Vowels Mispronunciation Among Arab ESL Learners

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Due to the phonetic differences between the Arabic and the English language, Arab ESL learners often experience difficulty in pronouncing English vowels. The vowel quantity and the vowel quality are the two phonetic parameters through which vowels are described. The vowel quantity refers to the duration of the phonetic segment that is symptomatic of phonetic identity. On the other hand, the vowel quality means the knowing the precise way of articulating a vowel, which includes the shape of lips, position of the tongue in the vocal tract or the nasalization of vowels. Every vowel has its own pattern of speaking.

The Arabic language system consists of 6 vowels whereas the English vowel system has 12 vowels. The main reason why Arab ESL learners tend to mispronounce vowels is because of this phonological difference. Moreover, the extended vowel pattern system of English shows a contrast between the lax short vowels and the tense long vowels; on the other hand, the vowel patterns of the Arabic language shows a contrast between the short vowels and long vowels. Moreover, the difference between English and Arabic vowel system is not only dependant on its size but also on the quality of the vowels. Another reason why Arab ESL learners face problems with English vowels is because of the nature of the vowel systems – Arabic language has a centrifugal vowel system while the English language has a centripetal vowel system, which means that the English vowels have the tendency to move at the center of the vowel space which does not happen with centrifugal vowel systems like Arabic, Spanish and Russian languages. Thus, it is due to the distinct vowel quality, quantity, centrifugal and centripetal differences those Arab ESL learners’ fact pro...

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