Morpho-Phonology Final Exam Paper - Sem IV
by Esther Deborah K. & Maura Michelle
A. Introduction
Phonology is the study of “how speech sounds form patterns” and also “refers both to the linguistic knowledge that speakers have about the sound patterns of their language and to the description of that knowledge” (Fromkin, Robert, and Hyams, p. 226). One of the language’s suprasegmental features is segment deletion. In this specific topic, segment deletion occurs in words with silent ‘t’, such as glisten, apostle, mortgage and christmas.
In this study, the researchers want to prove the hypothesis that Indonesian students who learn English pronounciations can also be influenced by their mother tongue—in this case, Bahasa Indonesia. In Bahasa Indonesia, there are no silent letters. This may cause Indonesians to make mistakes in pronouncing certain English words with silent letters, including silent ‘t’. Therefore, a research is needed to find out the answer.
The data that will be analyzed are the participants’ utterances of silent ‘t’ which is placed in the middle position of a word. The respondents are three students from English literature who have studied in English Literature Department for at least 2 years and have passed the classes of Conversation I & II (since there are no more Pronounciation course anymore in the new curriculum). The other three respondents are students outside the department who have already learned English. All of the respondents are bilingual speakers who speak Bahasa Indonesia and English. After collecting the datas from both parties, the researchers will compare their pronounciation and determine whether the research hypothesis is correct or not.
B. Discussion
Several steps are needed to carry out the research. First, the discussion will provide the explanation for silent letters and the theory of language interference. Second, the discussion will provide the reason why certain words with silent ‘t’ were chosen for this study by the researchers. Third, the discussion will show the collected datas from the respondents coming from the mentioned parties and compare them. Later, the collected datas will be analyzed—why the respondents pronounce the words so and finally concluded in the end.
Silent Letters in English Language
According to bbc.co.uk, silent letters are letters which cannot be heard when it is spoken. There are silent letters in some English words because over hundreds of years people have changed how we pronounce those words but kept the old spelling. The spelling tells how the word used to be pronounced: eg in medieval times, people used to sound out the letter k in the word knock.
“...Since the fifteenth century, the pronunciation of spoken English has undergone substantial changes. For example, although we no longer pronounce the initial “k” sound or the internal “gh” sound, we still include letters indicating the older pronunciation in our contemporary spelling of the word knight. These are sometimes called “silent letters.” They also violate the one-sound-one-symbol principle, but not with as much effect as the “silent” final -e of so many English words. Not only do we have to learn that this letter is not pronounced, we also have to know the patterns of influence it has on the preceding vowel, as in the different pronunciations of “a” in the pair hat/hate and “o” in not/note..” (Yule, p.219)
Here are some examples of the silent letters that exist in English:
B - climb, comb, plumber
H - choir, exhaust, ghost, heir, hour, khaki,thyme
S - aisle, bourgeois, debris, island, isle
T - asthma, castle, listen, soften
Language Interference
One can clearly see that through these silent letters, English greatly differs from Bahasa Indonesia. It is considered as a difficult language to master when the speaker did not acquire it as his second language since his early age. Indonesian speakers sometimes have difficulties in pronouncing silent letters because here are no such thing as silent letters in Bahasa Indonesia because all the sounds are pronounced. Although all of the respondents are also English speakers, they may be not considered as fully bilingual. In this case, they are predicted to be subordinate bilingual speakers because the interference from their first language will affect their phonetics.
“Bilingualism differs in character. In correlative bilingualism both language systems exist together in the individual’s mind and are independent of one another. When the individual has good command of the two languages there is no interference. In the case of subordinate bilingualism, the second language is not mastered to the degree the first language is. Here, mother tongue dominates and influences the second language leading to interference… Phonetic interference affects the improper pronunciation of phonetic sounds in the second language caused by the existence of different phonetic structures from the point of view of the mother tongue or the first foreign language.”
(Lekova, p. 321)
Research & Findings
The following is the list of chosen words with silent ‘t’: glisten, apostle, mortgage and christmas. The given words were chosen for they have different environments from each other. In the word glisten, the silent ‘t’ is placed between the consonant / s / and then followed by the vowel / e /. In the word apostle, the silent ‘t’ is placed in a three-consonantal cluster, which are “-stl”. In mortgage, the silent ‘t’ exists in a three-consonantal clusters again, namely “-rtg”. For the last word, christmas, the silent ‘t’ also appears in a three – consonantal cluster, which are “-stm”. By looking at the environments around the silent ‘t’, it can be predicted that words with unusual clusters such in apostle and mortgage will likely be mispronounced because it is not commonly used in daily conversation.
The table below will provide the words with silent ‘t’ with its correct pronunciation from Oxford dictionary and the collected data from the respondents’ pronunciation.
Based on the data above, there are several findings that will be analyzed. The percentage in the next paragraph will show how many respondents were correct in pronouncing the silent letter ‘t’ in each word ( 100% is equal to 6 people for each word ). The percentage will not include other mispronunciation from the words above (such as the pronunciation of [dʒ] into [g] in mortgage).
1. Pronunciation of silent ‘t’ in the word ‘glisten’
4 out of 6 respondents pronounced the word correctly (66,67 %). These 4 respondents consists of 3 students from English Literature and 1 non-English Literature student. The other 2 respondents, Y2 and Y3 (who are not students of English Literature), mispronounced the silent ‘t’.
There are several interesting findings from their mispronunciation. Firstly, Y2’s mispronunciation of silent ‘t’, shows a phenomenon of segment insertion or epinthesis, the process of inserting a consonant or vowel (Fromkin, Robert, and Hyams, p. 247). Secondly, Y3 also replaced the silent ‘t’ by inserting the sound ‘k’ although people commonly mispronounce the silent ‘t’ into [t]. The sound ‘t’ is a voiceless alveolar stop and ‘k’ is a voiceless velar stop. The sound ‘t’ and ‘k’ share the same features. Both consonants are voiceless and stops. That is the reason why Y3 pronounced ‘k’ instead of ‘t’. Although Y2 and Y3 speak English, they did not pronounce the silent letter ‘t’ correctly.
2. Pronunciation of silent ‘t’ in the word ‘apostle’ In the word ‘apostle’, only 16,67% of the respondents pronounced it correctly. It is only correctly pronounced by X1, a student of English Literature. The rest of the respondents (5 people) pronounced the ‘t’ aloud. The word underwent a segment insertion again as shown in Y2’s case in the number above when it is pronounced by these 5 people.
Besides the occurrence of segment deletion, another phenomenon showed up. This phenomenon is called as metathesis. It is the phonological process that reorders segments, often by transposing two sequential sounds: e.g., the pronunciation of ask /æsk/ in some English dialects as [æks] (Fromkin, Robert, and Hyams, p. 571). In this case, the metathesis happens because it is presumed that the respondents may thought that the pronunciation of ‘apostle’ (/əˈpɒs(ə)l/) is the same as the pronunciation of the word ‘bottle’ (/ˈbɒt(ə)l/), whereas the ‘t’ is spoken aloud before [e] and [l].
3. Pronunciation of silent ‘t’ in the word ‘mortgage’
1 respondent from English Literature and 1 respondent from outside English Literature correctly pronounced the word (2 out of 6 respondents: 33,33%). The rest of the respondents (4 people) read aloud the ‘t’, performing the segment insertion again.
4. Pronunciation of silent ‘t’ in the word ‘christmas’ All of the respondents pronounced the word correctly by 100% because it is commonly used in everyday conversation, unlike the word ‘apostle’ or ‘mortgage’ which refers to theological terms and accounting vocabularies.
C. Conclusion
From the findings above, it can be seen that English Literature students who study
English as their second language are still influenced by their mother tongue—Bahasa Indonesia and mispronounced words with the silent ‘t’. They mispronounced silent ‘t’ by making a segment insertion of [t]. One respondent, Y3, also replaced [t] with [k] because both sounds share the features. The respondents also mispronounced silent ‘t’ by performing metathesis. The mispronunciation is also affected by the particular environment that surrounds the silent ‘t’ in the given words. Words which are not commonly used, such as ‘apostle’ and ‘mortgage’ are mostly pronounced incorrectly. 66% of the English Literature students’ pronunciation of silent ‘t’ is incorrect like the mispronunciation of other students who are outside the English Literature department.
Thus, it can be concluded that these English Literature respondents are not purely bilingual speakers, but subordinate bilingual speakers. Their second language is not mastered like the first language, as quoted by B. Lekova previously. Instead, the first language—namely Bahasa Indonesia—dominates and interferes with the speakers’ second language, which is English.
References
Fromkin, Victoria. (2013) An Introduction to Language. New York, New York: Michael Rosenberg.
Yule, George (2010) The Study of Language. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lekova, B. (2010). Language Interference And Methods Of Its Overcoming In Foreign Language Teaching. Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 8 (2010) , Suppl. 3, pp. 320-324. 5.
Special Notes for Readers:
Hello readers! If you are looking for examples of phonology papers, please take notice that this paper still needs several detail explanations on several things. So my tips for you is to double-check the datas which you are unsure of, like "does segment deletion really belong to suprasegmental features?" or about those kind of stuffs.
By the way, I'm super happy to be able to finish this paper, because... well, I gotta admit linguistics is not my thing. Literature is. But anyways, I'm grateful to know that I'm not quite allergic to this subject because I was able to understand what I'm writing, even though I finished the paper 2 hours before the deadline. So, I hope this paper helps your research, or at least give an example how the layout will be like. Ciao!
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