ENGLISH PRONOUNCIATION ERRORS OF

ENGLISH’ STUDENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

Languade is a mean of communication used by human being to

communicate with other poeople. It can be either spoken or written. And without
language, it is difficult to get information because it enables human being to talk
and express their thought and ideas.

There are so many languages in the world which is used by people. Every
nation has its own language. Even, one nation has more than one of languages.
Some countries such as the United States of America, Australia, England, Ireland
use English as their national language and some countries like Singapore,
Malaysia, and India use it as their second language.

English plays a very important rule, since it used for international

communication, and international purposes. Most of people use it to get
information from other countries

Indonesia uses English as the first foreign language. Most people find
difficulties in studying English because it different both written and orraly from
Bahasa Indonesia. English is the first language of computer and the newest
technology. So, it would be difficult for us to follow the development and the
change without mastering English.

Now, there is a lot of English Departement in Indonesia. But, most of the

students of it still make some mistakes in their pronounciation of English word.
They even do not know whether their English pronounciation is correct or not.
Acctualy, now there are so many programs which can be used to learn about the
pronounciation of English word.

So, the writer has choosen this topic for some reasons;
 1) The writer wants to analyze the English pronounciation of English’s
students, in this case, the students who still mispronounced some words in
English, because they are influenced by their mother tongue.

2) The writer wants to investigate the general erors of thier pronounciation

because it is very important for us to know about how to pronounce the word
in English correctly.

3) Furthermore, we are English students who should know how to pronounce

correctly.

The problem in this essay is formulated as follows: “What pronounciation

errors are made be English’s students?” In order to approach the problem
systematically, the statements above are formulated into the following sub
statements of the problem:

1) What is the basic conceptual knowledge that related with pronounciation

errors?

2) What pronounciation errors are made by students?

3) Why do the students of English Departement still made a mistake about their
pronounciation?

So, this essay is aimed at investigating pronouciation errors and at offering

the possible suggestions to overcome the problem. And, in this essay, the writer
wants to devide the object into the following sub objectives:

1) To describe the conceptional knowledge of pronounciation errors.

2) To analyze the pronounciation errors made be students.

II. REVIEW RELATED LITERATURE

 Many people who learn foreign languages will difficulties to utter the words
of the target language. When a baby starts to talk, he does it by listening to the
sound the target language of his mother and he will imitate his mother
automatically.

Indonesia has many provinces and each of them has its own regiaonal
dialects. Indonesian people who study English do not relize that their English
pronounciation is still influenced by their mother tongue. In speaking, language
cannot be seperated from its pronounciation.

When Indonesian people speak foreogn language they will face difficulties
in pronouncing words since they have been speaking their mother tongue for
years. According to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary (1985:762),
pronountiation is way a person speaks the word of language.

While according to Longman Dictioanary of Contemporary English

(1987:830), pronounciation is a particular person’s way of pronouncing words or
language. And, according to Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary Third
Edition, pronounciation is how word is pronounced.

So, I can make a summery about the meaning of pronounciation. In my

oppinion, pronounciation is the way of people to pronounce a word or language
when they are speaking.

But, there are problems when someone learns a foreeign language. One of
the problems is how to pronounce the foreign woeds in the right way so the other
person understands what they mean. Bahasa Indonesia is different from English,
almost in every word, orally and written. For that reason, many people find it
difficult to learn English though they have been learning English for years at
school.

Language teaching has also contributed to and profited from phonetic and
phonlogy. Many works on English phonetic and phnology have been written for
the benefit of foreign learners, for example. The fact that English spelling is not a
direct reflection of pronounciation has undoubtly been an important factor here
and has led the publication of pronouncing dictionaries and other guides to
pronounciation, both for native speaker English dictioanries to includes some kind
of transcription or guide to the pronounciaton of each word.

Ramelan (1994:4) states that if someone wants to learn a foreign language,

he will do obvously meet with all kind of learning problems. These difficulties
have to do with the learning of the new sound system, the learning of the new
vocabulary items and the learning of the unfamiliar way of arranging the foreign
words into sentences.

Children ussualy play at what they are learning at that time. They give
enormous task of learning languages. It is not suprising that young children
practice talk constantly, while playing with toys, or by simply talking to
themeselves. One could say that the prediction for engagaging in such activities is
also proof that children have their own inborn strategies for learning.

Ramelan (2008:8) in his book English Phonetics, points out some

pronounciation problems, they are:

1). Concerned with the identification of the foreign sounds

This means that the learners of language has to remamber their acoustic
qualities so that he or she will be be able to dirctly identify them in an utterence.
An Indonesian student, for instance, should be able to remember the acoustic
quality of English vowel /æ/ as found in the word men an to identity it in a
connected speech so as to keep it distinct from a similar vowel as ffound in the
word man. This is a matter of ear training which means that his ears must be
trained and drilled in hearing the sound in question again and again till they get
familiar with and can remember its acoustic quality.

2). The production of the foreign sounds by hid organs of speech

Ability in hearing and identifying the acousitc quality of the foreign sounds
is prerequisite for the ability in producing them. Without having heard the quality
of a given sound before, one cannot be expeted to pronounce it; when he has
heard the sound produced by someone else; he may able to produce it by himself
by imitating the speaker. Thes is a matter of training to move the speech organs,
or also called mouth gumnastic which should be practiced over and over again

3). Ability in identifyng and producing the foreign sounds

This mean that it is not only involves sounds in isolating, but also sounds
occuring in connected speech. The learners should be able to catenate sounds, that
is, to join each sound in sequence to the next sounds without difficulty or
strumbling.

4). Concernd with the production of supra segmental features like stress, length,
ptich, and intonation.

It is quite obvious that the learners cannot overlock the kinds of features
because they are almos always different in each language. Someone may be able
to produce the fireign sound, but if the stress patterns or the intonatian patterns of
his own mother tongue are transferred to the foreign language, their speech will be
stamped as ‘foreign’by the native speaker.

In speaking a language, there are some organs which play important roles to
produce sounds. Ramelan (1999:17) states that in speaking a language we use
speech sound as the signals to convey messeage. Speech sounds are sounds
produced by the speech or oral vocal organs, which include the mouth and the
respiratory organs

We begin with a general functional overview of process of speech

production. The vocal apparatus can be viewed as a kind of mechanism. It has
measureable dimensions, such as the distance from the larynx to the lips; it has
moving parts, such as the tongue, and so on.

Speech organs can be subdivided into three parts and each of them has its
finction, they are:
 1) The initiator is the speec organ that sets the air into motion for the
production of the speech sounds; the main initiator is the lungs, because most
speech sounds are produced by pulmanic air. There may be other speech
organs that can be used ti initiate the movement of the air such as the tongue
and the larynx.

2) The phonator referd to the vocal cords in the larynx, which is used
produced speech sounds called “voice”.

3) The ariculator is useful to obsrtuct the out- going air in the production of
speech sounds.

At least, we should master the general mechanism of moving those speech

organs mentioned from the page before, so that we can pronounce the intended
sounds correcly. The production of English words will be easily learned if we are
familiar with the ways of production and have much practice in moving our
articulators for the production of those sounds.

The term Organ of Speech refers to all those parts of the human body
which are concerned in various ways the production of speech. Most of them are
only secondarily cioncerned with soeech production; their primary functions
being to do eatin, chewwing, anda swallowing the food, and respiraton.

The organs of speech are all bodily structure composed by a variety of

tissues types (such as bone, cartilage and skin) which are specific to their
biological function.

It is very important to discuss the speech organs because they show us

how the sounds are produced.

The function of speech organs are explained as follows;

1) The pharynx is tube which begins just above the larynx. Its top-end
devided into two, one part being the back of the mouth and the other being
the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity.
 2) The velum or soft palate is the organ that allows air to pass through the
nose and through the mouth. The other important thing about the velum is
that it is one of the articulators that can be touched by the tongue when we
make the sounds K and G, the tongue is in contact with the lower side of the
velum and we call these velar consonants.

3) The hard palate is often called the “roof of the mouth”. We can feel its
smooth curved surface with our tounge.

4) The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. Its
surface ais really much rougher than it feels and it is covered with little
ridges.

5) The tongue is of course a very important articulator and it can be moved

into many different shapes.

6) The teeth (upper and lower) are usually shown in diagrams only at the
front of the mouth, immeditely behind the lips. The toungue is contact with
the upper side teeth for many speech sounds. Sound made with the contact
touching the front of teeth are called dental.

7) Lips are important in speech. They can be pressed togather brought in

contact with the teeth or rounded to produce the lip shape for vowels like U.

Then, we will continue to the speech sounds. As we know that speech

sounds are devided into two great classes nemely vowels and consonants. This is
the calssification based on the differnces in their functions in an utterance and in
heir ways of production. First, there is vowel sounds. All vowels are principally
produced by vibration of the vocal cords, which are situated in the larynx. This
sound, which is known as ‘voice’ in phonetic, is then modified byh the various
shapes and resizes of the speech organs above the larynx. And the second is
diphthong. At the first sight, diophthong seem to be another of two phonetic
segments functioning ans one. A diophthong is a vowel sound in which there is an
intentional glide is made from ome vowel position to another vowe position and
which is prouced in one impulse of breath. Then, we go on to consonant
sound.According to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, consonant is a speech
sound produced by completely or partily stopping the air being breathed out
through the mouth. The way of producing consonant is characterized mainly by
some obstruction above the larynx, especially in the mouth cavaty. The wide
variety of consonsnts that may be produced by a speaker is dependent upon the
place and the manner of obstructing the outgoing air, the speech organs that are
used to obsrtuct the out going air are called articulators.

Learning a foreign language means learning the vocabulary items, rules of

strutures, sound systems, and other aspects of language which are different from
those of mother tongue. The difficulties in learning a foreign language can cause
the learner to make errors and it is very common to happen among the language
learner. The error they make maybe in vocabulary, structure, pronounciation, and
spelling which are known as the language components.

The errors made by the language learner, as stated by Brown (1994:1996)

arise from several possible general causes or sources: interlingual errors or the
interference comes from the native language, intra lingual errors within the target
language, sociolinguistics context of communication, psychonlinguistics or
cognitive strategies and no doubt countless affective variables.

The most important source related to pronounciation errors is the

interlingual source. This source of errors is basically caused by first language
interference. When the language learners learn a new language, they will get
difficulties in producing the foreign sounds. Their habit of moving the speech
organs has been set to produce the sounds in their native language. When sound
systems of the native language and those of the targt language are different, the
difficulties arise and it will cause pronounciation errors.

People are sometimes confused about mistakes and error. Some of them that
mistake and error are different and some others considers that they are the same.
In fact, error and mistake are different. Some liguist explain about the distinction
between error and mistake. Ellis (1997:17) states, wew need to distinguish errors
and mistakes. Error reflect gaps in learner’s knowledge; they occur because the
learner doesn not know what is correct. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in
performance; they occur becausein a particular instance, the learner is unable to
perform what he or she knows.

Brown (1994:165) states that error is noticeable deviation from the adult
grammar of native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of learner.
And, mistakes are not the result of a deficiency in comoetnce but the result of
some sort of breakdown or imperfection in the process of producing speech.
Native speakers are normally capabel of recognizing and correcting mistakes.

So, it is clear that the error and mistake are different. Errors in
pronounciation occur when someone incorectly pronounces a word because of
their lack knowledge about the theory or the way of how the word is supposed to
be pronounced. On the other hand, pronouniation mistake happens when someone
incorrectly pronounces word, just because he is slipping up, while he has acctualy
known how to pronouce it correctly.

III. METHODOLOGY

Method of data investigation is defined as a procedure to collect and analyze

the data. Language research method is related to the aim of language analysis that
is to collect and ato analyze the data, and to find out the phenomenon of the target
language.

In conducting the essay the writer used descriptive anaysis to get the main
purpose of the essay.

First, because the subjects of the research are the students of English
Departement so I did research at campus when the students had a lacture. I tried to
observe if there were a group of students had conversiatiotn or maybe just a little
discussion. I also did the research in class in which used English more like,
speaking class, TEFL, Language Testing, drama, etc. I chose the time and the
subjects because it to make easier to observe the erorr pronounciation.

Then method of data collection in this essay is important to get accurate data
to support the investigationof this final project. There are several steps in
collecting data; first, I chose the time of research. Then, I the place for the
reaearch and start observe word by word which are said by the students.

To provide the required data and information, the writer conducted library
activity and field activity. Library activity refers to the activities of usng library
facilities as a source of getting theoretical foundation. The theorotical foundation
were obtained through reading books related to the subject matters which support
and strengtenth the writer’s ideas of this essay.

The field activity is conducted to get data in marking the analysis of the
stated problem. The writer observed some convesiation or class activity of
students. Then, their convesiation were analyzed appropriately to classify the
words into form of function and content word.

After the data had been collected, the writer made an analysis based on
students’ conversiation. In the analyzing data, the writer used qualitative method
with descriptive analysis because the writer would like to describe the anlaysis of
the data using sentences to get conclusion.

The procedure of anlayzing the data were as follow;

1) Transcribing the convesiation into phonetic transcription.

2) Matching those words to the list in the Oxford Advances Learener

Dictioanry.

3) Classifying the words into three main classes:diphthong, consonant and

vowel.
 4) Drawing conclusion.

IV. DISCUSSION

Now, the writer will analyze the pronounciation errors produced by the
students who having conversiastion in campus. The writer found a lot of errors in
both vowel sounds.

1) With; some of students still made a vowel error when they said word with.
They pronouced it as [wi:t] as found in the word see [si:], while according to
the Oxford Advances Learener Dictioanry, phonetic trasncription of with is
[wIƟ]. The vowel [I] is an unrounded half close to close front vowel, in
producting [I] the front of the tongue is raised; the raising is somewhat
retracted so that is not really a front vowel but between a front and central
vowel. While the vowel [i:] is produced by raising the front of the tongue
almost to the close position. The lips position is unrounded or spread, it mey
even natural.

2) Hello; the pronounciation error in producing the word hello was made by
Dictioanry the right pronounciation of that woord is [hƏ’lƏu]. The vowel [Ə]
is urrounded half open to close central vowel. In pronoouncing, the central
part of the tongue is raised, it is raised to the half open position, or even
lower.

3) Morning; the word morning was pronounced as [mourni:ng]. But, based

on Oxford Advances Learener Dictioanry, the right pronouciation is
[ˈmɔː.nɪŋ]. The process of producing it is by raising some part of the tongue
between the back and the center to the point between half close and half open
position.

4) Marvelous; many of students were absolutly wrong to pronounce this word

by [‘mɅrvƏlƏs]. Based on the Oxford Dictionary, the rigth phonetic
transcripiton is [ˈmɑːvələs]. The vowel [Ʌ] is unrounded half open centro
back. In producing it some part between the front and back of tongue, almost
the central part of the tongue, is raised. While the [ɑː] is urounded open back
vowel, which is produced by raising the back of the tongue. The raising is
somewhat advanced from the real back position.

5) Dictionary the phonetic transcript is [tƏ]. The vowel [Ə] is an unrounded

half open to close central vowel which is produced by raising the central part
of the tongue, it is raised to the half open position, or even lower. The
position of lips spread or neurtral and the opening between the jaws is
medium.

6) From; based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic transcription of this word

is [frƏm]. But in case, there are some of students pronouced with [frɔ:m].
Actually it may be pronounced in a weak from as [frƏm] because it is applied
in connected speech. The vowel [Ə] is an unrounded half open to half close
central vowel which is produced by raising the central part of the tongue, it is
raised to the half open position, or even lower. The position of the lips is
spread or neutral and the opening between the jaws is medium. While the [ɔ:]
is a rounded close back vowel, which is produced by raising the back of the
tongue slightly in almost near the fully open position, thus tongue is very low
in the mouth.

7) Type; in this case there are students who pronounsed the word type [tɛp].
Based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic transcription is represented [aI]. So
the transcription should be [ taIp ]. The vowel [ɛ] is an unrounded half close
to half open front vowel. In producing it, the front of the tongue is raised to a
point of half way between half open and half close poaition. While diphthong
[aI], is a font-front closing full diphthong. The articulatory description in
producing that vowel is, first, the front of the tongue is very slightly raised for
the first element of the diphthong [aI], which is front vowel with a position in
between [æ] and [α:]. Then, the tongue moves to a closer position as if to
prodroduce [I] vowel sound, though this position is nomally not reached. The
lips are apart and gradually closing.

8) Mature; the students made en error in producing the word mature with
[mɛtʊər], while according the Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic transcription
of this word is [məˈtjʊər]. The vowel [ə] is an unrounded hal open to half
close central vowel. In pronouncing, the central part of the tounge is raised. It
is raised to the half open posotion, or even lower. The lips is spread or neutral
and the opening between jaws is medium. While the vowel [ɛ] is an
unrounded half close open front vowel. In produsing it, the front of the
tongue is raised the half open and half close position. The lips position is
spread or neutral. The opening between the jaws is medium, a bit wider than
for [I].

9) About; based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic transcription of this word

is [əˈbaʊt]. But some of students wrongly pronounced that word with [ə’bɒt].
The diphthong [aʊ] is a back back closing full diphthong. When we are
producing it, the front part of the bak of the tongue is slightly raised for the
first element of the diphthong [aʊ]. This vowel is more backed than the
diphthong [aI]. Then, the tongue moves in the direction of [u], though it never
reaches it. The lips start at the neutral position, and are gradually rounded.
The [ɒ] is a pure vowel. It is a rounded open back vowel. For the production
of that vowel, the back of the tongue is so slightly raised thath is almost near
the fully open position; thus the tongue is very low in the mouth. The lips are
slightly rounded, but not produced and the jaws are rather wide apart.

10) Request; there are some studnets who pronounced it as [rɛ’kwest].

But acctually, based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic transcription of this
word is [rI’kwest]. The vowel [ɛ] is an unrounded half close to half open
front vowel. In producing [ɛ] the frotn of the tongue is raised to a point half
way between the half open and half close posittion. The lip position is spread
or neutral. The opening between the jaws is medium, a bit wider than for [I].
 The vowel [I] is an unrounded half close to close front vowel. In producing
[I] the front of the tongue is raised, the raising is somewhat retracted so that it
is not really a front vowel, but between a front and central vowel, the tongue
is raised to a point slightly above the half close position, the tongue position
is clearly lower than that [i:]

The writer also found some errors in producing the words dealing with
consonant sounds which were made by some students. The writer analyzed the
pronounciation errors in four representative words one by one in descrptive
analysis.

1) With; in some conversiation, there are some students made error when
pronounced this word with [wi:t], but in this case the writer especially
analyzed in consonant side. Based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic
transcription of with is [wIƟ]. So, we can see the differences between them.
For the first transcription, the word is ended with [t], but in the second
trascription the end of the word is [Ɵ]. Consonant [t] belongs to plosive
consonant, and the definition of it is a voiceless alveolar stop. The
articulatory definition of [t] is elaborate below: The outgoing air is
completely blocked by putting the tip the tongue into close contact with the
teeth ridge. The soft palate is raised to close off the nasal cavaty, so that no
air passes out through the nose. The vocal cords do not vibrae during the
stoppage; when the tip of the tongue is suddenly drawn away from teeth ridge
the air escapes with a plosive sound; this voiceless stop is aspirated in
strongly stresse syllables and unaspirated in weekly stressed syllables. And
the definitioon of [Ɵ] is defined as a voiceless dental fricative. In producing
it, the tip of the tongue is put very close to the upper teeth forming a narrow
passage through which the air stream escapes with an audible friction. The
soft palate is raised to close off the nasal passage. The vocal cords are not
vibrating. An error in pronouncing the Javanese [t] instead of the English [Ɵ]
is a wrong in manner of articulation.
2) Arms; the word arms based on Oxford Dictionary contains the ficative
consonant [z], [ɑːmz]. But, some students still pronouonced it as [ɑːms],
which ended with consonant [s]. Consonant [z] is a voiced blade alveolar
fricative. The articulatory description of consonant [z] is the blade of tongue
is very close to the teeth ridge, thus forming a very narrow passage so that the
outgoing air causes an audible frictional sound to be heard. The vocal cords
rare made to vibrate. The soft palate is raised so that no aie goes out od the
nose and the lips are spread. Meanwhile [s] is defined as voiceless blade
alveolar fricative. In producing the consonant [s], the blade or the tip of the
tongue is raised very closed to the teeth ridge, almost touching it, to form an
extremely narrow passage, through which the outgoing air escapes with a
frictional sound. The soft palate is raised so as to close off the nasal passage.
The vocal cords are not vibrating and the lips are spread, not rounded.

3) Featuring; the word featuring was pronounced as [‘fi: tərIng]. According

the Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic right transcription is [ˈfiː.tʃərIng].
Consonat [t] belongs to plosive consonants, and the devinition of it is
avoiceless alveolar stop. The articulaory definition of [t] is elaborated below:
The outgoing air is comppletely blocked by putting the tip of the tongue into
close contact with the teeth ridge. The soft palate is raised to closed do not
vibrate during the stoppage. When the tip of the tongue is suddenly drawn
away from the teeth ridge the air escapes with a plosive sound. This vocieless
stop is aspirated in strongly stressed syllables and unaspirated in weakly
stressed syllable. While [tʃ] is a voiceless palato alveolar affricate. In
producing [tʃ] the air passage is completely blocked up by the tip of the
tongue while touching the back part of the teeth ridge, which is slightly more
backed than for [t] in take [teIk]. At the same time the main body of the
tongue is approximately in the position for [ʃ], The lips are slightly rounded.
The soft palate is raised and the vocal cords are not vobrating.

4) Birthday; there are some of the students pronounced the word bitrhday as
[‘bɛ:sdeI]. But, based on Oxford Dictionary, the phonetic right transcription
 is [ˈbɜːθ.deɪ] which use consonant [θ]. The two consosants are different in
eevery aspect, even in manner of articulation or in the production. Consonant
[s] is a voiceless blade alveolar fricative. In producing the consonant [s], the
bladeof the tongue or the tip and the blade of the tounge are rised very closed
to the teeth ridge, almost touching I, to form an extremely narrow passage,
the through which the out going air escapes with a frictional sound. The soft
palate is raised so as to close off nasal passage. The vocal cords are mede to
vibrate and the lips are spread, not tounded. [θ] is devened as voiceless
dental fricative. In producing it, the tip of the tongue is put very close to the
upper teth forming narrow passage through which the air stream escapes with
an audeible friction. The soft palate is raised to close off the nasal passage.
The vocal cords are not vibrating.

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

After analyzing the the pronounciation errors made by some of the students,
the writer can conclude are follows :

1) Basically many of students do not really understand about the theory of

pronounciation in details as the basic conceptual knowledge that
contains a lot of information about how to pronounce the correct English
words. They also do not use English as their daily conversation and
maybe they never practice a lot of and look up each the word they do not
know in a dicionary. So, they can not pronounce English word well.

2) The students do not only have pronounciation errors in vowel or

consonants but also in diphthongs.

3) The errors actually are not only caused the students’ knowledge but also
because of their dialect. And here, they can be said that they did a
pronounciation mistake.
VI. REFERENCES

Best, J W. 1981. Research in Education.New Jersey: prentice Hall Inc

Longman Group UK Limited.1987. Longman Dictionary of Contemporal

English.Great Britain: British Library Cataloguing.

Oxford. 1995. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. New York: Oxford

University Press

Ramelan. 1985. Intriducton Linguistic. Semarang: CV IKIP Semaerang Press

Ramelan. 1994. English Phonetic. Semarang: CV IKIP Semarang Press