known as GA General American Poedjosoedarmo, 2003: 12. There are no clear standard to judge that the pronunciation of each language is good or bad.
The standard of English pronunciation is ‘Received Pronunciation’ RP Jones, 1972: 12. This kind of pronunciation is considered equally “good” pronunciation.
English is one of the languages in this world which has its own characteristic features of language. The characteristics of the features make us
easier to recognize the sounds of the language. For example: the word “class”, British English pronounces with the vowel : like kl :s and American English
pronounces with the vowel æ like klæs. Although American English has the similar pronunciation to the British English, listeners could directly recognize the
sounds from British English.
b. Pronunciation Intelligibility
In a communication a speaker should speak clearly in order to successfully deliver the messages he or she wants to convey to the listener. Pronunciation
becomes an important part in communication, because a good pronunciation will help the speakers to deliver the message clearly. In the classroom, teachers and
the students should pay attention to the pronunciation. Bad or wrong pronunciation will make any interference in the communication.
From the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 1995: 652, intelligibility is the state of something that can be easily understood. Whether in this paper, it is
related to the act of having understandable pronunciation. Thus, pronunciation intelligibility is the way of the speaker produces the proper sounds of a language.
xxxiv PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
The research requires the proper sounds of the words for an intelligible pronunciation. The errors in pronouncing the sounds were allowed, as long as it is
still understandable to the listener. In the class, the students should have the competence to talk intelligibly to
others Syafei, 1988: 1. A speaker who has fulfilled the requirements of having intelligible pronunciation can be considered as a good language learner. Teacher
and students need to have an intelligible pronunciation because they have to communicate each other using the target language. Intelligible pronunciation will
helps the students to deliver a clear message to the listener and also will help students to be success in study the target language.
c. Phonetic
When the learners of the second language study the target language, it means they also study the elements of the language. Language elements cannot be
separated from a language because language is built from language elements. Use other language for communication means that the speaker uses the sounds of the
language to deliver the message. The sounds of a language here refer to the spoken language which is produced by the speaker. The speaker is not only using
the language, but he or she also has to know the sounds that are related to the language. It will be hard to use a language for communication if the speaker does
not know the sounds of the language. In using the language to speak or understand the sound produced are
related by the language system which comprise a limited set of sounds Sahulata,
xxxv PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
1988: 1. The knowledge that students have is related to the sounds of the language. This refers to phonetic. Thus, phonetic is the study of speech sounds
Sahulata, 1988: 1. Phonetic helps students as the learners of the second language to be familiar with the sounds of the target language. Students will be able to
differentiate which sounds belong to the target language and which sounds do not belong to the target language. The students are also able to pronounce the correct
sounds on the target language. Sahulata 1988: 1 divided the study of phonetics in three different ways
that are: 1 Acoustic phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are transmitted, 2 Auditory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are heard, and 3
Articulatory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are produced by the human speech organs. Those three approaches of phonetic help the teacher to
have deeper understanding of the target language phonetic system and to know how to help his or her students in producing the intelligible pronunciation.
Speech organs play an important role in speech production because sounds are produced by the organs of speech. If one of the organ speeches is damaged, it
can be sure that the speech production will be disturbed. The organs of speech are: 1 tongue, 2 upper teethridge, 3 hard palate, 4 soft palate, and 5 vocal
cords Syafei, 1988: 5. Every sound in a language has its own acoustic effect. Acoustic phonetics
is the study of how vocal tract produces the sounds of the language Jones, 1987. The acoustic effect will bring an effect of the sounds toward the listener. The
acoustic effect can be an impression made on the listeners’ ear.
xxxvi PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Limited understanding on phonetic makes students faces difficulties in study the target language. Students might produce the wrong sentence or
pronounce the wrong words because of this lack. Sahulata 1988: 1 stated that to students of a language, the practical study on phonetics helps them to know the
correct sounds of the target language. The knowledge of phonetic is important for students of a foreign language because it will make them easier to correct the
wrong pronunciation when they have known the correct sounds of the language. The study of phonetic also helps students of the second language learner to have a
better pronunciation in the target language. Students will get accustomed to the correct sounds and the correct articulations of the sounds. More practices on the
correct sounds and correct articulations will decrease the errors in the pronunciation. By the decreasing of the errors, students will be able to speak
clearer and more correct.
d. Description and Classification of Speech Sounds
