Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 1
Running head: VOWEL CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATION
The vowel contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese and its application to teaching
Trần Thị Yến
HCMC University of Education
Class 5 CQBT

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 2
Introduction
Contrastive Analysis is a study that concentrates on the pairs of languages and explores the similarities and differences between them. In my opinion, this is a very good subject in my whole course because it provides me with the knowledge of contrasting between two languages. However, in my opinion, its application is just of importance. Thus, I apply the knowledge of Contrastive Analysis to the teaching. It also means that I would like to combine Contrastive Analysis to the teaching. More specifically, it is the pronunciation teaching in which I only mention the vowel aspect although the pronunciation has the other important parts such as the consonants, stress or intonation.
According to the English language teaching methodology, pronunciation is the most important part in the whole process of learning a foreign language. A person can not communicate with other people successfully if he or she has a poor pronunciation.
Thus, in the teaching, it is extremely significant to help the learners have a correct pronunciation. However, learning pronunciation is not quite easy. In learning a foreign language, the learners will encounter a lot of difficulties that make them feel bored, and they easily give up learning. Among big problems is the interference of the native language. Pietro’s viewpoint “Contrastive Analysis comes from the experience of teaching foreign language. Each learner and each foreign language teacher easily recognizes that the mother tongue is a big hindrance in understanding and mastering the foreign language in many occasions
” (Language structures in contrast, p.12) illustrates it. Addition to the hindrance of the mother tongue, the differences of two languages also cause problems. For example, because the long vowel /i: / does not

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 3 exist in our Vietnamese language and the Vietnamese learners are used to saying the short vowel /

/, we easily replace /i: / in heat by /

/ when saying the word. Similarly, we have intention of taking the flat laminal /t’ / in replacement of the dental fricative /θ /.
This is a mistake because /t’ / and /θ / differ in their manner of articulation. Therefore, in learning pronunciation, to help the Vietnamese learners to get over the difficulties and have a correct pronunciation, the teacher needs to have a good command of two sound systems of his native language and the target language. The teacher must make the contrast between English and Vietnamese sound systems so that the similarities and differences of two sound systems will be displayed. From that, the possible methods will be given so that we will be able to help the learners to stop the difficulties in the learning and make good aural and oral drills with the aim at improving their pronunciation.
In my contrastive analysis essay, I only refer to the part of pronunciation which is the vowel. I would like to make a contrast between English and Vietnamese vowels and its application to teaching. Firstly, I display the vowel systems of English and
Vietnamese briefly. Afterwards, I make a list of the distinctive features of English and
Vietnamese vowel systems. Finally, through the contrastive analysis of two vowel systems, the sound problems are revealed and the possible ways of overcoming them are suggested. Moreover, the teaching techniques are included.
The vowel contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese and its application to teaching
English vowel system:

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 4
According to
Roach’s English phonetics and phonology book, English has 11 eleven simple vowels including 5 long vowels (i:, u:,

:,

:, and a:) and 7 short vowels (i,

, e, ə, æ, 
, and

) . The consonants are displayed in the following vowel chart.
Central
Front/close
Back
Half close
Half open

Open
Besides, English has 8 diphthongs (i ə, ə 
, a

,
 ə, eə, ai,  i, and ei) and 5 tripthongs (ei ə, ə  ə, aiə, a  ə, and  i ə).
Vietnamese vowel system:
In his Vietnamese phonetics book, Nguy ễn Thiện Thuận mentions that Vietnamese has
13 simple vowels including 9 long vowels (i, e,

,

,

, a, u, o, and

) and 4 short vowels ( ɛ̌
, ă, ɤ̌
and ɔ̌
). The simple vowels are illustrated in the following chart:

Front
Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 5
Central
Back
Addition to the simple vowels, Vietnamese also 3 diphthongs (i_e,

_ ə, and u_o)
According to Lê Quang Thiêm, English and Vietnamese consonants are contrasted in the following chart:


Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 6
Distinctive features of Vietnamese vowel system:
From the contrastive table above and based on the cardinal vowels, there are differences between English and Vietnamese vowel systems. In Vietnamese sound system, there are seven simple vowels (i, e,

, a, u, o, and

) which are identical to cardinal vowels. In aspect of the articulation of Vietnamese vowels, the tongue is, in general, higher (or more tense) than the articulation of the English approximants.
Therefore, the Vietnamese sound /i / is much higher than the English sound /i/. In
Vietnamese, the lengthening of the vowel is not phonemic.
Distinctive vowels are considered unique to Vietnamese /

,

, ɛ̌
, ă, ɤ̌
and ɔ̌
/. It is remarked that all the Vietnamese vowels are said with greater tension of the muscles in the articulating organ. As compared with the nearest English equivalents, this is characteristic of most Vietnamese vowels. Besides, Vietnamese has the diphthongs which are different from English.
Distinctive features of English vowel system
From the chart of English vowel above, there are no single English vowels observed identical to the eight cardinal vowels. Nearly all English vowels are phonetically and phonemically diphthongized. They are normally produced with less energy than the Vietnamese. Unlike Vietnamese vowels, the lengthening of the vowel is phonemic in English. The vowels which considered unique to English are / æ, 
/.
Besides, English have different diphthongs and tripthongs which are the mixtures of the diphthongs and the sound / ə/ while there are no tripthongs in our vowel system.

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 7
However, there are a lot of differences between English and Vietnamese vowel, but common features to both languages still exists. Both languages many syllabic clusters which is the combination of the simple vowels with glides.
Teaching problems
Because the differences between English and Vietnamese vowel system and the interference of the native language, Vietnamese students often have a lot of difficulties in recognizing and producing the English vowels.
According to English Teaching Methodology, in terms of the vowel aspect, there are some problems which Vietnamese students have in learning English such as
1. Problem with similar sounds such as / e/ and /æ/ or /i: / and /i/
2. Problem with diphthongs or tripthongs.
For example, it is very hard for Vietnamese students to recognize two different words as heat /hi:t/ or hit /hit/. Or we also have trouble with distinguishing lie /lai/ and liar
/lai ə /. In their pronunciation, because they have used to their vowel system,
Vietnamese students will substitute the Vietnamese equivalents for the English vowels which are nonexistent in their native language. They do not succeed in recognizing and producing English sound / æ/. They can not hear the contrast between /æ/ and /a/, /æ/ and /e/ or /u: / and /

/. To Vietnamese learner’s ear, the pair (/æ/ and /e/) does not sound distinctive as they do to English people. A Vietnamese would say /hed/ instead of
/h æd/ for had. Or pull and pool sound alike to him with long /u/. Thus, it is necessary to overcome the negative transfer. The teacher needs to describe the full phonetic features of English vowels and then drill the students into new habits for the production of those sounds. The process is realized through the teacher’s preparation of aural and

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 8 oral practice in which the minimal pairs are used. Besides, the students need to practice daily to get used to English sounds.
In the distribution of English and Vietnamese vowels, all the vowels except the relatively short ones in both languages occur freely in all positions. As a result, the distributional troubles are often not important.
In respect of English diphthongs, Vietnamese students find it easy to recognize and produce them although Vietnamese is monophthongized. Another thing contributes to Vietnamese students’ ease is there are also diphthongs in our language. However, it is hard for Vietnamese students to hear the contrast between tripthongs and diphthongs. The reason is that the vowel moving process is minor in English unless we do not pronounce them carefully. Therefore, in teaching, we need to take the practice of diphthongs into careful consideration.
In general, except the sounds / æ, 
/, it is not hard for Vietnamese students to produce English vowels because both vowel systems can be comparable in their respective features: high, mid, low with front (unrounded), central (unrounded), and back (rounded). The problems hereby are the ability to distinguish between similar sounds. Therefore, the attention is paid to the problems.
Conclusion
The vowel is one of the components of pronunciation which is the most important in teaching as well as learning , so the teacher’s responsibility is great. Thus, by the knowledge of Contrastive Analysis, I may be preferable to the teaching methodology.
Studying linguistics is for teaching and learning languages. I think that the application of the contrastive analysis is just important and great. Therefore, my essay is the vowel

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 9 contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese and its application to teaching. I think that it will be helpful in my teaching in the future. One more thing I would like to talk about is in the process of writing the essay I may make a lot of mistakes, as many
Vietnamese students does in pronouncing English sounds.

Vowel contrastive analysis and its application 10
References
Pietro, R.J.Di. Language structures in contrast. Ronley, Mass.
Roach, Peter (1983). English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge University
Press.
H.T.Nguyên, and N.T.Yến. English language teaching methodology, Module 2.
University of Education, English of Department.
James, Carl. Contrastive Analysis. Longman.
Lê Quang Thiêm. Nghiên cứu đối chiếu các ngôn ngữ. The Hanoi National
University Press.