimes, they request to correct their pronunciation if
make mistakes. A kind of achievement motivation is when the learners want to do it well.
d. Prior pronunciation instruction
Learners should have good habit of learning correct pronunciation at the beginning. It will influence learner’s success with current effort. When learners
failed to pronounce some words in the beginning, they will become accustomed to their own version of pronunciation and would be more likely to mis-comprehend
when these words are not correctly pronounced.
4.
Problem in Pronunciation
Pronunciation can help learners to speak English well, but when learners learn English language they have not received much information to understand
pronunciation that needed in communication. So, some problems appear. First problem comes from individual sound. Sound or phonems were made up by word
and sentence. Both word and sentence should be combined so it will have word and phrase. For example: the phonems k for c in word can and ӕ for a in can
and t for tooth are just sound, but when we put that phonems together we will get
kӕt = cat that recognisable a word.
22
That problem comes from the learners that hard to eliminate. All the learners that have different background in first language
will have different problems, representing the contrast between the first and second language.
Stress in words can be problem because stress can change a word’s grammatical function, for example: export, if we stress word on the second
syllable become exPORT, the function is verb. But,when we stress word on the first syllable and become Export, the function is noun.
23
The example shows the position of the stress change the gramatical function, in this case, part of speech of
the word. It becomes the consideration when students learn English. Teacher should make sure when learners learn new words and know where the stress of
words. Then, learners also should be able to recognize intonation of words. There are
speech sound and intonation patterns that is not become part of speech memory bank when English is not become first language. Usually, some of vowels and
consonants that used in English is not exist in our native language. Learners should have strong tongue and muscle movements for the rhythm patterns in
original language in early age. They will have difficulty in pronunciation when their memory bank does not involve the sounds or rhythm patterns of English.
24
5. Teaching Pronunciation
Learning pronunciation is a very complex task. The process of learning pronunciation can be facilitated if the task is structured
. In this process, teachers’
and leaners’ role is important, both of them is involved. The teachers’ roles are helping learners hear and make sounds. In the helping learners hear, teacher need
to check what the sounds that learners get and hear. Learners able to imitate new sounds. But, if they cannot teachers help them to giving some sign that can help
them to make the new sound. In teaching learning process, learners only respond
what the teacher ask. If learners no take action and no try to realize their effort,
22
Jeremy Harmer. The Practice of English Language Teaching: Third Edition. New York: Longman, 2001, p. 29.
23
Ibid., p. 32.
24
Sue.F Miller, op.cit .p. xi.
