1. Sound Change
Crystal 1991 defines the sounds change as a change in the sounds systems of language. Meanwhile, Saussure gives more specific information that
the sounds change is a part of the language process that occurs in the production of vowels and consonants.
According to O’ Grady 2001: 318, the sound change is a modification in the sounds pattern of a language in particular phonetic environment. In this study,
sound change refers to a modification of the English sound with other sounds in English language.
2. First grade of vocational high school
First grade of vocational high school refers to students at the age of 16-17 years old. The vocational high school which is used to collect the data on English
pronunciation mastery is Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan Negeri 2 Depok Sleman Yogyakarta.
3. Pronunciation Pronunciation is a way a certain sound or sounds are produced Richards
and Webwe, 1992:296. In this research, pronunciation refers to a way students pronouncing the English sounds.
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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Chapter two presents discussions about the theories related to the study. This chapter consists of the theoretical description and the theoretical framework.
A. Theoretical description
The theoretical description involves the discussion about the sound change, the potential problems in learning English pronunciation, and the English
sounds production. Sound change deals with phonological change. Phonological change is one of language change.
1. Language change
O’grady 1996 said that all languages change continually. For example, the differences between the English of the late fourteenth century and the modern
English. In the late fourteenth century, the English words as in see, tooth, make, and open were pronounced as [se:], [to:
θ], [ma:kən], and [ :pən] almost, like say, toath
, mahken, and ahpen, while in modern English those words are pronounced as [si:], [tu:
θ], [me k] and [ə pən]. The pronunciations of the English words from the late century are different from the modern English. These examples are taken
from Fasold and Linton’s theory of the languages change 2006:276. Foreign students who learn English language often experience the process
of the language change. According to Fasold and Linton 2006, languages are accustomed to meet the changing contexts and needs of their speech communities.
In this research, the English language changes itself as the needs of the students as a community. The most noticeable changes happen on students’ pronunciation and
vocabulary. In this study, the researcher focuses on the pronunciation change, particularly English sound change.
Fassold and Linton 2006 mentions four types of language change as described in the following part.
a. Morphological change
“Morphological refers to any change in the morphophonemic system the morphemes and their phonemic representation of a language Fasold and Linton,
2006:283”. For example, the changes in English language involved how nouns were morphologically marked to indicate certain kinds of information as in the
word ground [grud] was inflected as follows. Singular Plural
Nominative and accusative [grud] [grudas] groundgrounds Genitive
[grud əs] [gruda] of groundof grounds
Dative and instrumental [grud
ə] [grudum] to, with groundto, with
grounds
b. Syntactic change
“Syntactic change refers to change in the grammatical system of a language Fassold and Linton, 2006:284”. For example, came vnto[unto
] him
they to the Modern English equivalent, they came to him, there has been a
syntactic change. This example was taken form Campbell’s theory of language change 2004:7.
