Phonetics Report: Consonant Pronunciation by Saudi Speakers of English

This report delves into the phonetics of Saudi speakers of English, specifically investigating the pronunciation of consonants, with a focus on /p/ and /v/. The study employs Selinker's interlanguage theory to analyze how language transfer influences pronunciation errors. The introduction covers the basics of phonetics, sound production, and the challenges faced by Saudi speakers. The literature review explores previous research on consonant mispronunciation by Saudi and Arab ESL learners, highlighting common errors such as the substitution of /b/ for /p/ and /f/ for /v/. The report also examines how Arabic speakers' limited consonant clusters and stress patterns affect their English pronunciation. The research aims to understand the specific ways in which language transfer impacts the pronunciation of these sounds, contributing to a deeper understanding of second language acquisition in a phonetic context.

Phonetics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Literature Review............................................................................................................................1
1&3 How they pronounce and mispronounce consonants..........................................................1
2. How language transfer happens in consonants........................................................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
Phonetics is acknowledged to be that branch of linguistics that helps in study of sounds
related to human speech. The person who specializes within phonetics is known as phonetician-
linguist. They have the common work related to the study of physical properties associated with
speech. Traditionally, the field of phonetics is divided into three different sub disciplines on the
basis of research questions i.e. how human plans movements to produce speech, how different
movements tend to have an influence over the properties of resulting sound and how human
coverts sound waves into linguistic information. The concept of phonetics is concerned with two
types of human speech inclusive of production and perception. Production consists of the ways
human makes sound and perception is related to the way in which is speech is comprehended.
The premise of inter-language theory is that active mind makes own generalizations with respect
to the grappling of a new language. Simultaneously, this theory put forth the argument that the
errors made by a learner in the target language rules are often considered “correct” as per the
rules of inter-language. Within a human, sound is produced by the vibrations of vocal cord. This
is attached to the muscles that work in the direction of changing the tension or stretching in the
cords and the distance between the cords. Voice is the resultant outcome of stretching of two
vocal cords across the voice box that leaves a narrow slit. Saudi speakers of English are found to
be having issues at the time of pronouncing some consonants like p, v etc. This further leads
them to do spelling and writing errors. In this relation, the common mistakes they do are
acknowledged to be of four types. These are identified to be, namely, error in b/p and f/v sounds,
pronouncing silent letters, adding vowel sounds to word and proper intonation or word stress.
Literature Review
1&3 How they pronounce and mispronounce consonants
According to Morley, 1991, English speakers of Saudi Arabia are not perfect and they are
seen to be doing pronunciation mistakes while speaking English. This also makes them do
spelling as well as writing errors. This can be better understood with the description provided
below along with examples:-
There is no sound of p in Arabic. This resulted into the use of b sound by Arab ESL
students. They pronounce parking as barking and pepper as bebber.
1

Also, there is no sound of v in Arabic and the Arab ESL students use f in its place. This
implies that they speak voice as foice and very as fery.
The Arab speakers also face some issues in relation to the pronunciation of silent letters.
This is the reason behind them making use of phonetic spelling. This is the concept which is
associated with the usage of letters in place of sound. It is generally seen that Arab ESL students
use the same pronunciation rules while speaking English. For ex: foreign as for-i-gen and sign as
si-gen.
It is seen that there are fewer consonant clusters in Arabic. The sounds like sp, gr, spl and
str are those that not made in Arabic and pronounced differently. For ex., stress as e-set-ress and
split as e-spi-lit.
The main reason behind the occurrence of such differences, as per the view of Selinker is
belongingness to other language and now intending to learn and adopt English as the second
language.
2. How language transfer happens in consonants
The common reason which leads to emergence of this issue is that Arabic speakers
leverage direct transfer and interference from Arabic in addition to stress shifts in their
pronunciation which are not recognised as stress patterns in English. Also, there are some sounds
of English that hold no equivalence in Arabic which result into the emergence of vowel and
consonant errors.
2

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Morley, J., 1991. The pronunciation component in teaching English to speakers of other
languages. TESOL quarterly. 25(3). pp.481-520.
3

4