The Errors In Pronouncing Vowels And Consonants In Reading English Medical Text By The Second Year Students Of Stikes Bali
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ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 17.1 Oktober 2016: 75 - 80
The Errors In Pronouncing Vowels And Consonants In Reading English Medical Text By The Second Year Students Of Stikes Bali
I Dewa Ketut Sidanes1*, I Made Winaya2, Putu Ayu Asty Senja Pratiwi3 123English Department Faculty Of Arts, Udayana University 1[21simonpeqi@gmail.com] 2[made_winaya@unud.ac.id] 3[senja.dananjaya@yahoo.com]
Corresponding Author
Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi kekeliruan "error" dalam mengucapkan huruf vokal dan konsonan; dan menganalisa faktor atau penyebab kekeliruan "error" yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa tingkat II Sekolah Tinggi Kesehatan (STIKES) Bali dalam membaca teks kesehatan berbahasa Inggris. Pengumpulan data pada penelitian ini dilakukan melalui penelitian lapangan dalam bentuk rekaman suara. Data yang terkumpul dianalisis berdasarkan teori yang dikemukakan oleh Roach dan Richard; dan dianalisis secara deskriptif dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif dan teknik triangulasi. Pada penelitian ini ditemukan bahwa mahasiswa di tingkat II dari STIKES Bali cenderung melakukan kekeliruan "error" dalam mengucapkan huruf vokal /ə/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/, /i:/, /e/ dan /ɔ:/; dan konsonan /ʤ/, /θ/ dan /ʧ/. Kekeliruan "error" yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa tersebut disebabkan oleh pengaruh dari struktur bahasa ibu mereka. Selain faktor tersebut; faktor-faktor lain yang berkontribusi terhadap kekeliruan "error" yang dilakukan adalah kompetensi mahasiswa dalam pembelajaran bahasa Inggris seperti pengalaman mahasiswa pada struktur lain dalam bahasa Inggris, latar belakang bahasa mahasiswa, dan proses belajar dan / atau materi yang digunakan.
Kata Kunci: error, pengucapan, huruf vokal, konsonan
Vowel and consonant are the interesting objects to be analyzed since in pronouncing vowel and consonant even it in the same word and the same spelling such as the words ‘present’ /prɛzənt/ and ‘present’ /prɪzent/; the words thing /θɪŋ/ and this /ðɪs/, how to pronounce those words are different depending on the context. Thus, those phenomena become interesting to be taken for error analysis research as the result of this study.
The problems of the study can be formulated as follows:
-
1. What kinds of errors occurring in pronouncing vowels and consonants by
the second year students of STIKES Bali?
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2. What are the factors contributing to the errors?
The aims of this study can be formulated as follows:
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1. To identify the kinds of errors occurring in pronouncing vowels and consonants by the second year students of STIKES Bali.
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2. To explain the factors contributing to the errors made by the students.
The data used were the primary data taken from recording processes. There were ten voice recordings of the interview and ten in reading English medical text taken from ten of 251 students randomly in the second year as the samples. The samples were chosen randomly since the total of 251 students was a homogeneous population; that attended totally ten credits of English subject for two years or four semesters and they were in the same field.
The method used to collect the data was field research method and the data were collected by recording technique. It is in the form of voice recordings in reading English medical text and interview. Each of the students was given a different text and they read the text loudly and clearly; further, the students were interviewed.
The method used to analyze the data was the qualitative method and controlled with the triangulation technique. There were two stages taken in analyzing the data. The first stage was done to identify the kinds of errors occurring in pronouncing vowels and consonants in reading English medical text by the second year students of STIKES Bali using the theory proposed by Roach (1984: 10-35); and the second stage was done to explain the factors contributing to the errors made by the students using the theory proposed by Richard (1974: 174).
There were seventy-seven occurrences of errors in pronouncing vowels made by the students, and were classified into twelve vowel sounds: /ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/, /ə/ /i:/, /ɜ:/, /ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, and /u:/. From the seventy-seven errors, the students tended to produce errors in vowels /ə/ (thirteen times), /ɪ/ (eleven times), /ʌ/, and /i:/ (ten times) and vowels /e/ and /ɔ:/ (eight times). Those vowel sounds could be found in the words such as “difficulty” /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, “cause” /kɔːz/, “research” /rɪˈsəːʧ/. The examples of possible erros apart from the errors found that could be an error produced by the students were the words “culture” /kʌlʧə/, “door” /dɔː/. Seen that there is the letter “u” in the words “difficulty” and “culture”; they are differently pronounced even they have similar structure. However, there are the letters “au” in “cause” and the letters “oo” in “door”. Even they are physically different but they have the same pronunciation as /ɔː/.
|
No |
Classification (vowel) |
Occurrences |
|
1 |
/ɪ/ |
11 |
|
2 |
/e/ |
8 |
|
3 |
/æ/ |
2 |
|
4 |
/ʌ/ |
10 |
|
5 |
/ɒ/ |
1 |
|
6 |
/ʊ/ |
2 |
|
7 |
/ə/ |
13 |
|
8 |
/i:/ |
10 |
|
9 |
/ɜ:/ |
5 |
|
10 |
/ɑ:/ |
2 |
|
11 |
/ɔ:/ |
8 |
|
12 |
/u:/ |
5 |
Table of errors in pronouncing vowel
It was known that there were fifty-eight occurrences of error in pronouncing consonants made by the students, which could be classified into eight consonants: /θ/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/, /ð/, /ʤ/, , /d/, /s/, and /f/. From the fifty-eight errors , the students tended to
produce errors in consonants /ʤ/ (fifteen times), /θ/ (twelve times), and /ʧ/ (ten times). Those consonants were found in the words “conjunction” /kənˈʤʌŋkʃən/, “throat” /θrəʊt/, “children” /ʧɪldrən/, and etc. The examples of possible errors, the errors that could be produced by the students were in the words “schedule” /ʃɛdjuːl/, “rage” /reɪʤ/. There is letter “ch” in the words “children” and “schedule”; however, they are differently pronounced although they have the similar structure. There are the letter “j” in “conjunction” and the letter “g” in “rage”. Although they are physically different, they have the same pronunciation as /ʤ/. The possibility of errors might be occurring in the vowel sounds with the same articulation position known as homorgan. For the illustration, the consonant /ʃ/ is possibly pronounced as /s/ since it is produced in the same manner of articulation; as in the word “should /ʃʊd/” found in the analysis which was supposed to be pronounced as /ʃʊd/; however, it was pronounced as /sʊl/ by the student.
|
No |
Classification (vowel) |
Occurrences |
|
1 |
/θ/ |
12 |
|
2 |
/ʃ/ |
7 |
|
3 |
/ʧ/ |
10 |
|
4 |
/ð/ |
9 |
|
5 |
/ʤ/ |
15 |
|
6 |
/d/ |
3 |
|
7 |
/s/ |
1 |
|
8 |
/f/ |
1 |
Table of errors in pronouncing consonant
It is known that the use of the first language or mother tongue in the students’ daily lives can contribute to the error occurrences when they try to read or pronounce the English words. As an illustration, in the Indonesian structure as the students’ first language, the structure or consonant /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, and /ʧ/ cannot be found. Therefore; when the students faced an English word that consists of consonant /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, and /ʧ/,
they usually pronounce them as /d/, /t/, /s/, and /c/ as the influence of the structure in Indonesian.
The students found it difficult to pronounce an English word since the writing of an English word is sometimes different from the pronunciation. As an illustration, in the English word “dictionaries” which consist of letters “io”, the student got confused how to pronounce it whether it is pronounced as /ɪɒ/ or /ə/. When the students were confused with how the words were pronounced, they created strong structure based on their experience in the English structure. The students knew that the letters “u” in the words “but”, “up”, and etc. are pronounced as /ʌ/. However; when the students faced the new words with the same structure such as “push”, “during”, “put”, and etc. which also consist of letter “u” which is pronounced as /ʊ/, they usually pronounce it as /ʌ/.
The students usually find it difficult to pronounce the English words consisting of double letters such as “th” /θ/, “th” /ð/, “sh” /ʃ/, and “ch” /ʧ/. This situation resulted from the fact that the students did not find such structures of consonants in their first language. Therefore; when they were faced or pronounced the words consisting of those consonants, there were incomplete rules applied in their pronunciation. As an illustration, when they pronounced the word “thing” as /tɪŋ/ and did not pronounce as /θɪŋ/, such a mistake was regarded as an incomplete application of rules since they pronounced /t/ in their first language as the replacement for /θ/ in English. This situation was the contribution of the first language or mother tongue.
False Concepts Hypothesized
The occurrences of errors made by the students resulted from the student’s learning processes. The student’s less comprehension of the target language contributes to the possibility that students would produce an error while reading or pronouncing the English words. The items or materials used in the learning processes also contributed to
the students’ comprehension. For example; when the students practiced English vocabulary using a dictionary without any phonemic symbols or the instruction of how to pronounce the word, the students might get the meaning of the words but they did not understand how the word were pronounce.
The second year students of STIKES BALI still produced errors in pronouncing vowels and several consonants in English. The analysis shows that the students tended to produce the errors in pronouncing vowels /ə/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/, /i:/, /e/ and /ɔ:/; as far as consonants are concerned, the students tended to produce errors in /ʤ/, /θ/ and /ʧ/. The errors produced by the students resulted from the interference of the student’s first language and competence in learning English.
Hornby, A S. 2010. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
Pit Corder, Stephen. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguages. London: Oxford University Press.
Richards, Jack C. 1974. Errors Analysis: Perspective on Second Language Acquisition, London: Longman Ltd.
Roach, Peter. 1984. English Phonetics and Phonology. London: Cambridge University Press.
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