Ethiopian Learners' Pronunciation Difficulties and Intelligibility of Their Spoken English: Speakers of Amharic as A Native Language in Focus
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Date
2012-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study diagnosed difficulties of English pronunciation that Amhoric native learners might be
experiencing from the influence of their native language and exposed the global impact of these
difficulties in global communication contexts. To this end, the study employed three distinct but related
approaches: 1} phonological contrast; 2} phonological error analysis; and 3} intelligibility test.
Contrastive analysis being the frame of reference for this study, phonological contrast both at the levels
of segmental and suprasegmental was initially conducted between Amharic and English; and those areas
which are lacking in Amharic were identified and predicted as potential problem areas.
The speech perception test that investigated the subjects' detection and recognition of foreign items
showed that contrastive-origin problem areas still restrict university students' successful perception of
English pronunciation. The result also showed that not all novel sounds presented equal amount of
perception difficUlty for the subjects with weak forms, sentence stress, and intonation being the most
difficUlt areas. The production test identified segmental level pronunciation tendencies for Amharic
native participants in their sample speeches elicited from reading aloud texts. Global error measures
showed that the subjects' speech production is largely restricted by Ll characteristics, with vowels
presenting more systematic problems than consonants. Mispronounced phonemes were further
evaluated for two additional criteria depending on their frequency and functional importance in the
target language. As a result, not all mispronunciations should be given equal priority for the Amharic
speaker subjects. Accordingly, some errors were given precedence in the final inventory as 'high priority'
(HP) problems while others were scaled down as 'optional alternative' (OA) and 'low priority' (LP). The
intelligibility test measured the extent that Amharic native learners were understandable in their
speeches to native English speakers living in Addis Ababa. Based on correct word transcription scores, it
was possible to conclude that overall intelligibility measures university level subjects gained was not
encouraging. Native speakers' familiarity with the way Ethiopians pronounce English seems more
detrimental factor than the subjects' pronunciation goodness.
Findings of this study support the focus on the role that native language plays in English pronunciation,
the importance of balancing perceptual as well as productive skills, and the need for developing Ll-based
and empirically informed syllabus than using generic and intuitively based approach. Recommendations
are made for future research to extend the current study to a number of other dimensions.
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Native Language