dc.description.abstract | This study examined the pronunciation of the suburban junior high school
students on the six English sounds that could not be found in the Indonesian
phonological system; the sound [ʒ], [v], [θ], [ð], [æ], and [ʌ] as they can be found in
the words Asia /ˈeɪʒə/, very /ˈveri/, thank /ˈθæŋk/, this /ˈðɪs/, add /ˈæd/, and up
/ˈʌp/.The background of examining this topic was to know the students’
pronunciation of those who are under low exposure to the use of English. The
students of suburban junior high school here were represented by the students of
SMPN 3 Kedungwaru, Tulungagung. They were chosen by applying the purposive
sampling method. Therefore, their pronunciation was reviewed through
pronunciation test activity in pronouncing words that contain those six targeted
sounds. There were ten words of the sound [v], [θ], [ð], [æ], and [ʌ], but only four
words for the sound [ʒ].
This study employed descriptive qualitative analysis to obtain the aimed
result in describing six English sounds that do not occur in the Indonesian
phonological system that were pronounced by the participants. The data were then
analyzed with Wolcott's analysis procedures, namely: describing, analysis, and
interpretation. The describing stage involved the phonetic transcription of each of the
students’ pronunciation based on the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). In the
analysis stage, the transcribed students’ pronunciation of the words was juxtaposed
with the phonetic transcription American (AmE) and British (BrE) pronunciation as
the overview to analyze the students’ pronunciation to see the sound differences.
Lastly, the interpretation stage was dealt with the sound features, the appearance within words, the comparison to AmE and BrE pronunciation, the sound changes,
and the phonological environment of each sound.
The result of this study indicated that the students changed the sounds in
pronouncing the sound [ʒ], [v], [θ], [ð], [æ], and [ʌ] within words even though some
others pronounced them as how they are pronounced in AmE and BrE. The students
pronounced the sound [ʒ] as [s], [ʃ], [ʤ], and [g]. For instance, in pronouncing the
word ‘Asia’ /ˈeɪʒə/, the students pronounced it as /ˈeʃia/. Then, the sound [v]
pronounced was as [f] and [v]. One example for this sound substitution was when the
students pronounced the word ‘very’ /ˈveri/ as /ˈferi/. For the sound [θ], the students
pronounced it as [s], [t], [d], [ð], [st], [ts] and [θ]. It can be seen as one example;
students pronounced the word ‘thank’ /ˈθæŋk/ as /ˈtæŋ/. Then, the sound [ð] was
pronounced by the students as [ð], [d], [t], [z], [dt], and [θt]. In this sound
substitution, the students pronounced the word ‘weather’ /ˈwɛðɚ/ as / ˈwɛtər/ for
instance. For the vowel [æ], the students pronounced it as [ɛ], [a], [ʌ], and [æ]. As the
example for this vowel substitution, the students pronounced the word ‘add’ /ˈæd/ as
/ˈɛd/. Last, the sound [ʌ] was variously pronounced as [a], [aː], [u], [ə], [ɔ], [o],
diphthong [aʊ] and the sound [ʌ] by the students. There was one example of this
sound substitution when the students pronounced the word ‘other’ /ˈʌðɚ/ as /ˈaðər/.
The different phonological system was the main reason of the sound substitution
performed by the students. Besides, the mother tongue interference.
At the end of the study, there are suggestions for English teachers and future
researchers that hopefully will bring valuable contributions. For the English teachers,
it is suggested to provide more classroom materials and activities focusing on
pronunciation. Meanwhile, for the future researchers, there are several suggestions to
elaborate more on students’ pronunciation; analyzing other sounds from [ʒ], [v], [θ],
[ð], [æ], and [ʌ], having the different focus of study such as the suprasegmental
features, or situating the background factors of students’ pronunciation. | en_US |