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A. The Types of English Sound Change of ELESP Students of Victory
University whose First Language is Papua-Malay Dialect
This first section focuses on the types of the English sound change made by the English Language Education Study Program students of Victory University
whose first language is Papua-Malay dialect. To analyze the sound change, the researcher used the theory of Crowley 1992. Based on the nine types of sound
change, the researcher only found seven types of the sound change occured in the students’ pronunciation. They were lenition and fortition, sound addition, fusion,
unpacking, vowel breaking, assimilation, and abnormal changes.
1. Lenition and Fortition
The first kind of sound change discussed in this part is lenition. Lenition refers to the weakening of sound such as devoicing and changes from stronger
sounds to the weaker ones. On the contrary, fortition refers to sound changes from weaker to stronger sounds, such as semi-vowels into consonants. Another
common kind of sound change that takes place in languages is the loss of one or more sounds. The weakest a sound can be is not to exist at all Crowley 1992.
This can be viewed as an extreme case of Lenition which includes Aphaeresis or the loss of initial consonant, apocope or the loss of final vowels, Syncope or the
loss of vowels in the middle of words, Cluster Reduction which refers to deletion of one or more consonants, and Haplology or the loss of an entire syllable in a
word. Crowley, 1992, p. 39-43. Goes from the definition above, the researcher found that there were some English words that classified as Lenition sound
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change in the participants’ pronunciation. They are presented in the table 4.1 below.
Table 4.1 The Words Classified as Lenition Types of
Sound Change
Words Oxford
Dictionary Longman
Dictionary Students’
Pronunciation
L eni
ti on
We ak
eni n
g soun d
Accurate [ækj
ərət] [ækj
ərət] [
əkʊrət] Common
[kɒm ən]
[kɒm ən]
[kʌmon] Example
[ɪgza:mpl] [ɪgza:mpl]
[eksʌmpl] Desire
[dɪzaɪ ə
ʳ] [dɪzaɪ
ə ʳ]
[dɪsa ər]
Path [pa:θ]
[pa:θ] [pet]
Theories [θɪərɪz]
[θɪərɪz] [teorɪz]
Telephone [telɪf
əʊn] [telɪf
əʊn] [telepon]
Without [wɪðaʊt]
[wɪðaʊt] [witaʊt]
Syncope Applied
[ əplaɪd]
[ əplaɪd]
[ əplɪd]
Appears [
əpɪə ʳz]
[ əpɪə
ʳz] [
əpərs] Cases
[keɪsɪz] [keɪsɪz]
[kesɪz] Combination
[kɒmbɪneɪʃn] [kɒmbɪneɪʃn]
[kombineʃn] Desire
[dɪzaɪ ə
ʳ] [dɪzaɪ
ə ʳ]
[dɪsa ər]
Information [ɪnf
əmeɪʃn] [ɪnf
əmeɪʃn] [info
ʳmeʃn] Identify
[aɪdentɪfaɪ] [aɪdentɪfaɪ]
[ɪdentɪfaɪ] Native
[neɪtɪv] [neɪtɪv]
[netɪv] Pronunciation
[pr ənʌnsɪeɪʃn
] [pr
ənʌnsɪeɪʃn] [pronʌnʃeʃ
ən]
C lust
er R
educ ti
on Can’t
[kʌnt] [kʌnt]
[ken] Don’t
[d əʊnt]
[d əʊnt]
[don] English
[ɪ ŋglɪʃ]
[ɪ ŋglɪʃ]
[ɪ ŋlɪs]
First [fɜ:st]
[fɜ:st] [f
ə ʳs]
France [fra:nts]
[fra:nts] [frens]
Just [ʤʌst]
[ʤʌst] [ʤʌs]
Language [læ
ŋgwɪʤ] [læ
ŋgwɪʤ] [le
ŋwɪʤ] Linguists
[lɪ ŋgwɪsts]
[lɪ ŋgwɪsts]
[lɪ ŋwɪts]
Mastered [ma:st
ə ʳd]
[ma:st ə
ʳd] [mast
ər] Most
[m əʊst]
[m əʊst]
[mos] Won’t
[w əʊnt]
[w əʊnt]
[won] Sound
[saʊnd] [saʊnd]
[soʊn] Second
[sek ənd]
[sek ənd]
[sek ən]