Theoretical Framework REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
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Answering the first research question, the researcher used descriptive qualitative because it dealt with data that were discussed in the form of words. According to Seliger
and Shohamy 1989, descriptive research concerns with providing descriptions on phenomena that occur naturally without the intervention of an experiment or an artificially
contrived treatment p.116. This method was chosen because this research tried to describe the phenomena of the sound change that occured in the pronunciation of the
students of the English Department in Sorong, West Papua. The data collected in this research were the students pronunciation. The researcher
recorded the students pronunciation by giving them text to read. The researcher analyzed the recording of the students pronunciation and transcribed the students pronunciation into
the phonetic transcription. The data was analyzed by first comparing the phonetic transcription of the
students pronunciation with the phonetic transcription of Pronunciation Longman Dictionary 2008 and Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 2000. After comparing the
phonetic transcription, the researcher analyzed the process of the sound change that occurred in the students pronunciation. After finding the sound change that occurred in the
students pronunciation, the researcher analyzed the phenomena that occurred on the students sound change by using the sound change theory by Crowley 1992.
Answering the second problem formulation, the researcher used descriptive statistics to analyzed the data. Descriptive statistics attempts the researher to convey the
essential characteristics of the data by arranging the data into a more interpretable form e.g., by forming frequency distributions and generating graphical displays. The
researcher made a list of the types of English sound change that occured in the students’
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pronunciation and summarized it in a table to show the distribution of each sound change type.