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Pronunciation Doctor
INTRODUCTION
This analysis of spoken English of four international participants focuses on their
pronunciations. As how people, especially non-native speaker, pronounce English,
communication is good or not in conversations. Most international English speakers have their
unique pronunciations, and their native language often have huge influences on their habits of
English pronunciations.
From this paper, I will find different kind of errors international people usually make and
how they make different errors between other countries. Each team has four members, and they
require a recording of a non-native English speaker for this assignment. Each member in a group
will have four samples, and I will offer brief information of four participants. I will analyze the
four samples and evaluate them from 0 to 10 based on three categories: intelligibility,
segmentals, and suprasegmentals.
DIAGNOSTIC TEST DESCRIPTION
Each speech sample consists of three parts. First, each participant is required to telling a
story of four pictures using their own words. Second, they read a paragraph which is designed to
test a variety of segmental which is vowels and consonants and superasegmental features which
are word stress, sentence stress, stress timing, and intonation. The last test is Accent Analysis
Sentences, and they read 8 sentences which are focused on specific vowel sound. The three parts
of the test will help the analysis of the speech sample because these parts contain enough factors
to evaluate their pronunciation.
Participant 1
Background Information
This participate is a girl from Hong Kong. She studied English in school in Hong Kong.
She came to BYUH in 2010, and she was in the EIL program for two semesters. She is currently
studying TESOL at BYUH, and this fall semester is the second for studying TESOL. For this
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speech sample, I gave the speaker the following ratings: 6 for segmentals, 7 for suprasegmentals,
and 7.5 for intelligibility.
Segmental issues
Consonants
The first participant had difficulty in pronunciation of consonant clusters because
Cantonese has no consonant clusters like English. Words that contain consonant clusters such as
in the English word ‘strong’ (CCCVCC) are not present in most world languages. When nonnative English speakers try to say consonant clusters, they typically do one of two things. First,
they delete one of the consonant sounds in the cluster, second they add one of the vowel sounds
between consonant clusters. For example, this participant often dropped consonant sounds in the
end of words such as worked, walked, next, blocks and elections. She pronounced /wɔɹk/, /wak/,
/neks/, /blak/, and/ɪleʃn/. She inserted vowel sounds between the consonants in the cluster. This
speaker pronounced the word of green like /guɹin/, inserting /u/ sound between consonants.
This speaker also struggled with the / ɹ / sound because she often substituted /w/ for /ɹ/.
For example, she pronounced /waɪs/ of the word of rice and /waɪd/ of the word ride instead of
/ɹaɪs/and/ ɹaɪd/. Besides, when she spoke words which had /ɹ/ sound, she usually either dropped
the sound or pronounced the sound slightly.
She sometimes replaced /l/ with / ɹ/. For instance, program should be pronounced /pɹ
oʊgrӕm/, but she seemed to pronounce /poʊglӕm/ while deleting the first/ɹ/ sound of the word.
Both probably and heart also were deleted off /ɹ/ like /pobəbli/ and /hat/. Even though she
pronounced /ɹ/ of the word of professional, but it was very slightly pronounced. The /ɹ/ is
nonexistent in Cantonese; therefore it is hard for Cantonese to pronounce correctly.
She mispronounced the consonant phonemes of dental and palate-alveolar fricatives
like/θ/, /ʃ/ and /z/. For example, when she said the words “thanks” and “shoes,” she pronounced
it as /fӕŋks/ and /sus/ instead of /θӕŋks/ and /ʃuz/.
In addition, The pronunciation of the end of letter‘s’ in the plural nouns are pronounced
either /s/ or /z/. If the end of sounds of nouns pronounce voiced sounds, the‘s’ of plural is
pronounced /z/. However, if the end of sounds of nouns pronounce voiceless sounds, the‘s’ of
plural is pronounced /s/. This participant substituted /s/ for /z/ following these words such as
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cookies, peas, beans, was, is, times, animals, camels, has, problems, shoes, swims, and causes.
Cantonese does not have /z/; thus this phoneme is almost replaced by /s/.
Vowels
A common segmental problem was /i/ and /ɪ/. Examples of this were found in each of the
three sections of the speech sample. One example found in Accent Analysis Sentence #2. Most
of words which have /ɪ/ sounds are pronounced /i/ sounds instead of/ɪ/. She said /swims/, /fit/,
/slim/, and /tɹim/ instead of /swɪmz/, /fɪt/, /slɪm/, and /tɹɪm/.
Supersegmental issues
Intonation
This speaker relatively had good intonation, stress-timing, word stress, and sentence
stress; thus it was hard to find some mistakes. When native speakers said a list in a sentence, the
intonation would naturally go up before the last list. This speaker also pronounced well like “It
keeps her fit, slim, and trim.
Word stress
I found a vivid error of the word stress in the paragraph of My Exercise Program. The
word was a heteronym that two words were spelled identically, but one of two or more letters
pronounced differently. For example, when people say the word ‘record,’ the syllable stress
changes the meaning of the word. When the major stress is on the first syllable the word is a
noun like REcord. When the major stress is on the second syllable the word is a verb like
reCORD. However, this speaker pronounced the verb like the noun.
Intelligibility
I think that the most significant aspect of pronunciation with this speaker would be the
Segmental. Most Canonesses tend to keep the pronunciation and the syllable pattern of their
native language; however, these habits have negative effects on pronouncing English correctly.
This speaker also has a strong Hong Kong accent, and I sometimes could not understand what
she said because I am not familiar with other foreigners’ accent. In fact, I already knew what she
was going to tell the story or read a paragraph and some sentences. It means even if she
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mispronounces them, I probably can guess the meaning. For this reason, I evaluated a little bit
high score for intelligibility. However, if she reads a paragraph which I do not know, I might
have a little bit difficulty with understanding what she reads.
She also tends to have wrong pause when she reads the paragraph. For example, I
watched my neighbor getting exercise every day, (Here is a little bit long pause as this sentence
is done) looking very physically fit. (Here in no pause as two sentences sound like just one
sentence.) Now I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, put on my exercise clothes and tennis shoes,
(Here is a little bit long pause as this sentence is done again), drink some orange juice, and take
off. This wrong pause made me confused to understand her.
Pedagogical Suggestions
This participant had a lot of problems with segmental issues compared to other areas.
According to an article of Global English and the teaching of pronunciation, Jennifer Jenkins
mentioned that “All the consonants are important except for ‘th’ sounds” and “Consonant cluster
are important at the beginning and in the middle of words.” For this reasons, she has to learn how
to pronounce all the consonants and consonant clusters.
In order to pronounce consonants correctly, pictures which explain about the place of
articulation in our text book, named How to Teach Pronunciation, help her understand how to
pronounce. The book shows us a variety of method to figure out this problem. Practicing
particular consonant sounds helps her improve her mispronunciation by using advertising
slogans or comparing minimal pair. For example, a slogan of “Robert Riley’s Recycled Radios”
is good to practice /ɹ/ sound. Tongue-twisters, which are introduced in our text book, are one of
the great methods to enhance consonant pronunciation. Ride and wide are good examples to
compare /w/ and /ɹ/ sound. Comparing minimal pair is also good for practicing the difference /i/
and /ɪ/.
Participant 2
Background Information
This is a Korean girl, who is my roommate. She studied English since middle school in
Korea. She spent a year at BYU Provo in the EIL classes before coming here to study TESOL,
and she also studied English in the EIL at BYUH for two semesters. She is taking regular and
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major classes now. This girl has been here for a year and half at BYUH. Before recording, I
allowed her to review the material, and practice it to eliminate tension. Even though she
reviewed and practiced it, she said that she was a little bit nervous when she was explaining
about the four pictures. For this speech sample, I gave the speaker the following ratings: 8 for
segmentals, 6 for suprasegmentals, and 7 for intelligibility.
Segmental issues
Consonants
I found three possible errors. First the main problem was that she deleted the end of /t/ or
/d/ off of the –ed ending in the past tense verbs. When she spoke verbs like stopped, ordered,
enjoyed, looked, watched, and walked, she pronounced them like /stap/, /ɔɹdə/, /ɪndƷɔɪ/, /lʊk/,
/wɑtʃ/, and /wɔk/. I think it is one of the problems of consonant clusters; however, she did not
make errors other words about the consonant clusters except for the –ed ending in the past tense
verbs. I wondered why it happened to her, and I asked her. The tutee said that she thought that
dropping /t/ or/d/ of the –ed ending in the past tense verbs sounds natural. In addition, when she
listened to Americans speaking, it is common for them. However, I do not agree to her opinion
because I think that Americans pronounce /t/ or /d/ very soft and lightly.
Second, she struggled with pronouncing /z/ sound in the My Exercise Program. She
pronounced /ʃ/ or /s/ for /z/. For example, she pronounced /eksəɹsaɪs/,/fɪʃəkəli/, and /tʃisb3ɹgəɹ/
when she spoke exercise, physically, and cheeseburger. I think there no fricative sounds in
Korean while English has 9. However, when Koreans learn English, they practice these fricative
sounds. I think they have considerably less opportunities to exercise /z/ sounds because the
words including /z/ happen much less than other fricative sounds. I am also a Korean; thus I
know how Korean English teachers teach the sound of /z/. I think that English teachers do not
focus on /z/ sound when they teach students.
Third, this second tutee also made the same mistake about the word of record like the
first speaker. She did not recognize the different pronunciation between a noun and a verb of
record. She pronounced both of them such as /ɹɪkɔɹd/.
Vowels
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This speaker made a few definite errors for pronouncing vowel sounds. One of the
problems was that she substituted /i/ for /ɪ/ in accent analysis sentences. She said /swims/, /fit/,
/slim/, and /tɹim/ instead of /swɪmz/, /fɪt/, /slɪm/, and /tɹɪm/.
She also sometimes switched from/ӕ/ sound to /e/ in her telling story of the four pictures.
For instance, she pronounced /men/ and /bed/ when she said man and bad. However, she
correctly pronounced /ӕ/ sound in the number 2 of Accent Analysis Sentences. I think she knew
how to pronounce the sound if she tried to concentrate on this sound, but she often made this
mistake if she did not focus on it.
Supersegmental issues
Intonation
This speaker has huge problems for this aspect, and this was a problem throughout the
entire sample. She properly pronounced word stress, but she almost ignored stress timing,
sentence stress, and intonation. She should pronounce this sentence “I de
cided to keep a
record of my workouts and to record my progress in a note book,” but she
spoke “I decided
to keep a record of my workouts and to record my progress
in a note book.” Even though she spoke a question sentence of “Would you look for my
cookbook?” she pronounced “Would you look for my cookbook?” While English is
stress timing, Korean is syllables timing. Even though she spoke English, the sound is very
similar with her Korean speech tone. I think that she has a very flat tone among Koreans when
she speaks Korean. Her habit of speaking native language influenced a lot of effect on her
English speech.
Intelligibility
This speaker pronounced well without big problems, but she made a few errors when she
read sentences and told the story of pictures. However, the lack of abilities of stress timing,
sentence stress, and intonation played a significant role in decreasing on her speech intelligibility.
Sometimes, intonation is very important to convey exact meaning because intonation and
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sentence stress change the meaning. For example, a speaker says a declarative sentence, but it
can be a question sentence depending on the speaker’s intonation.
Pedagogical Suggestions
This participant needs to focus on the end of /t/ or /d/ of the –ed ending in the past tense verbs
when she listens to native speakers’ speaking. Unlike her thought, Americans exactly pronounce
/t/, /d/, or /ɪd/ of them very softly. Although she does not need to pronounce these sounds the end
of –ed in the past tense, she needs to pronounce them slightly.
In order to study between /i/ and /ɪ/ sound, using cards, which are written a simple
sentence with /i/ and /ɪ/, helps her. For example, I slip on the floor, and I sleep on the bed. I sit on
the chair, and I need a seat. Jennifer Jenkins emphasized on that it is important to recognize
between tense and lax vowels, which explained above, for English learners.
The packet of Rhythm helps her improve her intonation. She should know that when she
puts stress in her sentence when she speaks English. English usually has stress on content words
such as nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives, question words, and demonstratives. On the other
hand, English does not have function words like articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns,
conjunctions, and relative pronouns. Using a rubber band is a good way to show stress in a
sentence. When she speaks content words, she extends the rubber band by holding two hands.
For example, the times to extend the rubber band are the same whether she reads a sentence of
“Birds
eat worms” or “The birds will eat the worms.” In addition, it takes the same
time to read them.
Participant 3
Background Information
Daisy, who is from Taiwan, spent two semesters to finish EIL classes, but she studied
English as her major one year in Taiwan University. Daisy is studying TESOL as a major; this is
her second semester to study TESOL. She has been here for a year and half, and she is also
working at PCC. For this speech sample, I gave the speaker the following ratings: 8.5 for
segmentals, 7.5 for suprasegmentals, and 9 for intelligibility.
Segmental issues
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Consonants
Daisy spoke English well, and she made a few mistakes. First, she often dropped the end
of /d/ sound when she read a paragraph of Paying with plastic. She pronounced / kɑɹ/ for /kɑɹd/
when she said the word of card. Second, she substituted /wɪs/ for /wɪθ/ when she pronounced a
preposition of with.
Vowels
Daisy’s pronunciation of vowels was good. I found an error that she also substituted
substituted /i/ for /ɪ/ in number 2 of Accent Analysis Sentences. She said /swims/, /fit/, /slim/,
and /tɹim/ instead of /wɪmz/, /fɪt/, /slɪm/, and /tɹɪm/.
Supersegmental issues
Word Stress
Daisy correctly pronounced word stress. For example, she distinguished the difference
between a noun of REcord and a verb of reCOrd unlike previous two participants.
Stress-timing
Daisy had difficulty in having intonation while she made a few mistakes in segmental
area. When she read a paragraph of Paying with Plastic, I could feel very weak stress-timing. She
should put accents on contents words, which convey the most significant ideas in the sentence.
However, she tended to put accents on function words, which we need to make English hold
together, as well as contents words. For example, this explosion in the use of credit cards
has brought with it huge amounts of personal debt. Although she read sentences with
intonation, it was hard to clearly recognize it.
Intelligibility
Daisy pronounced correctly most words which had the pattern of consonant clusters.
When I listened to Daisy’s sample, it was difficult to find some errors. However, two Native
Americans, who were members in my group, pointed out some errors, and then I recognized the
errors. She rarely dropped the end of /t/ sound, and she just mispronounced some words because
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I think she did not know how to pronounce exactly. When she knew how to pronounce, she
usually read correctly.
Our team members also pointed out her intonation because it made listeners
misunderstand. Even if she appropriately pronounced words, the weak intonation had a negative
influence on intelligibility.
Pedagogical Suggestions
Jennifer Jenkins said ‘th’ is not important for English learners. Daisy had trouble with /θ/,
but it has not great influences on her intelligibility. However, intonation including sentence stress
has negative effects on her intelligibility. In order to improve her intonation, I recommend two
activities: finding a partner: stress patterns from our text book, and partner practice: identifying
content words from the packet of Rhythm. These activities would help Daisy to hear, identify,
and practice stress-timing in English.
Participant 4
Background Information
This is Korean girl who spent two years at BYU Provo in the EIL classes before coming
here to be study communication. She is completing her last EIL classes while taking regular
classes. For this speech sample, I gave the speaker the following ratings: 7 for segmentals, 6.5
for suprasegmentals, and 7 for intelligibility.
Segmental issues
Consonants
I found several errors that I noticed in this speech sample. First, this participant struggled
with the /ð/ sound. Some example came from My Exercise Program when she says “After that”
or “the” she says that like /daʔ/ or /də/ instead of /ðæʔ/or /ðə/.
Second, she had difficulty with the /ɹ /sound. I found several kinds of errors about the
/ɹ/sound examples from the My Exercise Program. When she said cheeseburger, she dropped
/ɹ/sound like /tʃizbəgɚ/. She did not pronounce the first /ɹ/sound of cheeseburger. Another error
of the /ɹ/sound was that she pronounced /ɹ/sound too slightly. For example, when she said
pronounced large, rice, exercise, and ride, the /ɹ/ sound made me image that her tongue tip might
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not was approximately held behind the alveolar ridge. Curled her tongue should be held a little
bit far away from the alveolar ridge.
Third, she also struggled with consonant clusters. She often dropped the end of /t/ sound.
For example, when she pronounced walked or watched, she deleted the end of /t/ sound off. I
repeated listening again and again whether she was merely devoicing the end of /t/ sound or not,
instead of dropping it. However, I realized that she obviously dropped it.
Vowels
This speaker had trouble with several vowels which also do not exist in Korean. First, the
/ɪ/ sound was often replaced for /i/. I noticed that all participants of our group could not
pronounce /ɪ/. In my experience, I think the participants were not taught the difference between
/i/ and /ɪ/ when they learned English. In fact, I had known that /i/ and /ɪ/were the same before I
learned the difference. I could not hear the difference because I believed the both sounds were
the same. In addition, even if some participants learned the difference through this class, they
already had bad habits. The bad habits might be required spending time to change.
Second, she mispronounced the /ӕ /sound. When she said man, animals, parrots, and bats,
she substituted /e / for /ӕ /.
This speaker also switched from /ʊ/ to /u/, and the evidence came from number 7 of the
Accent Analysis Sentences. She should pronounce /lʊk/, /kʊkbʊk/, /gʊd/, /kʊkɪz/, and /pʊdɪŋ/,
but she put /u/ instead of /ʊ/. The /ʊ/sound is ambiguously considered for Koreans to explain
how to pronounce exactly.
Supersegmental issues
Word Stress
This speaker read a paragraph with appropriate word stress. However, when she told a
story of the four pictures she spoke English with wrong word stress. For example, when she
pronounced some words such as lady, coffee, and enjoy, she said lady, coffee, and after instead
of lady, coffee, and after. I think that when this participant spoke English with her own words,
she needed to think of what she was going to say. This situation might have her made mistakes.
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Intelligibility
The pronunciation patterns of Korean, which was her native language, had negative
effects on her speaking English. I realized that several errors which she struggled did not exist in
Korean. Some members in my group could not understand what she said, but I could understand
well because I was familiar with her Korean accent. I remember that when I listened to a sample
which was record by a Cantonese, it was hard for me to understand it. However, a member in my
group, whose father spoke English with Cantonese accent, could understand it well. As a result,
intelligibility is associated with how often listeners are exposed to the accent of speakers.
Pedagogical Suggestions
I would definitely recommend several methods to improve her pronunciation. First, I
would suggest a way that I practiced when I learned /ð/. I will give this participant an article, and
I let her circle the words including /ð/ sound. After that, she read the article while concentrating
on circled words. Most paragraphs have many ‘the’ articles; therefore, the method helps her
enhance /ð/ sound.
Second, I would drill using minimal pairs to improve this speaker hear and notice the
difference between /i/ and /ɪ/, /ӕ/ and /e/, and /u/ and /ʊ/. In addition, phonemic bingo from our
text book is way to help her distinguish two similar vowels and to have fun.
Third, tongue-twisters can be especially useful for working on one difficult consonant
phoneme like /ɹ/sound. For example, a sentence of “Around the rugged rock, the ragged rascal
run” is good for /ɹ/sound. In addition, this way is helpful for practicing consonants clusters. This
participant needs to focus on the end of /t/, /d/, /ɪd/ of the –ed ending in the past tense verbs. Because
most these ending sound are consonants clusters, these are hard to pronounce.
CONCLUSION
I realized that teaching pronunciation has been ignored in English education compared to
other areas like reading, listening, speaking, writing, and grammar for non-native speakers so far.
Many non-native speakers cannot recognize differences between similar phonemes when they
listen or speak them. Many non-native speakers have an experience to learn English in their
country with teachers who are non-native speakers. However, when they mispronounced words,
nobody might recognize it. All participants including myself mispronounced /I/ sound because
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we have never been taught the difference between /i/ and /ɪ/. Although working on this paper was
very hard and I spend a lot of time listening to four samples to analyze, I learned how and why
people pronounce English differently among other countries. If I did not take this class, I might
not teach students correct pronunciation without recognizing my fault. This analysis of four
samples will help me how to teach pronunciation for my students in the near future.