Vowel Articulation Problems in an English Second Language Learner
1. Introduction
This paper will break down a series of vowel articulation problems that an English second language (ESL) learner faces have when his or her native language is Spanish (It is necessary to clarify the native language of the learner since vowel articulation problems and the environments in which they occur may vary from one ESL learner to another one depending on their mother tongue).
It is completely significant in terms of successful communication that an ESL learner may produce and articulate English vowels as accurate as possible, taking into account, the fact that the mispronunciation of a single vowel can change the meaning of the word that the speaker is
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There are several reasons that may affect ESL learners’ production of English vowels such as: the hypothesis that a critical period exists for speech learning, and because of this hypothesis, it is believed that most if not all individuals who learn a second language (L2) after the age of fifteen years will speak it with a detectable foreign accent. To prove this theory about detectable foreign accent a study was made by (Flege, J E, Bohn, O, and Jang, S, 1997. Effects of Experience on Non-Native Speakers’ Production and Perception of English Vowels, P, 2.) This study assessed the effect of English-language experience on non- native speakers’ production and perception of English vowels. Twenty speakers each of German, Spanish, Mandarin, and Korean, as well as a control group of ten native English (NE) speakers, participated. The non-native subjects who were first exposed intensively to English when they arrived in the United States (mean age 25 years). The 90 subjects’ accuracy in producing English was assessed by having native English-speaking listeners attempt to identify which vowels had been spoken, and through acoustic measurements. The same subjects also identified the vowels in minimal pairs such as: beat-bit (/i/-/ɪ/) and bat-bet (/æ/-/ɛ/) continua. The experienced non-native subjects produced and perceived English vowels more accurately than did the …show more content…
Consequently, in this case, the learners will perceive the difference of these sounds and will try to create new categories to fill the gaps of the new vowels. All these new categories that Spanish speakers utter in their trying to fill the gaps of the new vowel sounds may merge in different phenomena such as: interlanguage, vowel transfer, and the use of spelling forms which is the most common process in the subject of my study since his L1 takes as spelling patterns for its phonetic sounds the spelling forms of the
Often, the language spoken by Northern Spaniards sounds identical to the language spoken by Southern Spaniards. However, the northerners speak with the “the emission of the consonants ‘d’ and ‘r’, the aspiration of the consonant ‘s’ at the end of words, and the dropping of final consonants”, whereas southerners do not. (Khodorkovsky, 2008) Again, both types a Spaniards are conveying a message when speaking. Likewise, Americans have differing dialect. The way someone from the West coast speaks contrasts the way someone from the East coast speaks. But yet again, both people are conveying a message when speaking. Although their verbal communication may sound different, Hispanic and American culture’s are still accomplishing the same goal. There are also many similarities and differences in each culture’s nonverbal communication
Giannakopoulou, A., Uther, M., & Ylinen, S. (2013). Enhanced plasticity in spoken language acquisitiopn for child learners: Evidence from phonetic training studies in child and adult learners of english. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 29(2), 201-218. doi: 10.1177/0265659012467473
First, the speakers of this language often use gestures in their conversations with others (USRA, 2010). It is a weakness because not many people are familiar or comfortable with the pattern and, therefore, many people find it difficult to communicate with Hispanic Americans. Secondly, the normal range of their voice pitch is normally narrow, and many usually mistake this for shyness. The pattern of this language always makes the Hispanic Americans believe that others like European Americans are arrogant because they speak loudly, and their voice pitch is not as narrow as the Hispanic Americans. The pattern of communication has made this particular group of people believe that others especially the European Americans are yelling at them and it often make them not comfortable in their conversation with other people who are not Hispanic Americans.
This research is intended to analyze the transcript of a child’s speech. The target child is a female named Majorie who is 2 years and 3 months old. The transcript is from The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. The linguistic aspects that will be examined are the phonological processes of the child including speech errors, syllable shapes, and her phonetic inventory consisting of manner and place of articulation. Included in the analysis will be her stage and development of lexical knowledge and what words she uses.
Speech Language Pathology helps solve or improve situations with language and speech. Some of the things that works are: articulation, fluency, and oral motor disorders. In the articulation disorders we can found: the difficulties in producing sound and the correct pronunciation of words. In the other hand the fluency and the oral motor disorders we found di...
After Lenneberg's (1967) advanced analyses and interpretation of critical period in regards to first language acquisition, many researchers began to relate and study age issue in second language acquisition. In this area of study, Johnson and Newport (1989) is among the most prominent and leading studies which tries to seek evidence to test the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) in second language (L2) acquisition. This study aims to find identifying answers to the question of age-related effects on the proficiency for languages learned prior the puberty.
Languages are continually changing and developing, and these changes occur in many different ways and for a variety of reasons. Language change is detectable to some extent in all languages, and ‘similar paths of change’ can be recognised in numerous unrelated languages (Bybee, 2015, p. 139). Since users of language all over the world have ‘the same mental processes’ and ‘use communication for the same or very similar ends’ (Bybee, 2015, p. 1), similar changes occur on the same linguistic aspects, and in many cases these changes produce similar results in multiple languages. However, language change is limited by the function it performs. Languages must be learnt to such an extent which allows communication between the generation above and below one’s own (McMahon, 1994, p. 5). Hence language change is a gradual, lethargic process, as only small changes in
Children with hearing loss develop speech slower than children who are hearing. Speech development can be broken down into intelligibility, noun production, and consonant production. Children who are hard of hearing are capable of developing speech with little errors in intelligibility, noun production, and consonant production, but the more minor the hearing loss, the less likely it is to be caught, so intelligibility does not become strong until on average age 7 (Yoshinaga-Itano, C., & Sedey, A., 1998). The difference between these children and children who are deaf are not in the types of errors made, but in the amount of errors. Deaf children have a more nasal speech, often substitute consonants like b for p and d for t, and have trouble pronouncing diphthongs like the “ou” sound. Studies have shown improving linguistics improves intelligibility meaning the more the child understands the rules of the language, the stronger his or her comprehensibility will be (Yoshinaga-Itano, C., & Sedey, A., 1998).
Spanish and English may both be widely spoken languages, however English is becoming more and more prevalent as a second language. For this project I interviewed an acquaintance who speaks Spanish as a first language and English as a second language. Spanish and English are similar in aspects such as grammar (in that they are both SVO—subject, verb, object—languages) and vocabulary (since both were influenced by Latin) (Shoebottom n.d.), however they are also quite different, especially in their phonology. These differences are what made learning it as a second language a little more difficult for this interviewee.
Bibliography GRADDOL, D., LEITH, D., and SWANN, J., (eds) (1996) English: history, diversity and change, Routledge in association with The Open University (course book) University College of London Phonetics department website (www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/queen2.htm) entered on 23/3/03
New languages are always overwhelming.English is difficult language to learn, especially if it isn’t practiced often. The english language includes rules that can be frustrating to get a grip of. Many International students face the fear of not being understood or not pronouncing something correct...
This paper first, argues why first language acquisition is fundamentally different from second language acquisition in light of the fact that acquiring first language is innate. Thereafter, this paper discuses fundamental distinction between first language acquisition and second language acquisition in terms of age, cognitive development and previous experience.
Consonant is a speech sound which is produced by a partial or a complete obstruction of the airflow by the constriction of the speech organs ( Ladefoged and Disner, 2012:201). The production of consonants involves bringing two of the speech organs close enough together to shut off or restrict the flow of air (Bennett, 1998: 7). Consonant sounds may be voiced or voiceless which are produced with an obstruction or occlusion at some points in the vocal tract, this obstruction of airflow could be complete or partial (Al-Hamad, 2002: 75 and Erwin, 2004:5). Consonant sounds are not produced or formed only if there is an occlusion in the flow of air or when there is a close articulation of two organs of speech or when they are fully pressed together to form the consonant sound (Ahmed, 2004:16).
By assuming that students will learn proper communication skills without guidance is a big mistake. Individuals should begin learning basic communication skills at birth and continue learning throughout their educational experience. There are, of course, many types of communication. We use verbal communication, non-verbal communication, written communication and many different forms of. Additionally, communication plays an important role in the process of conveying knowledge as well. Communication is instrumental in education since it helps the instructor and the students to work together with each other. Communication is the most important component of any society. In order, to communicate properly we need correct pronunciation, because pronunciation affects how we understand the meaning of the words. If the sound of a word is different it could lead the listener to believe that the word has a different meaning, and if this happens, it is very obvious that it is a form of improper communication. This may lead to a lot of misinterpretations. To avoid these kinds of problems we need to teach accurate pronunciation. English, in schools, is a very important subject for teaching proper...
In this course we study both phonetics and phonology. Phonetics to improve the way we should spell the sounds, and in order to spell the correct sounds we should learn how to listen accurately. It’s also known as the study of language which contains 44 sounds and 26 letters. Phonology is to study the rules for combining phonemes and what happened due to this combination. Phonetics contains consonant, vowels & diphthongs. It’s also used in language and linguistics rules that specify how the phonemes are organized into syllables, words, and sentences to