an analysis of mother tongue interference in english

JELTE: Journal of English Language Teaching and Education

Vol.2 No.1 2021 E-ISSN: ISSN: 2746-5012

AN ANALYSIS OF MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE IN ENGLISH

PRONUNCIATION

Ilva Widiantari1, Aunurrahman2, Sahrawi3

123IKIP PGRI Pontianak, [email protected]

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the interference of the Malay language in Pronouncing

English voiceless stops by EFL students in Pontianak. The design of this research was a

descriptive study. The total participants were 15 EFL students whose mother tongue is

Malay. This research used a pronunciation test to collect pronunciation data through an

audio recorder as the main tool. Pronunciation test sheet consisted 21 English words

contains English voiceless stops phoneme /p/, /t/, and /k/. Based on the research findings,

after conducting a pronunciation test the data showed that from 315 English words that

had been tested there were 129 words in total found mispronounced by the students.

Mostly, mispronunciation happened when pronouncing phoneme /p/ that was 56 times

from 105 chances, followed by phoneme /t/ that was 42 times from 105 chances and

phoneme /k/ which 31 errors from 105 chances. Based on the research findings, mother

tongue indicated interfere students` pronunciation in pronouncing English words at

Pontianak.

Keywords: Mother tongue, Interference, English pronunciation.

INTRODUCTION

English is taught in every school all over the world including Indonesia. English is

examined in junior and senior high school final examination. It means that English teachers should

be able to teach their students thoroughly to help them acknowledge the difficulties that might be

encountered in comprehend the material. In the classroom setting, students might encounter

difficulties in learning English as a foreign language especially in pronouncing English words as

the effect of the difference in language structure between English and their first language or mother

tongue. Besides, Hassan (2014) confirmed that the learner's difficulties in learning a second

language (L2) could be predicted based on systematic differences of the two languages, and those

learners from different first language backgrounds would experience different difficulties when

attempting to learn an L2.

mailto:[email protected]


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In the second language acquisition study, the differences in language sound system between

the target language and first language might cause the interference or negative transfer in students`

pronunciation. Interference is the automatic transfer, due to habit, of the surface structure of the

first language onto the surface of the target language, Interference is the deviation of the target

language as a result of their familiarity with more than one language, Dulay et al ( In Samingan,

2016: 3). Thus, this research more likely investigated the interference of the mother tongue in

pronouncing English words.

The mother tongue in this research was identified as a vernacular or local language that is

spoken by a certain group of students. Dardjowidjojo (2014) distinguishes the two terms: mother

tongue and mother’s language. He said, the mother tongue is the first language that the child learns;

be that it is English, Indonesian, or even vernacular, while the mother`s language is the language

used by adults or parents to communicate with their children, who are trying to acquire the mother

tongue. The Malay language was identified as the mother tongue that was investigated as the

source language and English was identified as the target language in this research. Unlike English,

in Malay pronunciation apiration does not exist. Thus, this difference might cause interference or

negative transfer in pronunciation.

Since the Malay language does not have aspirated phonemes in pronunciation,

mispronunciation might happen among Malay-speaking students. Cruttenden (2011: 154) states

that particular attention must be paid to the aspiration of /p, t, k/ when these phonemes occur

initially in accented syllables. If a word such as pin is pronounced [pin], instead of [phin], there is

a danger that the English listener may understand bin. The change of pronunciation differs from

their meanings. This kind of error is called negative transfer ( interference).

Because of such linguistic phenomena, it was interesting to investigate the potential of

interference of Malay in pronouncing English voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/. This research

analyzed the phonological interference of Malay as the mother tongue into English as the target

language in pronouncing these phonemes. In collecting pronunciation data direct method was

applied by conducting a pronunciation test.


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Besides, there are previous studies that focus on the problems that exist in pronunciation

which are primarily concerned with mother tongue interference. Hakim (2012) investigates how

to pronounce phonetics /b/, /d/, /g/, /j/, /ʤ/, and /ð/ in pronouncing English words for Javanese

Students in BengkulU. Then, Hago and Khan (2015) investigate the problems identified in

pronouncing English experienced by Saudi secondary school learners especially when

pronouncing consonants. Next, Hassan (2014) researched the problems in pronouncing English

encountered by Sudanese Spoken Arabic. Furthermore, Apeli and Ugwu (2013) investigate the

interference in phonological in spoken English by Izon speaker.

The previous studies above focus on the problems that exist in pronouncing English speech

sound incorrectly which come from the effect of the first language. however, in this study, the

researcher investigated the effect of mother tongue interference in English pronunciation

especially in pronouncing English voiceless stops which had not been researched by researchers

in the previous studies above. Then similarly, the previous studies had done on the subjects who

come from one single language background or speech community, this study examines mother

tongue by using the same principle of contrastive analysis theory to see general things which are

shared in causing the problem and promoting the English pronunciation.

Therefore, since the English students come from various cultural ethnicities and share

different languages as their mother tongue, in this research Malay language was identified as the

mother tongue that may promote problems related to the ability in pronouncing English as a foreign

language. However, Malay-English students in English Education Study Program, especially in

the Eighth semester, mostly coming from the Ketapang regency, which was the reason why this

research was involved 15 Malay English students who were coming from the Ketapang regency.

METHODOLOGY

Research Design


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The research design employed in this research is descriptive qualitative. According to

Denzin et al (2012: 4), qualitative research is the research where the focus is not only in one

method, interpretive, and naturalistic in approaching to its subject. Moreover, this study focused

on investigating the mother tongue interference in pronouncing English words.

Participants

The participant of this research were EFL students at the college level at Pontianak. The

homogenous sampling was implemented to select the participants. Homogeneous sampling is

defined as one of a purposive technique sampling in order to achieve a sample in homogeneously

(Lund, 2012). Furthermore, 15 Malay-English students whose mother tongue is Malay selected to

be the subjects in this research.

Data Collection

The use of an indirect method in this research is required to collect the main data from the

students. Anguera et al (2018) explained that the Indirect observation method generally using an

analysis using material textually either transcriptions indirectly from audio recordings of behavior

in verbal naturally settings (e.g., conversation, group discussions) or directly from narratives (e.g.,

letters of complaint, tweets, forum posts).

Besides, to make sure the judgments in deciding student’s correct and incorrect

pronunciation the researcher was helping by an inter-rater. The inter-rater in this research was Mr.

Dedi Irwan, Ph.D. who is reliable in deciding whether or not the transcription from the researcher

was correct since he had studied abroad and interacted with an English native speaker. Since there

are many standards of English pronunciation, in this research the standard of English pronunciation

is American English.

The pronunciation data collected through a test uaing pronunciation test sheet that consists

of 21 English words to observe the students' ability in pronouncing English words. The students

should read every word while the researcher was recording. Each word contains English voiceless

stops phonemes / p, t, k / that should be pronounced aspirated by the students. Since in Malay


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language aspiration in voiceless stops do not exist then every mispronounced word was identified

as mother tongue interference.

Audio and video recorder enable the raw data to be recorded for later review and are often

used to ensure that the full context is collected, such as the tone of voice, hand gestures, etc (Bacon-

shone, 2015: 53). In this research, a recorder is primarily used to collect the pronunciation data

and also to answer the first and the second research questions. A smartphone and built-in headset

microphone were used as the recording equipment. Before recording the subject's spoken

utterance, a pronunciation material will be given to the subjects and the researcher will give the

subject time to look at the material first before recording is started to make the subject recognize

the material first.

Dictionary was needed in relation to fulfilling the intelligibility aspect, dictionary was

needed to find out whether what subject's uttered in the recording is recognized as an English word

or not. Also, the dictionary was used in transcribing the subject's recorded utterance to a standard

phonetic symbol of English transcription. The dictionary used here was Merriam-Webster digital

since this dictionary distinctively provided the example of English native speaker pronunciation

sound and phonetic transcription from words in the American version.

Data Analysis

This research implemented qualitative data in form of pronunciation data. To analyze the

data acquired as well as answering the research question the researcher preferred to choose

transcribing technique since the pronunciation data was recorded. The pronunciation data in form

of recorded audio transcribed in written form in order to compare the native pronunciation from

the dictionary and the pronunciation from the students.

Transcription can be either narrow transcription or broad transcription. “Broad

transcription is a term to allocate very simple symbols to indicate the phonetic pronunciation of a

given word, Narrow transcription, on the other hand, refers to more phonetic details in showing

the pronunciation of words Ladefoged” ( as cited in Ebrahimi, 2010). Thus, in this research, the

researcher applied narrow transcription to transcribe the pronunciation data since the focus of this

research was to indicate the appearance of aspiration in every spoken word.


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Data Presentation and Discussion

This research analyzed the mother tongue interference, in this case, the mother tongue was

the Malay language in pronouncing English consonant stops /p/, /t/, /k/. These phonemes are

pronounced with aspiration which Malay does not have. The difference is one of the aspects that

hinder the students to speak native-like English. Conducting this contrastive analysis research, the

researcher attempts to analyze if there was the interference of Malay as the mother tongue in

pronouncing these phonemes. The findings are stated below.

The Frequency of mispronunciation Made By The Students

As shown in the chart above, the researcher found that mispronunciation happened in

almost all of the participants who are 13 participants. The rest two participants did not find

mispronunciation in pronouncing the words. Most mispronunciation happened when pronouncing

phoneme /p/ that was 56 times from 105 chances, followed by phoneme /t/ that was 42 times and

phoneme /k/ was the least, which 31 times from 105 chances.

Almost all participants failed to pronounce sound [p] in the initial position. They

pronounced it with an unaspirated sound because sound [p] in Malay has a similar sound whether

it occurs in initial or final positions. Meanwhile, in pronouncing sound [p] in the word ‘apple’, all

participants did not have any difficulty in pronouncing the sound because the sound [p] was

unaspirated in that word.

49

63

74

56

42

31

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

phoneme /p/ phoneme /t/ phoneme /k/

t o t a l c o r r e c t a n d i n c o r r e c t p r o n u n c i a t i o n o f p h o n e m e / p / , / t / , a n d / k /

correct pronunciation incorrect pronunciation


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Having all pronunciation test was done, The researcher asked the students whether or not

they have learned or known the aspiration of /p/,/t/, and /k/ in English. The result is shown in the

table below ;

Question asking after pronunciation test

Table 2. Question asking after pronunciation test

No Question: Have you ever learned

about the aspiration of English

voiceless stops phonemes /p/, /t/, and

/k/ before?

S1 No, I Have not

S2 Yes, I Have

S3 Yes, I Have

S4 Yes, I Have

S5 Yes, I Have

S6 No, I Have not

S7 No, I Have not

S8 Yes, I Have

S9 No, I Have not

S10 Yes, I Have

S11 No, I Have not

S12 No, I Have not

S13 No, I Have not

S14 No, I Have not

S15 Yes, I Have

From the above table the researcher found out among 15 students, 7 students claimed to have

experience in learning the aspiration of English voiceless stop /p/, /t/, and /k/, and the rest which

were 8 students have no experience in learning aspiration. Thus, the eight students who had no

experience in learning aspiration identified making competence errors and the rest who had


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experience in learning aspiration were assumed made performance errors. Meanwhile, in this

research students who were counted as the case of mother tongue interference were eight students

who made competence error. They were students number 1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

The Interference of phoneme /p/

As presented in the chart above that most of the participants failed to pronounce sound [p]

in the initial position and medial position as in words ( patience, impatience and oppose). They

pronounced it with an unaspirated sound because of the sound [p] in Malay similar to sound

whether it occurs in the initial or medial position. Meanwhile, in pronouncing sound [p] in the

word ‘apple’, almost all participants did not have any difficulty in pronouncing the sound because

sound [p] in the word ‘apple’ is unaspirated as sound [p] in word ‘api’ in Malay.

13%

20%

10%15%

18%

21%

3%

Incorrect Pronunciation of Phoneme /p/

pot

patience

peek

appear

impatience

oppose

apple


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Interference of Phoneme /t/

As shown in the chart above, all participants incorrectly pronounced the sound [t] in the initial

position in the word ‘ top, tic, and tail’. They pronounced it with an unaspirated sound. Meanwhile,

in pronouncing sound [t] in medial position as in the word ‘ stop’ seven students did not have any

difficulty in pronouncing the sound because the sound [p] is not aspirated in that word.

The Interference of Phoneme /k/

21%

21%

21%

10%

16%

8% 3%

Incorrect Pronunciation of Phoneme /t/

top

tic

tail

tame

potato

detail

stop


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As shown in the chart above, mostly the participants failed to pronounce the sound [k] in the

medial position as in the word ‘accomplish’. They pronounced it with an unaspirated sound. In the

words ‘ kite and cat’, three participants correctly pronounced it. Five of them failed to pronounce

the word correctly. Meanwhile, in pronouncing sound [k] in medial position as in the word

‘Nickle’, seven participants pronounced it correctly and another one failed. The participants

pronounced it correctly because the sound [k] in the word ‘Nickle’ is unaspirated as in the Malay

word ‘naked’

The interference of the participant could be seen from the number of the students who had

no experience in learning aspiration of English sound [p], [t], and [k]. The students tended to

pronounce the words unaspirated and replace the sound with the homogenous sound that they have

in their sound system. As in sound [p], the students mispronounced 34 sounds of 56 words. In

sound [t] the students mispronounced 32 sounds of 56 words. In sound [k] the students

mispronounced 25 sounds of 56 words. All the words should be pronounced aspirated but mostly

the students pronounced in unaspirated.

Based on the finding of this research, the interference of Malay voiceless stops into English

is found out. Interference is the negative transfer from the first language into the target language

in which that transfer causing errors. This transfer is caused by sound system that is different

between first language and the target language. Especially in pronunciation, interference might

19%

19%

11%8%4%

12%

27%

Incorrect Pronunciation of Phoneme /k/

kite

cat

keep

come

nickle

become

accomplish


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cause mispronunciation. Contrastive Analysis used as the method in this research which compares

the similarities and differences of L1 and L2 to predict and to explain the problems that learners

might encounter in L2 learning. By doing contrastive analysis, the similarities and differences of

sound production of both languages can be identified.

The factor that shown to have major effects on the learning of another sound system is the

learner's first language. Celce-Murcia et al (2010) urge that the differences in the phonological

system between the first language and the second language might cause negative transfer or

interference.

Researchers like Lado (as cited in Celce-Murcia et al, 2010; 23) confirm these identified

that interference is a factor that affected in foreign accent, the acquisition of distinctive segmental

features such as aspiration or voicing and of suprasegmental features such s intonation and rhythm.

In relation to previous study, Hakim (2012) found out mother tongue (Java) interfered students

pronunciation in terms of stressing in some phonemes such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /j/, /ʤ/. The results also

identified that a great number of the students, inconsiously insert a vowel sound in English syllable

to pronounce consonant clusters.

The aspirated sounds of English which are not present in Malay could also be pronounced by

some Malay students. They can pronounce those sounds because they have already learned

aspiration previously. This finding related to the finding of previous research was done by Puspita

(2017) affirm that the correct pronunciation in pronouncing Aspiration was caused by previous

knowledge of aspiration through reciting Qur’an before and they are still studying it now. In

relation to those previous research in the present research, the researcher believes that mother

tongue (Malay) interferes with students’ pronunciation in pronouncing aspiration phoneme [p], [t],

and [k] in a negative way. The negative transfer was found out in mispronunciation mostly all the

words tested. In conclusion, although Malay- speaking students have learned English for years,

errors in pronunciation, like aspiration are still encountered. These errors were caused by the

interference ( negative transfer), that is linguistic property present in the target language but absent

in the first language. In conclusion, based on the findings and related studies proved that the

differences between L1 and L2, the role of previous learning language rather than L1, and the

previous teaching are affected the students' pronunciation


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CONCLUSIONS

Referring to the findings and discussions before, the researcher concluded that from all of

the participants, the students who were having prior knowledge about aspiration sounds tend to

have good pronunciation, and students who had no prior knowledge about aspiration tend to

pronounce English aspirated sounds into unaspirated because of the interference of mother tongue.

However, students who had no prior knowledge about aspiration sometimes pronounced word

correctly because they tended to replace the consonant sounds and aspirated sounds which are not

found in Malay by the homogeneous sound that they have in their sound system and the sound that

they have learned before they learn English, such as sounds [f], [v], and [ʃ] of Arabic, and the

pronunciation of Malay speaking students is affected by the phonological gap between their L1

(Malay) and L2 (English), the influence of spelling on pronunciation, their previous learning

language such as Arabic rather than L1, and the role of previous English language teaching.

SUGGESTION

Based on the research finding and discussion, there are some suggestions that the writer

would like to propose, they are: (1) the researcher recommended that lecturers map the area of

difficult sound in English, (2) the researcher recommended that lectures provide modeling of how

to pronounce the difficult sounds by using audio or video of native speakers, (3) The researcher

recommended that the students should be given maximum practices in imitating and producing

sounds.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researcher acknowledges all parties who have contributed to this study successfully.

Thanks and honor are dedicated to the EFL teachers as the participants and academics supervisors

as the persons who helped the researcher sincerely.

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