English L and R Sounds in Consonant Clusters to EFL Students
東南技術學院(Tung-Nan Institute of Technology)
講師 梁玲玲
Abstract
Many Chinese learners tend to replace English /l/ with /r/ sounds or vice versa.
Vowel insertion or consonant deletion problems also occur in their oral production of
consonant clusters. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine whether /l/ and /r/
sounds in two-consonant clusters will cause more trouble to Chinese students. The
subjects were 11 freshmen of an institute of technology in Taiwan. They were asked
to pronounce a list of words including /l/ and /r/ sounds in onset and coda
two-consonant clusters. The results indicated that the error rate of /l/ sounds in
two-consonant clusters was higher than that of /r/ sounds. There were also
substitution-and-insertion,
insertion-and-deletion,
and
substitution-and-deletion
problems. The target sounds in coda two-consonant clusters were harder to
pronounce. The interviews found that pronunciation instructions like phonics and KK
system were needed to facilitate their pronunciation. This paper will also provide
pedagogical implications and limitations of this study.
INTRODUCTION
For many Chinese students, certain English words are not easy to pronounce.
Some examples of these words are words including /l/ and /r/ sounds. They tend to
substitute /l/ for /r/ or vice versa. Moreover, /l/ and /r/ sounds are active in forming
consonant clusters in English. Researchers have found that consonant clusters in
English trigger problems like addition and deletion for Chinese learners because there
are not consonant clusters in their native language, Chinese. Thus, this paper attempts
to use ten minimal pairs of words including /l/ and /r/ sounds in two-consonant
clusters to see whether /l/ and /r/ sounds in two-consonant clusters will cause more
trouble to Chinese students. Three questions are raised as follows: Are /l/ sounds
easier to pronounce than /r/ sounds when they appear in the consonant clusters? Are
there other pronunciation problems in addition to substitution, addition and deletion?
Are the word-initial two-consonant clusters easier to pronounce than the word-final
two-consonant clusters?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Problems in articulating // and //
According to Practor and Robinett (1985), many Asians often confused /l/ and /r/
in pronouncing English. They further pointed out that Japanese and Chinese students
had difficulty in distinguishing between // and //. For example, a phrase “fried rice”
was articulated as / /. In examining the ways of translating English proper
names into Chinese, Huang (1989) showed that Chinese students used Chinese // for
English // in syllable initial positions. Examples were listed as follows.
Reagan
// ＝＞ 雷根
/-/
Rose
//
＝＞ 羅絲
/-/
Beirut
//
＝＞ 貝魯特
/--’/
She also found that // in the syllable final position was often translated into //, as
illustrated below:
Lille
//
＝＞ 里耳
/-/
Nepal
//
＝＞ 尼泊爾
/--/
Malta
//
＝＞ 馬爾他 /--’/
Wei (1998) found that // sounds were replaced as // sounds before vowels and
// sounds were deleted after vowels by Chinese students. For instance, the words
“right”, “red”, “card”, and “bark” were articulated as //, //, //, and //
respectively. On the other hand, // sounds was pronounced as // or //. Even
// substituted for // in the syllable final position. The word “sell” was pronounced
as //. Chung (1998) also pointed out that final // sounds and // sounds that
come after vowels were often not pronounced in Taiwan English and that final l’s
were articulated as // sounds.
Problems in articulating consonant clusters including // and //
To many Chinese students, deletion, insertion, and substitution were three
problems in the pronunciation of consonant clusters including /l/ and /r/ (Chang, 1994;
Lee, 2000; Li, 1998; Wei, 1998). Chang (1994) indicated that Chinese students
omitted /l/ and /r/ in articulating consonant clusters including /l/ and /r/ as follows:
cold // ＝＞ // , glass // ＝＞ //, pray // ＝＞ //
In addition, they inserted a vowel // into the consonant clusters like the word “play”
(// ＝＞ //). Lee (2000) found that young EFL learners replaced /l/ with /r/
and added vowels to consonant clusters in the articulation of consonant clusters
including /l/ and /r/. Examples were in the following:
Substitution: cloud // ＝＞ //
fly //
＝＞ //
play //
＝＞ //
please // ＝＞ //
Insertion:
cloud // ＝＞ //
fly //
＝＞ //
play //
＝ ＞ //
please //
＝＞
//
Li (1998) also showed that Chinese learners used strategies such as deletion and
insertion in pronouncing consonant clusters including /l/ and /r/. For instance, the
words “world” and “cold” were articulated without /l/ and the word “ pray” was
pronounced as //. Likewise, Wei (1998) pointed out that the vowel // was
inserted into consonant clusters, as noted below:
blow //
＝＞ //
broke // ＝＞ //
please // ＝＞ //
Causes of the pronunciation problems
The sound system of their native language has been considered as one of the
reasons why Chinese students have made errors in pronouncing English // and //
sounds in consonant clusters (Chang, 1994; Hsin, 2000; Huang, 1989; Ing, 1976, 1984;
Lee, 2000; Li, 1998; Lin, 2001; Wei, 1998).
With regard to // and //sounds, Chinese // has a very similar sound in English,
the retroflex /r/ but /r/in English has various allophones. The distribution of Chinese
// is limited to certain initial and final positions while English // occurs in initial,
medial, and final positions of a syllable or a word. For example, some sound
sequences like // and // do not exist or seldom appear in Chinese (Chang, 1994;
Huang, 1989). Like English //, English // can appear in initial, medial, and final
positions but // in Chinese is confined to the initial position (Ing, 1976). As a result,
// replaced //, and the final // was dropped or a vowel was inserted to the final //
in Chinese students’ pronunciation (Chang, 1994; Huang, 1989; Ing, 1976; Wei,
1998).
Regarding consonant clusters, researchers found that the pronunciation problems
Chinese students made could be due to differences in syllable structure between
English and Chinese (Hsin, 1996; Ing,1976; Li, 1998; Lin, 2001; Wang, 1991).
Chinese words are usually monosyllabic whereas the majority of English words are
polysyllabic. Moreover, the Chinese syllable structure is CV mainly (C stands for a
consonant; V stands for a vowel) and only //, //, // occur syllable-finally in few
CVC structures. The English syllable structure can be (C) (C) (C) V (C) (C) (C) (C).
Therefore, Chinese has no consonant cluster while English has initial, medial, and
final consonant clusters . To fit into their Chinese syllable structure, Chinese students
either inserted a vowel or deleted a consonant in articulating English consonant
clusters (Hsin, 1996; Li, 1998; Lin, 2001; Wang, 1991). Ing (1976) further pointed out
that English // and // sounds are active in forming consonant clusters in the initial,
medial, and final positions. Some examples were illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1. Some English // and // Sounds in Consonant Clusters
//
//
Initial/medial clusters:
Initial/medial clusters:
//
blue, sublime
//
prize, April
//
please, apply
//
bright, abreast
//
sclerosis, exclaim // //
scratch, describe
//
split, explain //
//
spring, express //
Final clusters:
Final clusters:
//
bulb
//
barb
//
help
//
carp
//
helps
// barbed
//
helped
//
harped
// twelfths
// worlds
// waltzed
// excerpts
METHODOLOGY
Subjects
Eleven subjects participated in this study, who were freshmen of an institute of
technology. Their average age was 19. They were all native speakers of Mandarin
Chinese and had learned English for about six years.
Instrument
The instrument used in this study was a list of ten minimal pairs including /l/
and /r/ sounds in two-consonant clusters. Although English syllables allow at most
three consonants in the word-initial position and four consonants in the word-final
position, only the two-consonant clusters were used in this study because
two-consonant clusters were the majority of consonant clusters. The words in the list
were selected from 5000 vocabulary items of intermediate level listed by General
English Proficiency Test committee. According to GEPT, high school graduates
should have the intermediate level proficiency. The subjects of this study were
freshmen of college. Their English proficiency level should be equivalent to the
intermediate level. That was the reason why the words in this instrument were chosen
in this study. Among the ten minimal pairs, only one pair fold/ford ended with
consonant clusters (coda consonant clusters) while other nine pairs began with the
consonant clusters (onset consonant clusters).
Data Collection
Eleven subjects were asked to pronounce the list of minimal pairs in front of a
tape recorder. The recordings were collected and then examined carefully. On the
word items, the focus was only on /l/ and /r/ sounds in two-consonant clusters. Any
substitute sounds for the target sounds in each item, and any inserted or omitted
sounds were recorded and transcribed. The error frequencies and rates in their
pronunciation of /l/ and /r/ sounds in two-consonant clusters were also computed.
After the recordings, interviews with these subjects were conducted to get further
detailed information about their pronunciation problems.
RESULTS
Recordings
The analysis of the tape recordings generates the following results pertaining to
the research questions of this study.
1. Are /l/ sounds easier to pronounce than /r/ sounds when they appear in the
two-consonant clusters?
As noted in Table 2, the total frequency of the subjects’ inaccurate pronunciation
of /l/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters was higher than that of /r/ sounds in the
two-consonant clusters (67 and 31 respectively). Specifically, substitution /r/ for /l/
sounds was also higher than substitution /l/ for /r/ sounds (25 vs. 1). /l/ deletion was
higher than /r/ deletion as well. Furthermore, there was a higher frequency of inserting
vowels and substituting /l/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters than /r/ sounds in the
two-consonant clusters (9 and 0 correspondingly). Apparently, the students had a
higher error frequency and a wider range of mispronouncing /l/ sounds in the
two-consonant clusters than /r/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters.
Table 2. Error Rates of Six Pronunciation Problems
Sub
Ins
Del
Ins-and Ins-and Sub-and Total
-Sub
-Del
-Del
Error
Freq.
18
13
9
1
1
67
// sounds in 25
two-consonant
clusters
23
4
0
2
1
31
// sounds in 1
two-consonant
clusters
Total
Error 26
41
17
9
3
2
98
Freq.
Error
Rate %
30
14
45
Note. Sub = substitution; Ins = insertion; Del = deletion; Freq. = frequency
2. Are there other pronunciation problems in addition to substitution, addition, and
deletion?
Table 2 also revealed that the subjects had six types of errors in articulating /l/ and
/r/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters. That is, in addition to substitution, addition,
and deletion, there were three types of combination problems (insertion-and
-substitution, insertion-and-deletion, and substitution-and-deletion). The numbers of
substitution, insertion, and deletion were 26, 41, and 17 respectively. It means that the
students had more insertion problems of pronouncing /l/ and /r/ sounds in the
two-consonant clusters, compared to substitution and deletion problems. To be
specific, Table 3 indicated that six kinds of vowels account for the insertion problems,
i.e. //, //, //, //, //, and //. Three vowels (//, //, and //) were frequently
inserted (21, 9, and 5 correspondingly). On the other hand, for the three types of
combination problems, there were nine insertion-and-substitution problems, three
insertion-and-deletion problems, and two substitution-and-deletion problems. Among
nine insertion-and-substitution problems, // sounds were inserted and /l/ sounds were
replaced with /r/ sounds at the same time eight times.
Table 3. Error Rates of Consonant Clusters
Sub Ins
Del
Ins-and-Sub Ins-and-Del Sub-and-De Total Error
l
Error Rate %
Freq.
bleed 4
0
0
7
64
1 // 0
2 //
breed 0
0
0
0
3
27
1 //, 0
blight 3
0
0
0
0
6
55
3 /,
/ (2,
1)
bright 0
0
0
0
3
27
3 //, 0
//, //
climb 0
0
0
0
5
45
3 // 2
crime 0
0
0
0
4
36
3 // 1
cloud 1
5
0
0
0
8
73
2 //,
//
crowd 0
0
0
0
2
18
1 // 1
flee
4
0
0
6
55
1 // 0
1 //
free
0
0
0
0
0
2
18
2 //,
//
fly
5
0
0
8
73
1 // 0
2 //
fry
0
0
0
0
2
18
2 // 0
fold
0
0
9
82
3 // 4
1 //
1 //
ford 1
1
0
8
73
3 //,
1//,
1 //
glass
grass
glow
grow
play
pray
2
0
3
0
3
0
//, //
3 // 1
2 // 0
0
1
0
1
1 // 0
4 /, 0
/ (2,
2)
41
17
0
0
1 //
0
3 //
0
1//
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
2
5
1
7
4
55
18
45
9
64
36
Total 26
9
3
2
98
45
Error
Freq.
Note. Sub = substitution; Ins = insertion; Del = deletion; Freq. = frequency
3. Are the word-initial two-consonant clusters easier to pronounce than the
word-final two-consonant clusters?
According to Table 3, the word “fold” had the highest error rate, 82%. Three other
words (cloud, fly, and ford) ranked the second highest error rate, 73%. In other words,
the four words “cloud”, “fly”, “fold” and “ford” were more difficult for the subjects to
pronounce. Among these four words, “fold” and “ford” included the word-final
two-consonant clusters. As a result, the word-initial two-consonant clusters were
easier to pronounce than the word-final two-consonant clusters.
Interviews
The answers to three interview questions are presented as follows:
1. Q: How did you pronounce the words in the minimal pairs?
Those who made more pronunciation errors said that they only knew how to say
twenty-six letters. But they had not learned KK sound symbols so that they just
applied what they thought was correct to articulating these words. For those who had
fewer mispronunciations, some said that they had learned KK sound symbols in cram
schools. Others said that they had not learned KK but they had some knowledge of
phonics.
2. Q: Did you feel some words were harder to pronounce?
Those who made more pronunciation errors stated that most of the words were
hard for them to articulate. For those who had fewer mispronunciations, most of them
pointed out that the words “fold” and “ford” were harder to articulate.
3. Q: In Taiwan, the KK system and phonics are two methods to teach pronunciation.
Which one would you like to learn?
Some of the interviewees said that they preferred phonics because they did not
have to memorize sound symbols like KK. They hoped that they could pronounce
words when they saw the words without any help of sound symbols. Some of them
indicated they wanted to learn KK because they considered KK as an extra aid to
better understand English sound systems. The rest thought either phonics or KK
would be fine with them as long as it can facilitate their articulation.
DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
For the research questions proposed in this study, the results offer some
interesting findings. First, the subjects had more incorrect sounds in pronouncing //
sounds than // sounds in the two-consonant clusters (30% vs.14%). The reasons may
be that Chinese // is confined to the initial position. Chinese syllable structure is CV
mainly and allows only syllable-final //, //, // in few CVC structures. In dealing
with // sounds in two-consonant clusters, the Chinese students tended to treat the
target sounds as appearing in syllable final positions. As a result, they replaced //
with // to fit into their Chinese syllable structure.
Second, in addition to three pronunciation errors (substitution, insertion, and
deletion) indicated in some studies, there were three more pronunciation errors, i. e.
insertion-and-substitution, insertion-and-deletion, and substitution-and-deletion. This
may be due to the complexity of // and // sounds in two-consonant clusters. For
example, to match their Chinese structure, the Chinese students not only had single
errors each but also combined error types in their articulation. Among these errors,
there were more insertion problems than other types. Two vowels // and // ranked
the first and second in their insertion problems. This finding partially confirmed that
Chinese students frequently insert // into consonant clusters in their pronunciation.
Third, the highest (82%) and the second highest (73%) error rates were found in
the two words “fold” and “ford” respectively. Apparently, the word-final
two-consonant clusters were harder to pronounce than the word-initial two-consonant
clusters. This verified that consonant sounds in final positions are more difficult for
Chinese learners because few Chinese consonants appear word-finally.
Based on the results, some suggestions are provided for pedagogical implications.
No matter which pronunciation instruction is employed, the order of teaching should
be /l/ and /r/ sounds first, then consonant clusters. For /l/ and /r/ sounds, their
articulatory features and distribution should be pointed out clearly and put them in
minimal pairs and sentences for practice. For consonant clusters, differences in both
Chinese and English syllable structures should be emphasized to avoid vowel
insertion and consonant deletion.
However, there are some limitations in this paper. Subjects were from the same
school. More subjects from various regions are needed to have more accurate
description of their pronunciation difficulty. Longitudinal studies are also required to
find out the tendency and pattern of their pronunciation difficulty. In addition to the
word list of ten minimal pairs, different types of pronunciation test are necessary to
better understand the impact of environment on their pronunciation difficulty.
To conclude briefly, /l/ and /r/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters do cause
more trouble to Chinese students. /l/ sounds in the two-consonant clusters are more
difficult to articulate. There are six pronunciation problems instead of three
pronunciation problems. The target sounds in the coda two-consonant clusters are
harder to pronounce. Some knowledge of the articulatory features and distribution of
the target sounds, and syllable structures will help Chinese learners to have a clearer
picture of these sounds.
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