PHONOLOGICAL STUDY ON DAYAK EMBALOH ENGLISH LEARNERS’ PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH CONSONANT SOUNDS

  

PHONOLOGICAL STUDY ON

DAYAK EMBALOH ENGLISH LEARNERS’

  

PRONUNCIATION

OF ENGLISH CONSONANT SOUNDS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  Prestented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

  By

YOHANES KRISOSTOMOS ARTARONA BUU

  Student Number: 044214138

  

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2009

  “You become a Loser if you say You can’t before you try” For I know the thoughts that I think toward you to give you an expected end

  ( Jeremiah 29 : 11 ) For

  Father, Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, Mother Mary, My Daddy Rofinus .B & my Mom Katarina, My Beloved Sister Agnes Annice Buu ,

  All Family and friends.

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  Thank to Jesus Christ for His kindness, so that the writer could complete the thesis writing. The title of this thesis is

  “The Phonological Study on Dayak

Embaloh English Learners’ Pronunciation of English Consonant Sounds.”

  The respondents of this research are Dayak Embaloh Senior High School students in Benua Martinus, Putusibau, West Kalimantan.

  There are a lot of people who guide, support and help the writer in completing this thesis writing. Therefore, the writer would like to thank:

  1. Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A as the advisor for guiding and giving a lot of advise so that the writer finally complete his research.

  2. Dra. B. Ria Lestari, M.S as the reader for giving suggestions and advises.

  3. Adventina Putranti, S.S., M.Hum as the examiner.

  4. All lecturers of English Letters study Programme of Sanata Dharma University, and Mbak Ninik.

  5. Bapak Nobertus Kombong, S.Pd as the Headmaster of SMU Negeri 01 Benua Martinus for giving research permission in his school to the writer.

  6. His Parents Rofinus Buu and Katarina, his beloved sister Agnes Anice Buu, Grandfathers and Grandmothers, Pa ua Paskalis Soo, Pa ua Moses Salo, uncles and aunties, abang Linus & kaka Lila, abang Leo, abang Kris, abang Frument, kaka Bony, kaka Angelina & abang Fran, adik Rensi, adik Nia, adik Natalia, adik Uly, adik Cici, and all his cousins.

7. His brothers Mas Yono, Mas Debi, Ikhwanudin, Ari, Mario, Beni, Kobot, Mas Singgih, Bayu, Roy Purba, Reo, B’jonk, Tanto.

  8. His best friends Karisma Kurniawan, Lucia Kurniadi, Ardi Nugroho, Yuli, Eli, Wulan, Bertha, Eka, Aili, Reena Rai, Nita, Hilda.

  The writer realizes that this thesis has not been perfect yet. Therefore, the criticisms and suggestions are welcome from those who read this thesis. May God bless all of those who have helped the writer throughout the study.

  Yohanes Krisostomos Artarona Buu

  TABLE OF CONTENT

TITLE PAGE .................................................................................... i

APPROVAL PAGE .......................................................................... ii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE ..................................................................... iii

MOTTO PAGE ................................................................................. iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................... v

TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................. vii

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................... ix

ABSTAK ............................................................................................ x

  

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .................................................... 1

A. Background of the Study ......................................................... 1 B. Limitation of Study ................................................................. 4 C. Problem Formulation .............................................................. 5 D. Objective of Study ................................................................... 5 E. Definition of Term .................................................................. 6

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ................................... 8

A. Review of Related Studies ...................................................... 8 B. Review of Related Theories .................................................... 9

  1. English Consonants ..................................................... 9

  2. Field Linguistics .......................................................... 14

  3. Contrastive Linguistics ............................................... 16

  4. Phonological Process .................................................. 20

  5. The Form of Rule ...................................................... 23

  C. Theoretical Framework ........................................................... 25

  

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ................................................ 26

A. Object of Study ....................................................................... 26 B. Method of Study ...................................................................... 26 C. Research Procedure ................................................................. 27

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ............................................................. 32

A. Embaloh Consonant sounds .................................................... 32 I. Plosive ......................................................................... 32 II. Fricative ...................................................................... 35 III. Lateral ......................................................................... 36 IV. Trill ............................................................................. 36 V. Approximant ............................................................... 37 VI. Affricates ..................................................................... 37 VII. Nasal ........................................................................... 38 B. Identifying consonants phoneme in Dayak Embaloh ............. 40

  C. Comparison of Dayak Embaloh consonants and English consonants .............................................................................. 43 D. Distribution of Dayak Embaloh and English consonant ........ 46

  I. Bilabial ........................................................................ 47

  II. Labiodental .................................................................. 50

  III. Dental .......................................................................... 52

  IV. Alveolar ....................................................................... 53

  V. Palatoalveolar .............................................................. 58

  VI. Palatal .......................................................................... 62

  VII. Velar ............................................................................ 63

  VIII. Glottal ......................................................................... 65 E.

  Dayak Embaloh English students’ pronunciation ................... 65

  I. Consonants Change ..................................................... 66 I.1.a Substitution of [t] for [

  θ] ..................................... 67 I.1.b Substitution of [d] and [t] for [ð] ........................ 69 I.1.c Substitution of [s] for [

  ∫] ..................................... 70

  ḓʒ

  I.1.d Substitution of [s] and [ ] for [ ] ...................... 72

  ʒ

ṱ

  I.1.e Substitution of [ ] and [t] for [t

  ∫ ∫] ........................ 75

  I.1.f Substitution of [ ḓʒ ] and [t] for [d ] ..................... 77

  ʒ ḓʒ

  I.1.g Substitution of [ ] and [s] for [z] ...................... 79 I.1.h Substitution of [p] for [b] .................................... 81 I.1.i Substitution of [t] for [d] ..................................... 82 I.1.j Substitution of [k] for [g] ..................................... 83 I.1.k Substitution of [f] for [v] .................................... 84

  II. Deletion ...................................................................... 86

  II.1.a Deletion of [j] .................................................... 86

  II.1.b Deletion of [t] .................................................... 87

  

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ....................................................... 89

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................. 92

APPENDIX ......................................................................................... 93

  

ABSTRACT

  YOHANES KRISOSTOMOS A.B (2008). The Phonological Study on Dayak

Embaloh English Learners’ Pronunciation of English Consonant Sounds.

Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.

  Language is an important part in human life because language is used for communication. English as a lingua franca means that this language is used by people whose mother tongues are different so that they can communicate with each other. Therefore, English is learnt by people around the world. In learning English, the students usually face some difficulties. One of the difficulty that students face is pronunciation. This phenomenon happens to Dayak Embaloh students who also learn English in school.

  The purpose of this study is to find out how Dayak Embaloh language as the mother tongue influences Dayak Embaloh English learners’ pronunciation of

  English consonants. Therefore, there are three problems that are discussed 1) what consonants are found in Dayak Embaloh language? 2) How are Dayak Embaloh consonants different from English consonants? 3) How are Dayak Embaloh students’ pronunciations of English different from the Standard English pronunciation?

  In this study the writer used an empirical approach which means that this study is done based on the observation. The writer obtained the data from the Dayak Embaloh students of Senior High School in Benua Martinus. The writer asked his informants to pronounce some English words and record their pronunciation.

  Based on the data, Dayak Embaloh has only 17 (seventeen) consonants, they are /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, / g /, /m/, /n/, / ŋ/, /w/, /s/, /r/, /l/, /j/, /ĵ/, /h/, and /?/.

  There are 9 (nine) English consonants that do not exist in Dayak Embaloh language, they are /f/, /v/, //, //, //, //, /ð/, /z/, //. Most of Dayak Embaloh students tend to substitute some English consonants into their native consonants because there are some English consonants do not exist in their native language. Dayak Embaloh students also tend to eliminate the English consonant that combine with another consonant as in words insect, most of Dayak Embaloh students tend to eliminate t in the final position. It is because in Dayak Embaloh phonological system, a consonant is combined with another consonant if the two consonants share the same feature in Place of articulation as in words angkan

  [a

ŋkan], tingkam [tiŋkam], etc. the consonant [ŋ] and [k] share the same feature

  that is both of them are velar.

  ABSTRAK

  YOHANES KRISOSTOMOS A.B (2008). The Phonological Study on Dayak

Embaloh English Learners’ Pronunciation of English Consonant Sounds.

Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

  Bahasa merupakan bagian yang penting dalam hidup manusia, ini dikarnakan bahasa adalah sarana untuk berkomunikasi. Bahasa Inggris sebagai lingua franca yang berarti bahwa bahasa Inggris digunakan oleh orang yang bahasa ibunya berbeda sehingga mereka dapat berkomunikasi satu sama lain. Dalam belajar bahasa Inggris, murid-murid biasanya menghadapi beberapa masalah. Salah satu masalah yang di hadapi oleh murid-murid dalam belajar Bahasa Inggris adalah masalah pengucapan. Fenomena ini juga terjadi pada murid-murid suku Dayak Embaloh yang juga mempelajari bahasa Inggris di sekolah.

  Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana pengaruh bahasa Dayak Embaloh (jarum Banuaka) sebagai bahasa ibu terhadap pengucapan consonant bahasa Inggris. Olehkarna itu ada tiga perumusan masalah yang akan di bahas 1) Apa saja konsonan yang di temukan dalam Bahasa Dayak Embaloh? 2) Bagaimana konsonan Bahasa Dayak Embaloh berbeda dari bahasa Inggris? 3)bagaimana pengucapan murid-murid Dayak Embaloh berbeda dari pengucapan bahasa Inggris standar.

  Dalam studi ini penulis menggunakan pendekatan empiris dalam arti bahwa studi ini dilakukan berdasarkan observasi atau studi lapangan. Penulis memperoleh data dari murid-murid SMU di kecamatan Benua Martinus. Penulis meminta informan-informannya untuk mengucapkan beberapa kata-kata bahasa Inggris dan merekam pengucapan mereka.

  Berdasarkan data yang diperoleh, Dayak Embaloh hanya mempunyai 17 (tujuh belas) konsonan yaitu /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, / g /, /m/, /n/, /

  ŋ/, /w/, /s/, /r/, /l/, /j/, /

  ĵ/, /h/, and /?/. Ada Sembilan konsonan bahasa Inggris yang tidak ditemukan dalam bahasa Dayak Embaloh, yaitu /f/, /v/, //, //, //, //, /ð/, /z/, //. Kebanyakan murid-murid Dayak Embaloh cendrung mengubah beberapa konsonan bahasa Inggris kedalam konsonan Dayak Embaloh. Hal ini dikarnakan ada beberapa konsonan bahasa Inggris yang tidak ditemukan dalam bahasa Embaloh. Murid-murid Dayak Embaloh juga cendrung tidak mengucapkan konsonan bahasa inggris yang dikombinasikan dengan konsonan yang lain karena dalam system fonologi Dayak Embaloh, sebuah kosonan tidak pernah dikombinasikan dengan konsonan lain keuali kedua konsonan mempunya karakteristik yang sama dalam daerah pengucapan yang sama seperti dalam kata

  angkan [a ŋkan], tingkam [tiŋkam], dan sebagainya. Konsonan [ŋ] dan [k]

  mempunyai karakteristik yang sama yaitu keduanya sama-sama velar.

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of Study Language is something important for human beings. The most

  important use of language for people is that it is used for communication, since language allows people to say things to each other and express their communicative needs. There are a lot of different languages used by different groups of people around the world.

  According to Baugh and Cable, English is the language which is in the second largest number of native which is used by about 340 million people, in England, United States, Australia, New Zealand and other England ex-colonization (Baugh and Cable 1978 p.3). English is also known as a lingua franca because it is a language which is used habitually by people whose mother tongues are different in order to facilitate communication between them. As English is used by many countries around the world either as the official language or as a second language, there are some emerging varieties. Usually the varieties are based on geographical area which is known as geographical varieties. Thus, the more a language is spoken by people from different areas, the more different varieties exist. British English and American English is one good example for geographical varieties. Though British English and American English belong to the same language, they are separate dialects which are different one from the other. We can differentiate whether someone is from either England or America based on their accent. For example, in British English the word car is pronounced as [ka:] while American English pronounced car as [kar]. In British English consonant /r/ in the final position is not pronounced while in American English, /r/ is pronounced. The same is true with the Indonesian language. There are also a lot of varieties of Indonesian language because the language is spoken by many groups of people in Indonesia. In Indonesia we know whether a person is a Batakese, Javanese, Irianese, etc, based on their accent.

  Accent refers to the characteristics of speech that convey information about the speaker’s dialect which may reveal in what country or what part of a country the speaker has grown up or to which sociolinguistic group the speaker belongs. Therefore American people will know if a person is either from England or Australia based on the accent. (Robert Rodman, 1974 p.225).

  In some countries whose official language is not English, like Indonesia, English is considered as a foreign language. Though English is a foreign language, the language is still learnt by Dayak Embaloh students in school. Dayak Embaloh is one of native tribes (Dayak tribe) in west Borneo whose language is Banuaka (Jarum Banuaka). Dayak Embaloh people use Banuaka as their first language instead of the Indonesian language. According to Wolfram and Johnson failure to overcome the patterns of phonology in the native language (abbreviated as L1) in speaking the target language (L2) results in

  “a foreign accent.” (Wolfram and Johnson, 1982 p.187). Therefore, Dayak Embaloh students will have a different accent or “foreign accent” whenever they pronounce some English words or whenever they speak English. It is due to, among others, the influence of mother tongue whose phonological system is different from English and there are some sounds can not be found in the Dayak Embaloh language (foreign sounds). The easiest example is the sound /

  ∫/ of English. In Dayak Embaloh this kind of sound is a foreign sound and whenever there is a word which has such kind of sound so the sound changes. The process of sound changing is describable phonologically.

  Therefore, in his thesis the writer will also discuss or describe the phonological process of Dayak Embaloh Engli sh learners’ pronunciation.

  The accent will be seen based on the feature of word stress, and particularly the segmental aspect.

  The writer is interested in this topic because a lot of Dayak Embaloh students mispronounce some English sounds, or some sounds always change whenever it is pronounced by Dayak Embaloh students.

  Therefore, in his thesis the writer would like to find out how Dayak Embaloh students pronounce some English words whose sounds are not recognized or foreign to their language.

B. Limitation of study

  Although the accent relates with pronunciation which contains speech sound such as vowel, consonant, and diphthongs, in this research the writer just concentrates on consonant sounds because first, study the vowel is more difficult than consonants. Second, consonants make English more understood than vowel.

  D.J O’Connor in his book Better

  

English Pronunciation says that consonants contribute more to making

  English understood than vowel do and consonants are generally made by a definite interference of the vocal organs with the air stream and so are easier to describe and understand. For instance incomplete utterance C

  —ld y-- p-ss m- - p—c- -f str-ng, pl—s-‘is easy for an English reader to understand even though the vowel letters have been left out.

  Similarly, if in actual speaking we leave out all the vowel sounds and pronounce only the consonant most English would still be fairly easy to understand.

  (O’Connor,1967 p.24) There are some English consonant sounds that can not be found in Dayak Embaloh language. Consonant sounds will also make people misunderstand or confused whenever they are mispronounced. As D.J O’Connor also says that the English speaker from different parts of the world have different accent, but the differences of the accent are mainly the result of differences in sounds of vowels; the consonants are pronounced very much the same way whenever English is spoken. So, if the vowels we use are imperfect it will not prevent us from being understood, but if the consonants are imperfect there will be a great risk of misunderstanding. In this thesis the writer will use Dayak Embaloh student (Senior High School) as the object of his research because they are English learners.

  C. Problem Formulation

  There are three main problems that should be analyzed in the study of the Dayak Embaloh English learners/students’ pronunciation of consonant sounds toward British English. As there is no book which discusses Dayak Embaloh language, the first thing that, the writer does in his analysis is describing the consonants of Dayak Embaloh language.

  Thus, to start the writer’s study the problems will be formulated as follows;

  1. What consonants are found in Dayak Embaloh language?

  2. How are Dayak Embaloh consonants different from English consonants?

  3. How are Dayak Embaloh English learner’s pronunciation of English different from the Standard English Pronunciation?

  D. Objective of Study

  As the writer would like to find out how Dayak Embaloh English learners

  ’ pronunciation is different from the Standard English Pronunciation, in this thesis the writer tries to find out how Dayak Embaloh students pronounce some English words which sounds are foreign for them. First the writer tries to find out or compare consonant sounds between these two languages based on VPM (voice - place of articulation - manner of articulation) description. Then the writer will find out how consonant sounds that Dayak Embaloh have and have not. This analysis will be a contrastive analysis which means that the analysis is the comparison of language system not only its structure but also its phonology in order to predict and explain foreign language learning difficulties. In this thesis the writer also would identify Dayak Embaloh English learners (students) mispronunciation by describing the phonological process.

E. Definition of term

  In this part the writer would like to point out the definition of terms that are used in his thesis. The terms that are used are the following:

  Accent is characteristics of speech that convey information about the speaker’s dialect, which may reveal in what country or what part of a country the speaker grew up or to which sociolinguistic group the speaker belongs. (Robert Rodman, 1974 p.225).

  Consonant is speech sounds that are produced by the airflow as it comes up from the lung. The main feature of consonant are VPM

  (Voice

• – Place of articulation – Manner of articulation). (Lesley Jeffries, 2006 p.17).

  Dayak Embaloh language is a language which is spoken in West central, Hulu Kapuas Regency, just south of the Sarawak border, upper Kapuas River: Embaloh, Leboyan, Lauh, Palin, Nyabau, Mandai, and Kalis tributaries. The dialect of this language is Tamanic, and Banuaka language categorized into Western-Malayo-Polynesian family.

  (http://www.ethnologue.com) Phonological process is a dynamic system in which units change as they come into contact with other units in the system : assimilation, dissimilation, neutralization, deletion, epenthesis, metathesis ( Walt Wolfram and Robert Johnson, 1982 p.88 ).

  Phonological study is a study of sound pattern of human language; it is also the kind of knowledge that speakers have about the sound patterns of their particular language. The study includes dialect and other language varieties. (Lesley Jeffries, 2006 p.44).

CHAPTER II THEORITICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Phonological study on the influence of Surabayanese accent in English pronunciation In this part the writer would like to talk about the review of related

  studies that discuss about phonological analysis. A work that almost similar with what the writer is going to analyze in this thesis is The

  influence of Surabayanese accent in English pronunciation among some Indonesian members of British council done by Yola.

  A study of the influence of the mother tongue toward English pronunciation has been discussed by Yola Damayanty Gani in her analyisis on The influence of Surabayanese accent in English

  . In her

  pronunciation among some Indonesian members of British council

  analysis she tried to find out what Surabayanese accent might affect their English pronunciation. Her aim is to discover as accurately and objectively as she can what these areas of common weakness are. Based on the findings, the writer classifies the vowel, consonant and diphthong errors' analysis into

  six main categories; they are insertion, deletion, flapping,

  aspiration, vowel length, consonants change, vowels change, diphthongization and monophthongization. For example in the deletion, the surabayanese speaker left out /j/, /

  I z/, / I d/, and /t/ sound in their English

  pronunciation. Aspiration and vowel change are sort of distortion that likely happen. The Surabayanese do not aspirate /p,t,k/ in the initial position. They do not hold the articulation of vowels a little longer when they occur before voice consonant, and etc. According to Yola, simplicity is another reason why distortions happen, and the last influential factor is the Indonesian and Javanese orthography system. There are many distortions in vowel change, monophthongization and diphthongization, as the result of using the Indonesian and Javanese orthography system in their English pronunciation.

  The difference of the writer analysis is only on the object of analysis. The previous study is about how Javanese accent influence English pronunciation while the object that the writer would like to analyze is Dayak Embaloh language. The writer tries to find out how Dayak Embaloh English learners’ pronunciation of English words whose sounds are foreign for them are different with the standard English because every language has its own sound features which are different one from the other.

B. Review of Related Theories

1. English Consonants

  The way in which we describe consonants in phonetic terms is according to where they take place, how they are articulated (‘manner’) and whether the vocal cords are vibrating (‘voice’). This three-way description of consonants is often known as the VPM

  (voice-place-manner) description, and it can be used to describe consonants in any human language. There are other features of articulation that may also be relevant in particular cases (for example aspiration), but in general the VPM description is sufficient to characterize the different consonants of a language. All consonant

  

speech sounds are articulated between the lips and the larynx, the area

of the mouth where a significant obstruction of the airflow takes place.

  Based on the place of articulation, the sounds are categorized as the following: a. Bilabial sounds involve both lips and include /m/ as in music,

  /p/ as in pen, /b/ as in bomb, and /w/ as in weird. As in all place of articulation, bilabial consonants constrict the airflow to a greater or lesser extent.

b. Labiodental articulation involves the top teeth and bottom lip, and produces sounds such as /f/, as in fine, and /v/, as in vine.

  c. Dental / Interdental the tip of the tongue is inserted between the upper and lower teeth. For example sounds /θ/ as in think and / ð / as in though.

  d. Alveolar is the sounds produced by touching the tongue to the bony tooth ridge or alveolar ridge. English made seven sounds at or near this ridge: /t/ as in top, /d/ as in deep, /n/ as in name,

/l/ as in lamp, /s/ as in sip, /z/ as in zip, and /r/ as in red.

  

e. Palato-alveolar is sounds that are produced halfway between

alveolar ridge and hard palate. Post alveolar sounds involve the body of the tongue being raised towards the front of the palate.

  ʒ They include the English sounds / / as in ∫/ as in shame, /

  , /t ʤ / as in jade.

  leisure

  ∫/ as in church, and /

  

f. Palatal is the body of the tongue rises towards the most domed

  section of the palate. English only has one palatal sound, the ‘y’ sound, which is represented as /j/ phonologically and is found in yes.

  

g. Velar sounds involve the back of the tongue moving towards or

  making contact with the soft palate. There are three velar sounds in English: /k/ as in king, / g/ as in goat and / ŋ/, which only occurs at the end of syllables, is spelt ‘ng’ and occur twice in singing.

  

h. The final place of articulation is glottis, where a number of

  sounds are theoretically possible. The only pressure that can be put upon the airflow in the glottis is by pivoting and closing the vocal folds. For example sound /h/ as in house. Having considered all the places of articulation we shall look at the other main axis of consonant manner of articulation.

i. The most consonantal of the manner of articulation is the

  plosive, where there is a complete closure of the vocal tract at one of the places of articulation. The pressure builds up from bellow, with the egressive airstream being pushed out of the lungs and into the oral cavity. Eventually this pushes the articulators (for example the tongue and alveolar ridge) apart, resulting in a small explosive sound. The plosive sounds in English are /p/ as in pick, /t/ as in top, /k/ as in count, /b/ as in , /d/ as in day, and / as in give buy g/ .

j. The nasal consonants share a common feature with plosives in

that they involve a complete closure at some point along the vocal tract. The term that is used for this is stop, and in some phonetic descriptions the nasal and plosive are designated as a single group of ‘stop’ consonants. The difference in the case of nasals is that the velum is lowered away from the back wall of the pharynx and the air escapes through the nose as the same time as entering the closed-off oral cavity. The English nasals are /m/ as in mine, /n/ as in night, and / ŋ/ as in sing.

k. Fricatives can be seen as consonantal but with the less

  obstruction of the airflow. The fricative consonants involve the articulators (tongue, teeth, alveolar ridge, and so on) coming into close contact, but without complete closure. This enable the outgoing airstream to escape through the small space left between the articulators. Like nasal consonants, because there is no complete obstruction of the air these sounds can be extended as long as the speaker has breath available. The English fricatives are /f/, /v/, ð /, /s/, /z/, / ʒ /, and /h/.

  /θ/, / ∫/, /

l. Affricates are not always recognized as separate consonants by

  phoneticians because they appear to be made up of two consonants. However it is the normal convention in English phonology to treat them as individual sounds. Like the plosives they begin with a complete closure, but instead of the air building up and causing an explosive release, it is released slowly with the effect that there is a short fricative phase when the articulators separate but before they move completely apart.

  ʤ

  The affricates are described as /t / and occur twice in ∫/ and / words church and judge respectively.

  

m. Still less consonantal, though still not quite vocalic (vowel-

like), are the approximants or semi-vowels. These sounds are produced by the articulators moving toward closure but not getting close enough to cause either frication or a plosive build- up of pressure. The English approximants include /w/ as in , /r/ as in rot, and /j/ as in yacht. what

n. Lateral is a speech sound when the tongue touches the alveolar

ridge but the sides of the tongue are lowered to allow the air to escape freely. English lateral is /l/ as in low. ( Lesley Jeffries,

  2006 : 17-26)

  Table I. 1.1 The Consonants of English Labio- Palato- Bilabial Interdental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal dental alveolar

• v +v -v +v -v +v -v +v -v +v -v +v -v +v -v +v

  

Plosive p b t d k g

Nasal m n ŋ ʒ

  Fricative f v ð s z h θ ∫ Affricate t ∫ dʒ

  Approximant w r j Lateral l (Source: Discovering Language; The structure of Modern

  English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p.26)

2. Field Linguistics

  As there are no books which have ever discussed or analyzed the Dayak Embaloh language ,the first thing that writer will do in his thesis is to describe the Dayak Embaloh phonology. The way he obtains the data is by asking his informant the basic core vocabularies. Therefore the field linguistics is needed in his thesis.

  Pamela Munro in A Hand book of Linguistics says that Field Linguistics refers to the collection of primary linguistic data from the ordinary people. This type of data collection is called

  “field work.” Classical field work is done in the “field,” the area where the speakers actually live (rather than in an artificial setting, such as a university class room), or even more classically are from which the speaker’s ancestors originated. ( Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller, 2002:130).

  

Wiliam J Samarin in his book Field Linguistics also defines field

linguistics as a way of obtaining linguistics data and studying

  

linguistics phenomena. It is involving two participants, the first is the

speaker of the language and the linguistic researcher. It is done by

personal contact. The speaker of language or what we called as the

informant is the source of language.

  

Field linguistics is generally thought of as a work done on languages

which have either never been studied before or only poorly. It has

played an impo rtant part in man’s study of language. If we had to

depend only on the written record of language, our knowledge would

be severely restricted indeed.

  There are also some human factors in doing the field linguistics. The human factors in field linguistics are;

  a. The researcher should

  1. Have enough knowledge/ skill/ training how to deal with linguistic data.

  2. Know the culture where the language is spoken because the language is used in a certain culture and the representation of culture. Many language utterances are only meaningful in their cultures but less in others

  3. Know what others have studied about language.

  b. The aim of field linguistics is the language of community and not an idiolect (the language of person). Therefore the researcher should be part of community and understand the communal practices. c. The informant is someone who provides linguistics data and helps the researcher verifies the hypothesis. Therefore an informant should;

  1. Give the body of data (corpus), which is necessary for generalization about the grammar of language.

  2. Check the accuracy of the data

  3. Provide phonological aspects of the language, and 4. Provide data of living language.

  The characteristics of good informants are;

  1. Should have time and be patient, ingenious and tactful to provide, obtain, and interpret data.

  2. Should be well informed, independent, intelligent, alert, and good in memory.

  3. Should speak the language natively with good diction and articulation.

  4. Should be talkative, critical and analytical.

3. Contrastive Linguistics

  In this part the writer would like to talk about the contrastive linguistics. In this part the writer will point out the meaning of contrastive linguistic and how to apply the theory.

  According to Faisak the contrastive linguistics is defined as the

  comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them (Fisiak, 1981: 1).

  In learning the language, the students of the native language usually get difficulties to study the foreign language because of the differences in linguistic feature of two languages. The theory of Contrastive linguistic is useful in identifying or predicting the error possibilities that can be made by the L2 learners. According to Nickel, learning the second language will be much easier whenever there are similarities between the language and the mother tongue. Learning may be interfered with when there are marked contrast between mother tongue and second language (Nickel, 1971: 23)

  Wolfram and Robert Johnson said in their book Phonological

  

Analysis that level of difficulty are predicted based on a comparison of

  phonological units in the two systems. Generally speaking, we may say that the higher the degree of similarities between the phonological category in L1 and L2, the easier it will be to learn the L2 categories. Conversely, the more different they are, the more difficult L2 will be to learn. The same as what is stated by Wolfram and Robert Johnson, Weinrich in his book Language in Contact states that the greater differences between the system, i.e the numerous the mutually exclusive forms and patterns in it, the greater is the learning problem and the potential area of interference. (Weinrich 1953: 1)

  Robert Lado said that in learning the sound system of a foreign language one finds sound that one physically similar to those of the native language that structure similarly to them, and that are similarly distributed. Learning of such phonemes occurs by transfer without difficulty. On the other hand, one also finds sounds that are not part of the sound system of native language, that structure differently, or that are differently distributed. Learning of these occurs more slowly, and difficulty with them is more persistent. In fact, learning the letter actually means learning the sound of language. We therefore seek to find those problems.

  Lado said when the foreign language uses a phoneme that does not exist in the learners’ native language, that is, when there is no phoneme in the native language that could be transferred into foreign language the student will not be able to produce that phoneme readily in learning the foreign language. S/he will substitute some other phoneme from his native stock. The experience shows that the learner will have trouble hearing as well as producing the new phoneme. He also said that we will able to complete our comparison on the basis of sound feature which consists of the vibration of vocal cord versus non vibration (voiced vs voiceless sound), place of articulation, and manner of articulation. Based on Lado experience, even when native language has a similar phoneme and the variants are similar, if it does not occur in the same position as in the native language the student will have trouble producing and hearing it in the position in which it does occur in the foreign language. For example in comparing French

  ʒ

  with English we would find that French / / as in jamais has a parallel

  ʒ

  English phoneme / / as in measure. We would find that its variants would not cause any particular difficulty. But we would notice that in French it appears at the beginning of that word and in English it does

  ʒ

  not. English speaker will transfer their / / with its limitation into

  ʒ

  French and will have difficulty with learning the word initial / / in that language.

  When the students find a sequence in which one of the phoneme of the foreign language is not to be found in their native language it of course could simply said as sequence problem and that phoneme itself should be listed as phoneme problem.

  Lado also said that in language with writing systems that in some way represent sounds, the student often mispronounces words because of influences from those writing systems. When both the foreign language and the native language use the same alphabet, the problem may be traceable to one of two possible causes. One possibility is that the same symbol might represent two different sounds in the two languages. In such a case the student tends to transfer the native symbolization to the foreign language. For example, an English speaker studying Spanish will sometimes pronounce Jimenez as /

  I m I n I z/, while in Spanish J is pronounced as /h/. Another possibility dʒ of spelling interference with pronunciation arises with inconsistencies in the spelling of the foreign language. The symbol which in one word represents one sound turns out to represent a different sound in another word. For example, any student learning English might pronounce words ‘honest’ or ‘hour’ with an initial /h/ sound, when of course there is no /h/ in their pronunciation. The student may have simply generalized on the basis of the many words in which an initial letter ‘h’ does represent an initial sound /h/ as in words house, hat,

  , head, hand, etc.

  have

4. Phonological process

  According to Walt Wolfram and Robert Johnson (1982:88) in Phonological Analysis Phonology is not a static system in which an established unit remained unchanged in all its occurrences. Rather, it is a dynamic system in which units change as they come into contact with other units in the system. We refer to such changes as . The examination of a phonological system at a phonological process given point in time will reveal many such processes. There are several phonological processes: a. Assimilation One of the most types of processes found in language is assimilation, in which a sound takes on the characteristics of a neighboring sound. There are two necessary components that define assimilation: first, a sound that changes (the assimilating sound) and second, the sound that causes the change (the conditioning sound). In terms of the traditional classification of phonological changes, one of the ways in which a sound may assimilate relates to the place of articulation of neighboring sound. A sound may change to take on position of a preceding or following sound. The ten bikes in colloquial speech would be /tem ba I ks/ not /ten ba I ks/ is an example of assimilation in which the sound is influenced by the following sound. In lunch articulated with score

• –s becoming - ∫ under the influence of

  sound ch [t ∫].

  b. Dissimilation Whereas assimilation refers to process in which segments take on the character of neighboring segments, dissimilation refers to the process in which segment changes to become less like a neighboring segment. There are several cases of words which have apparently developed into their current from through dissimilation. The word pilgrim is sometimes cited as a case of dissimilation. It was derived from the Latin form peregrius by changing the first r to l. Similarly, in non-mainstream varieties where chimley corresponds to the standard form chimney, the change from n to the non-nasal l may also be viewed as dissimilation.

  c. Neutralization Particular processes that result in the cancellation of contrasts between phonological units are often described by the term . That is, two or more units that ordinarily neutralization contrast lose that contrast in certain environments. For example: salad is pronounced as [sæl

  I t], the sound /d/ in the final position is pronounced as /t/ instead of /d/.

  d. Deletion In phonological process of deletion, units which occur in some contexts are lost in others. In many cases, deletion processes change the syllable structure of a word, thereby creating preferred type of syllable pattern. For example, deletion processes may break up clusters of consonants or vowels in order to arrive at the more universally preferred CV pattern. Some of English deletion processes are readily noticeable; other are simply forms that we automatically apply but may not be aware of until they are pointed out. For example: west side

  I I d], west end n mæn], blind [wεs sa [wεs εnd], blind man [bla