The English Phonetic
Variation of the STBA Sundanese Students’ Pronunciation and Its Application in
Teaching
Em. Endang Sri
Sulastri
Indonesian people are mostly bilinguals. They are able to speak at
least two languages fluently, mother tongue and Indonesian language and English
is the first foreign language they study. They started learning English at the
age of thirteen when they were at the beginning of junior high school. Their
organs of speech have already got accustomed in using the languages. In such condition,
students may find problems/ difficulties as each language has its own
characteristic/ uniqueness. Concerning pronunciation problem Andrian Doff (1991:
113) says that it “will of course vary greatly from one country to another”.
The variation may arise because of different physical characteristic, including
both acoustic and articulatory characteristics. The common problems that are
likely to occur are:
1. pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the students’ own language,
2. confusion of similar sounds,
3. pronouncing consonant clusters,
4. tendency to give all syllables equal stress, and flat intonation.
This study does not discuss the causes of problems or errors
whether they belong to language
interference or language transfer. It is only based on the assumption that the
language/languages that has/have been "mastered" or used for
relatively long time will more or less
influence the learners in learning a new language (here English). It often
occurs they speak English with native language and or Indonesian accent and
Indonesian speech sounds. Unfortunately they do not realize it. This research
tries to find the phonetic variants that occur among the STBA Sundanese
students without making classification of the variants found.
------- ----
----------
Sulastri, E. E. S. (2003, October). The English
phonetic variation of the STBA Sundanese students’ pronunciation and its
application in teaching it. Paper presented at the 51st TEFLIN
International Conference,
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com