A Comparative study of English and Oromo segmental Phonenes wih its implications for teaching English as a foreign Language
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Date
1988-06
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Addis Ababa Universiy
Abstract
The ~ain ohiective of this stl1dy was to fi nd out the
difficulties OrOIDO l ear ners of fn~lish ~ay have in pronouncing
certajn English sounds.
According to Contr3.stivd 1\nal,'sis (CJl. ) hyryothesis, in
l~arninq the nron1.1nciation of a second lananaa"! "'E, tenc' to
pronounce the foreirm souno.s accon"! ncr to the T)honological
system of our Plother tongue , which IDaans that w ,:) replace them
by th:·' nGBrGst sounds in our nat.ive lanollBoe. This i'3 so
b"cause, in liste nina to t h e ·tarr"Tet lanauaqe we 'lear the
for.:'.ian sounds as if th 2Y were rati ve so 1m (1..S •
ell tbat a secnnrt lSrallaae learner Play find his
tara,et l arauaae difficult or relativelv easy . In the realm
of phonoleC'y the diffic1.,l ty of l' 'H' con" lanquaC[(, '.Japends beth
on thE> sounr1s thel"selves and on their ability to combine .
To verify this clai ,,, of c.i\ (~ ~pir.ically, f? native
sneakers of (\romo \~ere given two tests: c]iscrimination and
nroductior tests . The discrimiration test I,'as a.j.ffi<." ") a.+: findinq
out the diffir::1l1ties the se sub:jec!:.s 1"ay have in Cliscril'"
linatiwl" cet'.veen Fnalish sonnr.s in l~ininal nairs. '('h E'· oJ-ojectivE'
Tt",c results of thi .s study revear t .Il",!:. the sl.1.bj,~cts .!pre
found to be better in discri!dl1ation thcm in ')roQuction. Post
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of the sounes that caused prob l ems for the subject.s wen,
categories that are nOD-exi.stent i n Ororro such as /0, a, T],
(£ / f oiphthonsrs and consonant. c ln5tr~rs. In SOinG cases,
sounds ~,rh ich were p.asily discriminated and produced :in the
ini ti a l positions '''ere found to be trouhlesome! in final
p08itions.
In qeneral , areas of differences between the phonemic
systems of the two languages caused crreater difficulties
for the s ul) je cts .
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Keywords
A Comparative study of English and Oromo .