Vowel quality is also largely dependent on the position of the lips. The lips may be heldin natural or neutral positions; they may be spread out so as to leave a
long narrow opening between them, or they may be drawn together so that the opening between them is more or less round. Vowels produced with the lips in the
latter position are called rounded vowels. Others are called unrounded. There are two main types of rounding, called close lip
– rounding and open lip – rounding. These are illustrated in fig.1. There are also intermediate degrees. If the spreading
of the lips is very marked, the vowels may be termed spread. Lip- spreading and neutral lip- position are illustrated in fig.1 a b. An example of a rounded vowel
is u: ; examples of unrounded vowe ls are i, α:.
Some authorities consider the state of tension of the tongue to be an important factor in the production of various vowel qualities, and they distinguish
tense vowels from lax vowels. Some vowels certainly do require in their formation a greater degree of tongue tension than others. Most people can easily
feel, for instance, that the i: of li:p leap has a tenser articulation than the i of lip, and that the u: of bu:t boot as pronounced in Southern England has a tenser
articulation than the u of fu:t foot. This can be tested by placing the finger against the outside of the throat about half- way between the chin and the larynx.
When pronouncing the vowel of lip this part feels loose, but when pronouncing the vowel of li:p, it becomes tenser and is pushed forward.
The position of the soft palate may affect vowel quality. In the articulation of normal vowels the soft palate is raised.
Fig. 2.2 Type of lip-rounding
13
a.Close lip-spreading c. Open lip-rounding
b. Neutral lip position d. Close lip-rounding
So that it touches the back wall of the pharynx. The result is that no air can pass through the nose. It is, however, possible to lower the soft palate so that it
takes up the position and the air can pass out through the nose as well as through the mouth.
According to Kelly, there are two kinds of vowel sounds, single vowel and diphthong that is involving a movement from one vowel sound to another
like ei, as in late. Single vowel sounds may be short like i, as in hit or long like i:, as in heat. The symbol : denotes a long sound.
14
It showed that single vowel sound is vowel that appeared one morpheme in a word or when it sounded,
which diphthong consists of the combination of two different sounds, and monophthongs are more than two morphemes combined in one sound or they are
produced equally. Kelly said that, vowels are articulated when a voiced airstream is shape
using the tongue and the lips to modify the overall shape of the mouth. Such
13
Ibid., p. 17.
14
Gerald Kelly, How to teach Pronunciation, England : Pearson Education Limited, 2000, Series Editor: Jeremy Harmer, p.84.
a.
b. c.
d.
subtle differences are not important for the classroom, and so we will concentrate on general descriptions for vowel sounds.
15
The pure vowel sounds
The word „pure’ is used to differentiate single vowel sounds from diphthongs. The illustration below shows the basic lip position which are used in
describing the articulation of vowel sounds.
16
Fig. 2.3 The Pure Vowel Sounds Lip Positions
17
Rounded: the lips are pushed forward into the shape of a circle. Ex: sound ʊ
Spread: the corners of the lips are moved away from each other, as when smilling. Ex: i: Neutral: the lips are not noticeably
rounded or spread. Ex:
The positions of the vowel sounds produced are as follows:
18
a Close Vowels
For close vowels the tongue is quite high in mouth. Moving from i: through to u:, we also notice the different position of the tongue; i: is a front
vowel and u: is a back vowel.
i:
Characteristics The front of the tongue is
slightly behind and below
15
Ibid., p. 29.
16
Ibid., p. 30.
17
Kelly, Op.cit., p. 30.
18
Ibid., pp. 31-36.
the close front position. The „close’ position is
where the tongue is closest to the roof of the mouth.
Lips are spread. The tongue is tense, and the sides of the
tongue touch the upper molar.
As in… bead, key, cheese, scene, police, people, quay
I
Characteristics The part of the tongue
slightly nearer the center is raised to just above the half-
close position not as high as in i:. The lips are
spread loosely, and the tongue is more relaxed. The
side of tongue may just touch the upper molars.
As in… bit, sausage, biggest, rhythm, mountain,
busy, women, sieve
ʊ
Characteristics The part of the tongue just
behind the center is raised, just above the half-close
position. The
lips are
rounded, but loosely so. The tongue is relatively
relaxed. As in… book, good,
woman, push, pull
u:
Characteristics The back of the tongue is
raised just below the close position. Lips are rounded.
The tongue is tense.
As in… food, rude, true, who, fruit, soup
b Mid Vowels
For mid vowels the tongue is neither high nor low in the mouth. Moving from e through to
ɔ :, we also notice the different positions of the tongue; e is a front vowel, and
ɔ : is a back vowel.
E
Characteristics The front of the tongue is
between the half-open and half-close positions. Lips
are loosely spread. The tongue is tenser than for I,
and the sides of the tongue may
touch the
upper molars.
As in… egg, left, said, head, read past, instead,
any, leisure, leopard
Characteristics The centre of the tounge is
between the half-close and half-open positions. Lips
are relaxed, and neutrally spread.
As in… about, paper, banana, nation, the before
consonants Commonest vowel sound in
English. Never stressed, and many unstressed vowels
tend towards this sound. Differs
from other
phonemes, in
that its
contrast with
similarly
articulated long
sound ɜ :does not involve a
change of meaning. Gets its name
from Hebrew
ʃ wα:, meaning
„emptiness’ or „nothing’.
ɜ :
Characteristics The centre of the tongue is
between the half-close and half-open positions. Lips
are relaxed, and neutrally spread.
As in… shirt, her, word, further, pearl, serve, myrtle
ɔ :
Characteristics The back of the tongue is
between the half-close and
half-open position. Lips are loosely rounded.
As in… fork, call, snore, taught, bought, board, saw,
pour, broad, all, law, horse, hoarse
c Open vowels
For open vowels, the tongue is low in the mouth. Moving from ӕ
through to ɒ , we also notice the different positions of the tongue; ӕ is a front
vowel, and ɒ is a back vowel
Ӕ
Characteristics The front of the tongue is
raised to just below the half-open position. Lips are
neutrally open.
As in… hat, attack, antique, plait
ʌ
Characteristics The centre of the tongue is
raised to just above the fully open position. Lips are
neutrally open.
As in… run, uncle, front, nourish, does, come, flood
α:
Characteristics The tongue, between the
centre and the back, is in the fully open position. Lips
are neutrally open.
As in… far, part, half, class,
command, clerk,
memoir, aunty, hearth
ɒ
Characteristics The back of the tongue is in
the fully open position. Lips are lightly rounded.
As in…dog, often, cough, want, because, knowledge,
Australia
Based on the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA, the formally phonemic symbols vowels and consonants using in English language are as
follows:
19
Table 2.1 Phoneme Chart: English Vowel and Consonant Sounds
Showing the Symbols for Phonemic Transcription of English
Vowel phonemes Consonant Phonemes
Short Vowels 01
ɪ Pit
1 p
Pit 02
e Pet
2 b
Bit 03
ӕ Pat
3 t
Time 04
ɒ Pot
4 d
Door 05
ʌ Luck
5 k
Cat
19
San Diego State University, Phoneme Chart: English Vowel and Consonant Sound, 2003, www-rohan.sdsu.edu.
06 ʊ
Good 6
g Get
07 Ago
7 f
Fan Long Vowels
8 v
Van 08
i: Meat
9 Ɵ
Think 09
α: Car
10 Ǒ
That 10
ɔ : Door
11 s
Send 11
ɜ : Girl
12 z
Zip 12
u: Too
13 m
Man Dipthongs
14 n
Nice 13
e ɪ
Day 15
ƞ Ring
14 αɪ
Sky 16
l Leg
15 ɔ ɪ
Boy 17
r Rat
Vowel Phonemes Consonant Phonemes
Dipthongs 16
ɪ Beer
18 w
Wet 17
e Bear
19 h
Hat 18
ʊ Tour
20 J
Yet 19
ʊ Go
21 ʃ
Shop 20
a ʊ
Cow 22
ʒ Leisure
23 t
ʃ Chop
d ʒ
Jump
From that table, based on the IPA International Phonetic Association, there are 20 vowels, it classified 7short vowels and 5 long vowels and 8
diphthongs and 24 consonants. It also explains the examples of words, which placed consonants or vowels, are produced.
b. Stress and Rhythm
Stress and rhythm are parts of the pronunciation which influence the expression of meaning of words pronounced. According to Harmer
, “stress is the term we use to describe the point in a word or phrase where pitch changes vowels
lengthen and volume increases.”
20
It is regarded that stress helps speaker to control the speech production related to the meaning. This statement is supported
by Jones , “stress is one of the factors that may cause or help to cause a sound or
syllable to be „prominent’.”
21
So, stress is a way to press whether the syllable of the words is as a pointer or not in a speech.
Stress is classified into word stress and sentence stress. Word stress is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables within a word. Harmer presented that
word stress affects the situation of the speaker said and the grammatical differentiate within its word. As he noted in the practice of English Language
Teaching New Edition as follows: For example
, in the word „photograph’ not all the parts are of equal importance. We can divide the word
into three parts: „pho’, „to’, and „graph’. Competent speakers of the language
will say the word like this, „PHOtograph’, stressing
the first syllable. The situation changes with the words „photographer’ where the stress shifts to the second syllable, i.e. „phoTOgrapher’. Stress in words
also changes depending upon a word ’s grammatical function: „perMIT’ is a verb,
but „PERmit’ is a noun, and the same is true of the words „imPORT’ and „Import’, for example.
22
The samples that showed the stress syllable in a word could be changed its position based on the grammatical or word
– form change. Based on the previous explanation, sentence stress, which is stated as the
speaker’s way to pronounce the certain word in a sentence, by using louder, stronger, and higher in pitch, is supposed to express the word that is stressed. It
20
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 2007, 4th ed.,p.42.
21
Daniel Jones, The Pronunciation of English, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986,p.140.
22
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 1996, New Edition, p.12.
serves as the clue or main point of the speech. Moreover, Kelly argued, “Sentence
stress is an integral feature for the listeners with vital clues as the salient points of the speaker’s message.”
23
In this statement, stress in sentence is viewed as an important part in speech to help the listener understanding about the message
delivered. By stressing in the word point, it could ease the listener in catching the message effectively. For example, „I can RUN’ means that I am probably able to
run. әut if „I CAN run’ is stressed that I am really able to run, someone could say
it because maybe there somebody doubt his ability to run
24
. The other terminology in pronunciation is rhythm which is commonly
defined as stress in many languages.
25
Ashby and Maidment noted “Rhythm can be defined as the pattern of occurrence in time of relatively „strong’ and relatively
„weak’ events.”
26
Here, the strong is known as stressed syllable and weak is unstressed one. So, when the words or phrases are pronounced, the strong syllable
is usually spoken in highly pitched and clearly utterance, while the weak one is not.
c. Intonation
One of the prominent parts in pronunciation to express the meaning of word or sentence more clearly is intonation. Ashby and Maidment denoted that
“Intonation is used to signal how a speaker intends his or her utterances to be interpreted.”
27
Intonation is regarded as a process where people play the tone of the language in communication. Intonation also shows the speaker’s emotion and
attitude in his her utterances, directs whether the speaker finish his her speech or not yet, and explains a
bout the speakers’ purpose in speaking if that is in statement or question.
28
In addition Ur agreed that intonation is characterized the
23
Gerald Kelly, How to Teach Pronunciation, England : Pearson Education Limited, 2000, Series Editor: Jeremy Harmer, p.84.
24
Harmer.Loc.cit.
25
Michael Ashby and John Maidment, Introducing Phonetic Science, 2008, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.160.
26
Ibid., p.161.
27
Ibid., p.154.
28
Gerald Kelly, How to Teach Pronunciation, England : Pearson Education Limited, 2000, Series Editor: Jeremy Harmer , p.86.
speaker’s meaning in the utterance that shows the real situation and emotions of the speakers for example, certainly, doubt, irony. Inquiry, seriousness, humor,
etc.
29
Even though, the word or sentence grammatically forms as a question, but intonation performs as a statement, so the meaning could be different. The
mea ning expresses based on speaker’s aim in delivering something to do hearer.
So that, the intonation could be clearly to avoid miss understanding in communication.
The intonation also shows the meaning of the speakers’ utterance,
although the sentence structurally equals, but if the speaker pronounces it in different intonation, it indicates changing in meaning. Intonation is sounded by
raising and falling tone, in symbols for raising and \ for falling and symbols ˆ
ˇ to show fall – rise and rise – fall. In line, stress may affect speed, volume, and the use of pause. Ur states this assumption
as follows: “the rhythm of English is, then, mainly a function of its stress patterns; these may also affect such aspects as
speed of delivery, volume and the use of pause.” For example, Peter, come HERE, please.
30
I n this example shows that the prominent words are „peter’ and „here’,
those express that the speaker wants the hearer to come himher. This related to the stress, the syllable is stressed in “PE Peter” and “HERE”.
From the explanation, it can be concluded about the concept of pronunciation, there are 3 components in the concept of pronunciation. Firstly,
sounds of the language are defined as the symbols of language which are produced by the organs of speech. Secondly, stress and rhythm, are focused on the
speaker’s way in sounding the certain word that has the meaning in language. Thirdly, intonation is a sound wave to pronounce the words sentence to make
sense in meaning. In the sounds of language, there are vowel and consonants. Vowel
involves air passes rather freely through the mouth because there is very little narrowing. Vowel divides into two; monophtong is single vowel sound and
29
Penny Ur, Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p.13.
30
Ibid, p.49.
Concepts of Pronunciation
Sound of the language
Vowel
Monopthongs Diphthongs
Consonants
Voiced Unvoiced
Stress and rhythm
Word Sentence
Intonation Speakers
Signal
diphthong is combination of two different vowel sound, whilst consonant involves a narrowing in the mouth which in turn causes some obstruction of the airstream.
It consists of voice and unvoiced voiceless. In the stress and rhythm discussion, there is word stress, how the speaker made pointer in the syllable and sentence
stress is how the speaker to stress the word as pointer within a sentence, the stress is acted the different way both of them. And intonation is assumed as the
speaker’s signal in delivering message. To make easy reading this discussion it is better
to visualize the Penny Ur’s concept in pronunciations into a figure as follows:
Fig. 2.4 Penny Ur’s Pronunciation Concepts 1996
31
3. The Goals of Teaching Pronunciation
In teaching English pronunciation, a teacher is desirable to have the goals that should be achieve. One of the teacher’s goals is to help the student to
pronounce English word accurately. So, they know how to communicate what they want to say properly.
Therefore, the students’ speaking can be understood by listener. This means their pronunciation should be at least adequate for that
purpose.
32
31
Penny Ur, a Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 , p.47.
32
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 1996, New Edition, p.21.
Bowenin Rosane Silveira proposes three realistic goals for the teaching of pronunciation:
a. Ability to communicate orally with ease and efficiency;
b. Ability to produce the basic contrasts of the target language sound
system; c.
Ability to understand fluent speech as produced by native speaker.
33
The ability to communicate orally with ease and efficiency affects the fluency in communication.
34
When people utter something, indeed they is desirableto know what they are going to say, they should think whether their
utterance can be understood by the hearer or not and predict whether the word sentence is efficiently delivered or not.
From that explanation, the students are involved in learning English pronunciation to recognize the sound system of the target language, and to
produce the sound system of English, prominently to distinguish the sound system between their target language and their native language and have been able to
produce its sound system, they may be able to practice the pronunciation of English word accurately.
As discussed in chapter 1, additionally, one of the main goal for students in learning English is able to communicate understandable English.
Harmer argued that pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different sounds and sounds features, but also improve their speaking
immeasurably. Concentrating on sounds, showing where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of words should be stressed all these things give
them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility.
35
Based on the quotation, the goal showed by Harmer is by improving student’s pronunciation, it can help the students not only introduced the English
33
Rosane Silveira, Pronunciation Instruction Classroom Practice and Empirical Research, Linguagem ensino : Santa Caatarina, 2002, Vol.5, No. 1 p.98.
34
Ibid.
35
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 2007, 4th ed., p. 284.
sound system, but also they are also given the other information or aspects in pronunciation related to the improvement of their speaking ability and that can
help their communication being understood, for example how where the words should be stressed in a sentence. Absolutely, these goals require lots of practice in
pronouncing the word or sentence. Furthermore, in Silabus KTSP 2006 the goals in teaching pronunciation at
junior high school in Indonesia is to improve the students’ communicative
competence.
36
It means the students are involved to develop their speaking skill. In fact, based on the writer’s observation, the students have their own goal. The
goal may be different from the main goals in learning English which is to improve the communicative competence. The goals in learning English pronunciation that
the students set are some of them just want to communicate English at basic level or to pass examination. And other goal is to achieve the best they possibly can,
that is to be able to pronounce English well, and it would be beneficial in getting job later. However, again, the standard of pronunciation goal is the students have
to achieve their pronunciation to improve their speaking ability. From the discussion the writer concludes that the goals of teaching
pronunciation is to train the student’s communication ability in English, so that they can communicate English accurately and fluently, and make their speaking
be understood by others.
4. Pronunciation Problem
The errors in pronouncing English word pronunciation that are made by students apparently could give bad effect to the improvement of
students’communicative competence.Ur explained some pronunciation’s error from various sources:
1. A particular sound may not exist in the mother tongue, so that the learner is
not used to forming it and therefore tends to substitute the nearest equivalent
36
Pusat Kurikulum, Balitbang Depdiknas, Standard Kompetensi Mata Pelajaran BahasaInggris SMP, Jakarta,2003, p.17.
he or she knows the substitution of d or z for the English th δ as in that is
a typical example. 2.
A sound does exist in the mother tongue, but not as a separate phoneme: that is to say, the learner does not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes a
difference to meaning.for example, both the i and i: ship sheep sounds occur, but which is used depends only on where the sounds come in the word
or phrase, not what the word means; and if one is substituted for the other, no difference in meaning results.
37
The problems showed by Ur seem the common problems that are appeared and faced by the foreign language learner. Those problems are also existed in the
Indonesia students’ pronunciation when they speak English. In addition, Harmer
assumed that “some students have great difficulty hearing pronunciation features which I want them to reproduce. Frequently,
speakers of different first language have problems with different sound that the students’ first language does not have the same sounds.
38
In this case, the students’ problem is lack of students’ knowledge for English sound, so they might
face difficulties when they find the different sound between their target language and their first language. They seem confused to imagine what kind of sound they
heard. This problem may influence the students’ listening and speaking comprehension because when they are asked to reproduced that English new
sound or word they may be quite or cannot respond the spoken. Moreover, different sounds between English
language and the student’s native language exist in some moments. This problem is also supported Avery and
Herlich, which the mostly problem in pronunciation is because of the uncommon sounds for the students’ first language that exists in English.
39
For example, learners from most language backgrounds have difficulty with the English of
sounds.
37
Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.52.
38
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, New York: Longman, 2007, 4th ed., pp. 249- 250.
39
Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich, Teaching American English Pronunciation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, Second Edition, p. 95.