The Production of English Fricatives by the Freshmen of the English Department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta_An Error Analysis

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THE PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVES BY THE FRESHMEN

OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF FKIP-UKI JAKARTA:

AN ERROR ANALYSIS

Parlindungan Pardede

Universitas Kristen Indonesia

AbstractThis study was carried out to analyze the pronunciation errors committed by the

freshmen of the English Department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta in producing fricative

consonants of English. To achieve the goal, 26 students attending the morning class of English Pronunciation in the 2006/2007 Academic Year were assigned to read a paragraph

containing /f/, /v/, / x /, / /, / /, / /, /s/, /z/, and / / aloud. Each of the subjects‟ reading was

tape-recorded, and the records were thoroughly analyzed to identify any errors made the

subjects.

The results of the analysis revealed five sounds of English fricatives, namely / /, / /,

/ x /, / /, and /z/ were difficult to produce by the subjects. The reasonable cause is that these

sounds do not exist in Indonesian. Since their childhood the subjects were not accustomed

to produce such sounds. Consequently, they found them difficult to produce.Key Words: pronunciation, fricatives, errors, error-analysis, consonants.

A. INTRODUCTION

Background of the Problems

English has undoubtedly been the first lingua franca of the past century and the new

millennium. English is now one of the most important means for acquiring access to the

world's intellectual and technical resources. It is used as a library language, as the medium

of science, technology and international trade. Books, magazines, and newspapers written

in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most

commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that

95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from



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authors in English-speaking countries (Wikipedia, 2006). It is also the major contact

language between nations and parts of nations. By international treaty, English is the

official language for aerial and maritime communications, as well as one of the official

languages of the European Union, the United Nations, and most international athletic

organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. In short, it is the pre-

eminent language of wider communication.

The emergence of English as the first international means of communication makes it

very important to master in order to survive and compete in the global era. Information

exchange with other nations, international cooperation, and scientific and technological

development are essential activities which requires English to succeed. Even when an

individual wants to apply for a job English proficiency has been a major requirement.

Thus, the development of a nation and an individual as well, to a certain extend, depends

on its or his mastery of English.

In order to be able to effectively use a language to communicate, one should master

the four language skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing — and the language

systems — sound, structure (grammar) and vocabulary. In the context of speaking, one‟s

mastery on the sound system, structure and vocabulary play an important role because a

two-way communication will effectively take place if the expressions are formed using

appropriate rules and pronounced using correct sound. Louma (2004: ix) states: “To speak

…, learners must master the sound system of the language, have almost instant access to

appropriate vocabulary and be able to put words together intelligibly with minimal

hesitation. In addition, they must also understand what is being said to them, and be able to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee



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respond appropriately to maintain amicable reasons or to achieve their communicative

goals.”

A language is basically a speech. Thus, the most important medium of a language is

sounds. A simple observation on our daily speech will show that a speech is made up of

continuous stream of speech sounds. Some sounds are united to compose a syllable. One or

more syllable is united to form a word. Some words are combined to compose phrase, and

some phrases to compose a sentence. The process of combining sounds to form a syllable,

some syllables to compose a word, and so on, is carried out by using specific patterns so

that the speech produced is meaningful. Thus, to learn a language is actually to learn its

speech sounds.

In relation to the teaching of a foreign language, the skill to differentiate and

produce the speech sounds of the target language is one of the most necessary — though not

the most vital — aspects. To master a foreign language, the ability to produce sound

correctly is very important because every language has its own sound system. The more

different the sound system of the target language from the learner‟s first language, the

more likely he will make errors in pronunciation.

After teaching for several years in the English Department of FKIP-UKI, the present

writer identified that the students‟ pronunciation of some English sounds was quite varied.

For instance, some students pronounced „very‟ as /f er /, some others as /per /, while the

rests pronounced it correctly — /ver /. Another sound that students always pronounced

differently was the fricative / /. When the students said „thanks‟, some of them said

/tks/ or /sks/, instead of / ks /. Producing sounds which are deviated from the



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ones made by a native speaker is certainly a kind of errors. Such errors should be avoided

because they may cause misunderstanding. However, to avoid such errors in writing

necessitates accurate information about the background, types, and causes of the error

made. Such information could be obtained by identifying the errors made by students in

their speech. Then, the results of the identification could be used as a good feedback to

determine procedures for avoiding the same errors in the next speech.

Problems Identification

Based on the discussion in the background section above, the present writer identified

some problems which had a close link with the factors that caused students learning

English as a foreign language in Indonesia, especially the students of the English

Department of FKIP-UKI, among others:

1. English has some phonemes which Indonesian does not use, and the phonemes are

pronounced differently by different Indonesian students. For instances, phoneme / /

was pronounced as /t/ or /s/, phoneme / x / was pronounced as /s/ or /z/, and phoneme / /

was pronounced as /d/ or /z/.

2. The distribution of some sounds in English is different from Indonesian. This

difference made the sounds difficult to pronounce and some students even pronounced

them incorrectly. For instances, in English phoneme / x / can be used in the initial,

middle, or end of a word (she — fashion — rush); whereas Indonesian uses it only in the

initial and middle position of a word („sholat‟—„mushollah‟).



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3. English sounds and letters (in the alphabet) do not correspond. There are more than

forty sounds in English, and they have to be represented by an alphabet of twenty-six

letters. For instance, letter “a” may be pronounced as // in „have‟, /e/ in „age‟, /:/ in

„after‟, /:/ in „all‟, and // in „and‟.

4. Some students were apt to transfer the elements of Indonesian into the English while

they are learning English. For instance, since Indonesian has only one /s/, some

students always pronounced the ending sounds of „cats‟ and „boys‟ as /s/ instead of

differentiated them as /s/ and /z/.

Problems Limitation

In order to make this study more focused, the problem to be studied was limited only

to the erroneous fricatives sounds committed by the freshmen of the English Department of

FKIP-UKI Jakarta while they were reading English texts aloud and the factors causing

them to commit the errors.

Problems Formulation

Based on the discussion in the sections of background, problems identification,

problems limitation above, the problems of this study were formulated as follow:

1. What sounds of English fricatives were incorrectly pronounced committed by the

freshmen of the English Department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta?

2. What caused the appearance of these pronunciation errors?



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Objectives of the Study

This study was carried out to gain information about items and causes of

pronunciation errors committed by the freshmen of the English Department of FKIP-UKI

Jakarta in producing English fricative sounds.

Benefits of the Study

The findings of this study could be used as a feedback for readers, especially teachers

and students involved in the teaching of English Pronunciation in the English Department

of FKIP-UKI Jakarta and other teacher preparation colleges as well.

B. THEORETICAL BASIS AND CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK

The importance of sound in Communication

The origin of all languages is the spoken form. The spoken language was created

since the time human being began to communicate, while the written language appeared

long afterwards when the written symbols were invented. The written language is different

from the spoken language. The written language consists of a group of letters which are

printed on papers and produce no sounds. The spoken language is formed by sounds

produced by human organ of speech and then caught by the ears.

One‟s mastery of a language absolutely depends on his ears. All language

acquisitions and learning begin with listening to the sounds of the language. The first time

a baby begins to speak, he starts by listening and imitating the sounds produced by his

mother. Since a normal baby is a great imitator, he is able to perfectly reproduce any



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sounds he listens to. The ability to imitate the sounds is undoubtedly what enables every

one to master his mother tongue. A baby generally keeps on maintaining this ability until

he is ten years old. During the ten years period, everyone can perfectly learn any languages

if he is placed in the environment where the language is used as the major means of

communication. But when he has passed the period, the ability to imitate diminishes.

O‟Connor (1975: 1) explains: “It is well known that a child of ten years old or less can

learn any language perfectly, if it is brought up surrounded by that language, no matter

where it was born or who its parents were. But after this age the ability to imitate perfectly

becomes less.”

To be proficient in a language necessitates one‟s mastery of two aspects of the

language, namely language skills and language systems. The language skills consist of

listening, speaking, reading and writing. The language systems cover sound, structure

(grammar) and vocabulary. In the context of speaking, one‟s mastery on the sound system,

structure and vocabulary play an important role because a two-way communication will

effectively take place if the expressions are formed using appropriate rules and pronounced

using correct sound. Nunan (1990: 32) emphasizes: “Successful oral communication

involves developing the ability to articulate phonological features of language

comprehensibly, mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns, an acceptable degree of

fluency, transactional and interactional skills, skill in taking short and long speaking turns,

…”

In learning a language, pronunciation, or the process of producing language sounds, is

one of the most fundamental aspects. Therefore, the teaching of pronunciation should be



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given an appropriate diet in the curriculum. Brown (1992: 6) states: “It is not possible, for

practical purposes, to teach a foreign language to any type of learner, let by any method,

without giving attention to pronunciation. In parallel with this idea, Morley (1991: 488)

emphasizes that “Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communication

competence. Teachers should include pronunciation in their courses and expect students to

do well in them. Without adequate pronunciation skills the learner's ability to communicate

is severely limited.”

Problems in Pronunciation

When an adult is learning a foreign language, he will naturally face many unfamiliar

concepts, such as language sounds, sentence patterns, and vocabularies. His unfamiliarity

to those things will certainly arouse some difficulties. However, these difficulties are

natural due to the fact that before learning the new language the only language he was

accustomed to since his childhood was only his first language or mother tongue. His

speech organs had been so conditioned only to produce the sounds of the first language

that he will find it very difficult to adjust the speech organs in order to produce foreign

language sounds. O‟Connor (1975: 2) explains: “By the time we are grown up the habits of

our own language are so strong that they are very difficult to break.”

Just like swimming or walking, the ability to speak, to a certain extent, is acquired

through habits. One can speak because he has practiced it continuously. This can be

obviously seen in a child‟s trial to speak in his mother tongue. By continuously imitating

and repeating the speech he listened to in his environment, he finally succeeded. Then,



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when he wants to master a foreign language, he will certainly learn new habits in speaking.

To learn new habits is usually difficult, because the old habits will interfere. In the context

of language learning, the interference of the old habits which belong to the first language is

called „interlingual transfer‟ or „inference‟. For instance, an Indonesian student may

replace the English phoneme / / with the Indonesian phoneme /s/ when he pronouncing

„she‟. In relation to such difficulties in learning to pronounce a foreign language sounds,

Mac Carthy, (1972: 10) explains:

The only reason why people can‟t pronounce a foreign language perfectly from thestart is because they‟ve already got all the habits of speech appropriate to their ownlanguage, and those habits are pretty firmly fixed. Since childhood you‟ve been

articulating certain sounds and not others, you‟ve been making these sounds in certaingroups or in different order, and so forth.

Based on the explanation above, we can say that the difficulties faced by someone in

learning a foreign language were caused by the different system of his first language and

the target language. The more the differences between the two languages the higher the

level of the difficulties will be. On the other hand, the more similar the systems of the two

languages the less difficulties the learner will face. This is reason why a German finds

fewer difficulties in learning English than an Indonesian does. The language-system

similarities between Germany and English are greater than the language-system similarities

between Indonesian and English.

Language Error

Language errors can be defined as any deviation from the rules of language use which

reflects imperfect mastery of the language. Brians (2007) defines it as “deviations from



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the standard use of English as judged by sophisticated users such as professional writers,

editors, teachers, and literate executives and personnel officers.” In parallel with this,

Dulay, et.al. (1982: 138) define language errors as parts of conversation or composition

that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance.

Either a native speaker or a language learner can commit mistakes. The only

difference between them is that the native speaker does it due to fatigue, inattention, stress,

or tiredness, while the language learner does it because of imperfect mastery of the

language. In relation to that, the native speaker can correct the mistake he made if he were

given chance to do so, whereas the language learner is unable to do the same for he has not

mastered the rules of using the language. That is why the term „error‟ is also defined as

“the systematic deviations due to the learner‟s still developing knowledge of the second

language rule system” (Dulay et.al., 1982: 138)

Errors Analysis

Language learning, like any other human learning, such as learning to swim, to ride

bike, or to play tennis, is fundamentally a process that involves the making of mistakes.

When one jumps into the water to learn to swim, he initially finds it difficult to use his

arms and legs to keep floating. But through continuous learning and practice he will

discover the best combination of movements to keep himself afloat and propelling through

the water. Just like learning to swim, in the initial stages of language learning a person

makes a lot of mistakes since he has very limited linguistic system within which the



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language operates. But the mistakes gradually diminish as he gets feedback from his

environment and learns from making the mistakes he has made.

Based on the discussion above, it is obvious that the occurrence of errors in a second

or foreign language learning is not only natural but also positive. Language learner‟s errors

can be used as a means of knowing how language is learnt or acquired. Based on such

knowledge, afterwards, language teaching methodology can be developed. Corder (1981:

10-11) emphasizes: “A learner‟s error s … are significant in [that] they provide evidence of

how language is learnt or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing

in the discovery of the language.” In addition, Corder (1973: 265) states that studying

students‟ errors also has immediate practical applications for foreign language teachers

because these errors provide natural and immediate feedback to improve their teaching.

To provide maximum benefits, students‟ errors should be initially analyzed in order to

see what kind of errors are committed the most and why students produce them. To

analyze errors properly, someone must understand the nature and procedure of error

analysis. Ellis (1988: 10) proposes that error analysis “involves the collection of samples

of classroom learner-language, the classification of errors according to the different levels

of language description, the explanation of errors by reference to various learning process

and the evaluation of errors for the purposes of assessment or remediation .”

Methodology of Errors Analysis

Errors Analysis is a work procedure with certain steps or stages to fulfill. These steps

are what we call as methodology of error analysis. According to Ellis (1985, 51-52), there



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are five steps to be taken in an error analysis. First, selecting a corpus of language,

including the activities of deciding the size of the sample, the data to be sampled, and the

homogeneity of the sample. Second, identifying the errors in the corpus by searching any

parts of the expressions in the corpus that deviate from the language rules. Third,

categorizing the errors by classifying them into groups formed based on proper criteria.

Fourth, explaining the errors using the psycholinguistic cause of the errors. Fifth,

evaluating the errors which involve an assessment of the seriousness of each error in order

to take accurate decisions for reducing and even preventing the same errors repeated in the

future.

Observing the working-procedures above, it can be concluded that the final purpose

of error analysis is to get feedback to form a starting point for handling language teaching

remedy. The remedy, in turn, can prevent or reduce errors possibly being committed by

learners.

Source of Errors

Language errors are naturally committed by someone in a bilingual situation due to

four major factors (Brown, 1987: 173-178). The first source of error is the fact that the

beginning stages of learning a second language are characterized by interlingual transfer

from the native language, or inference, or using first language system in second language

communication which is different from the system of the second language. For instance,

it‟s quite common to hear English learners say // for „thanks‟, or the book of Tono

instead of Tono‟s book. All these errors are attributable to negative interlingual transfer.



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The second source of error is intralingual transfer, or, the negative transfer of

items within the target language, or, in other way, the incorrect generalization of rules

within the target language itself is a major factor of errors in second language learning.

This source of error shows that the learner of target language is attempting to build up

theories or hypotheses about the target language from his limited experience of it in the

classroom or textbook. This kind of transfer can be found in such utterances as Does he

can do it?, She goed to the cinema, and Do you know where does he go?

The third major source of error is the context of learning. Context, in the case of

formal school learning, refers to the classroom with its teacher and its materials. In the

case of untutored second language learning, it refers to the social situation. In a

classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty

hypotheses about the language, what Richards (1974: 179) called "false concepts" and

what Corder (1981: 131) termed "induced errors". Students often make errors because

of poor teaching in the target language; for example, look at and look out are presented

contiguously by their teacher.

The fourth major source of error can be found in different communication

strategies used by the learner to get a message across to a hearer. Learners obviously

use production strategies in order to enhance getting their messages across. It is

possible, for example, a Second Language (ESL) learner say, "He works hard for the

well done of his family". While the utterance showed a nice little humor, it had an

incorrect approximation of the word welfare.



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Conceptual Framework

Based on those theories above, pronunciation can be defined as the process of

producing language sounds in order to create meaningful expressions. To pronounce

English sounds can be very problematic for Indonesian students due to the great

number of differences between the sound system of English and Indonesian. Therefore,

it is no wonder that many Indonesian students make a lot of errors if they speak in

English.

Realizing that language errors can be used for knowing language learning process

which can then be made as a guideline for designing language teaching materials and

learning method development, the writer was really interested to conduct a study of

error analysis on the production of English fricatives by the freshmen of the English

department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta. Language errors related to the pronunciation of

English fricatives will be analyzed in order to get a clear understanding of errors

committed by the students. Hopefully, the result of this research can give essential

information for language teaching in general and especially for the teaching of

pronunciation.

C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Method

This study employed a qualitative research method, which, according to Selinger and

Shohamy (1989: 124) is: “a useful approach whenever an investigator is concerned with

discovering or describing second language acquisition in its natural state or context and



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where there are no assumptions about what that activity consists of or what its role is in

acquisition”.

Population and Sample

The population of this study was the students of the English department of FKIP-UKI

Jakarta. The sample was purposively selected by treating the 26 freshmen attending the

morning class of English Pronunciation in the 2006/2007 academic year as the

respondents. The major consideration in this selection was the fact that they were quite

homogenous in age and English proficiency for all of them graduated from senior high

schools one or two years before this study was conducted.

Data Analysis Technique

This study employed two data analysis techniques: contrastive analysis and

descriptive analysis. The descriptive analysis technique was used to identify and organize

the errors committed by the respondents in pronouncing English fricative consonants. It

was also used to determine the causes of the errors. The contrastive analysis technique was

employed to compare the sounds produced by the respondents with the „standardized

sounds‟, i.e. those „accepted‟ by native speakers of English.

Research Procedure

This study was conducted by following this procedure:



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1. The writer prepared an English paragraph containing an appropriate number of

fricative consonants.

2. The subjects were asked to have a look at the paragraph to make sure that they were

quite familiar with every word in it. After that, one by one, the subjects were asked to

read the paragraph aloud. Each reading was tape-recorded.

3. The records of each subject were carefully listened to in order to write every word

having fricative consonant(s) down into phonetic transcriptions. Then, by comparing

the phonetic transcriptions representing the sounds produced by the subjects to the

phonetic transcriptions of the „received‟ pronunciation, any errors were identified and

their causes were determined.

D. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DATA INTERPRETATION.

Research Findings

Based on the analysis on the sounds used in the paragraph, 97 fricative consonants

were found, consisting of 30 sounds of /s/, 14 sounds of / /, 13 sounds of /z/, 10 sounds of

/ x /, 9 sounds of /f/, 5 /h/, and 3 / /.

While the 26 subjects were dealing with the780 fricative sounds of /s/, they used / ʧ / for 9 times; /z/, 20 times; and / x /, 3 times. For instance, instead of saying /ri:snt/, some of

the subjects said /ri:ʧ nt/; instead of saying /j:rs/, some said /j:rz/; and instead of

/ds'ts'f k x n/ some said of /d x 'ts'f k x n /. Thus, the percentage of sounds produced to

pronounce /s/ was as follow: /s/ = 95.89%; /z/ = 2.56%; / ʧ / = 1.15%; and the sound.



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To pronounce the 364 fricative sounds of / /, the 26 subjects used / / for 219 times

(60.16%), / / for 100 times (27.47%), and /z/ for 45 times (12.36%). For instance, instead

of saying / /, some of the subjects said /d / or /z /; and instead of saying / /, some said

/ /. The big percentage of errors — 73.52% — made to produce / / indicated that the

majority of the subjects had problem to produce this sound.

To pronounce the 338 fricative sounds of /z/, the 26 subjects used /s/ for 186 X(55%),

and /z / for 152 times (45%). For instance,to pronounce “is”, some of the subjects said /

s/

and some others said / z /; and to pronounce “issues”, some of the subjects said / su:s/ and

some others said / x u:s/. The replacement of the sound / z / with /s/ by 55% of the subjects

indicated that they were not quite sure when to use the voiced fricative / z / and when to use

the voiceless /s/.

While the 26 subjects were dealing with the 286 fricative sounds of / x /, they used /s/ for 174 times (60.8%), / x / for 68 times (23.8%), /t/ for 44 times (16.4%). For instance,

instead of saying / x u:s/, some of the subjects said / su:z/; instead of / gl x /, some said of

/ gls /, and instead of saying /eʤ'k x nl/ some said /eʤ'k x nl/ /eʤ'ksnl/. The finding, that

77.2% of / x / was mispronounced as /s/ or /t/ indicated that the subjects could not yet

properly pronounce the fricatives alveo-palatal / x /.

To pronounce the 260 fricative sounds of /v/ , the 26 subjects correctly used it for 188

times (72.3%) but replaced it with /f/ for 60 times (23.1%) and with /p/ for 12 times

(4.6%). For instance, to pronounce “have”, some of the subjects said /hef/ or /hf/, and



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some others correctly said /hv/; and to pronounce “event”, some of the subjects

incorrectly said / 'vent/ or / 'fent/ and some others said / 'pent/. The replacement of the

sound /v/ with /f/and /p/ by 27.7 % of the subjects had not fully mastered the pronunciation

of the sound.

While producing the 234 fricative sounds of /f/, the 26 subjects correctly used it for

216 times (92.3%), but replaced it with /p/ for 18 times (7.7%). For instance, to pronounce

“for”, some of the subjects said /p / while some others correctly said /f /; and to

pronounce “after”, some of the subjects incorrectly said /:pt / while some others said

/ :ft /. This finding, that only 7.7% of / f / was mispronounced as /p/ indicated that the

majority of subjects did not find any difficulty to pronounce the sound.

To pronounce the 130 fricative sounds of / h / , it was found that the 26 subjects did not

find any difficulty to pronounce it. All of them could pronounce the sounds of / h / in words

“half ”, “his (2 times)”, “he”, and “have” included in the paragraph.

Since / / existed only in the word “with” which appears three times in the passage, it

was pronounced only for 78 times by the 26 subjects. Despite this fact, the percentage of

error in producing this sound was very high, The 26 subjects correctly used it — by saying

/w / — only for 8 times (10.2%) but replaced it with / / — by saying /wt/ — for 52 times

(66.7%) and with /d/ — by saying /wd/ — for 18 times (23.1%). This finding, revealed that

the sound / / was difficult to pronounce for most of the subjects.

Similar to / /, the sound / / was also difficult to pronounce for the majority of the

subjects. Although it appears only in three different words, and thus was pronounced for



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78 times by the 26 subjects, the percentage of error was quite high, 89.75%. While

producing the 48 sounds of / /, the 26 subjects correctly used it for 8 times (10.25%), but

replaced it with /s/ for 48 times (61.5%) and with /z/ for 22 times (28.25%). For instance,

to pronounce “Asian”, instead of saying /'n/ some of the subjects said / 'sn/ while some

others said / 'sn/.

The Transfer of Indonesian Sounds to English in Pronouncing the Fricative

Phonemes

In their trials to pronounce the English fricative phonemes in this study, some of the

subjects transferred some similar sounds existed in Indonesian. Based on the findings, the

transferred sounds included /z/, / ʧ /, and / x / to replace /s/; /d/ and /z/ to replace / /; /s/ to

replace /z/; /s/ and /t/ to replace / x /; /f/ and /p/ to replace /v/; /p/ to replace/f/; /t/ and /d/ to

replace / /; and /s/ and /z/ to replace / /.

Percentage of Mispronunciations

Based on the findings, the percentage of pronunciation errors committed by the

subjects in this study, which are arranged successively from the highest to the lowest, was

as follow:

1. Phoneme / /

Among the 78 times of this phoneme pronunciation, the subjects pronounced it

correctly only for 8 times (10.2%). For the rest times of pronunciation, the subjects



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transferred /t/ for it for 52 times (66.7%) and /d/ for 18 times (23.1%). Thus, the

percentage of pronunciation error for this sound was 89.8%.

2. Phoneme / /


correctly only for 8 times (10.25%). For the other times of pronunciation, the subjects

transferred /s/ for it for 48 times (61.5%) and /z/ for 22 times (28.25%). Thus, the


3. Phoneme / x /

Among the 286 times of the / x / pronunciation, the subjects pronounced it correctly

only for 68 times (23.8%). For the other times of pronunciation, the subjects transferred

/s/ for it for 174 times (60.8%) and /t/ for 44 times (16.4%). Thus, the percentage of

pronunciation error for this sound was 77.2%.

4. Phoneme / /


correctly only for 100 times (27.47%). For the rest times of pronunciation, the subjects

transferred /d/ for it 219 times (60.16%) and /z/ for 45 times (12.36%). Thus, the




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5. Phoneme /z/

Among the 380 times of the /z/ pronunciation, the subjects pronounced it correctly

only for 152 times (45%). For the rest 55% of pronunciation (186 times), the subjects

transferred /s/ for it. In other words, the percentage of pronunciation error for this sound

was 55%.

6. Phoneme /v/

Among the 260 times of the /v/ pronunciation, the subjects pronounced it correctly

only for 188 times (72.3%). For the rest times of pronunciation, the subjects transferred

/f/ for it for 60 times (23.1%) and /p/ for 12 times (4.6%). Thus, the percentage of


7. Phoneme /f/

Among the 234 times of the production of /f / , the subjects pronounced it correctly


/p/ for it for 18 times (7.7%). Thus, the percentage of pronunciation error for this sound

was 7.7%.

8. Phoneme /s/

Among the 780 times of the production of / / , the subjects pronounced it correctly




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/z/ for it for 20 times (2.56%), / ʧ / for 9 times (1.15%), and / x / for 3 times (0.38%). Thus,

the percentage of pronunciation error for this sound was 4.11%.

9. Phoneme /h/

The subjects pronounced the 130 times of the production of / h / correctly. Thus, there

was no pronunciation errors committed on this phoneme.

E. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Conclusions

Based the analysis and interpretations made in the former sections, the following

conclusion were drawn.

1. The subjects‟ competence to pronounce English fricative sounds was quite low,

because the majority of the sounds were mispronounced with high frequency.

2. Phoneme / / was the most difficult to pronounce because the percentage of


3. Phoneme / / was very difficult to pronounce by Indonesian learners. The percentage of


4. Phoneme / x / was very difficult to pronounce by Indonesian learners. The percentage of


5. Phoneme / / was very difficult to pronounce by Indonesian learners. The percentage of




23

6. Phoneme /z/ was relatively problematic to Indonesian learners. The percentage of

pronunciation error for this sound reached 55%.

7. Phonemes /v/, /f/, /s/, and /h/ were relatively easy for Indonesian learners. The

percentages of pronunciation error for these sounds were successively 7.7 %, 4.11%

and 0%.

8. All the errors were caused by two factors, i.e. inference from Indonesian and the

difficulty of the English fricative sounds for Indonesian learners.

Suggestions

Based the findings, analysis, interpretations, and conclusions presented earlier, some

suggestions can be recommended to teachers and further study as follow:

1. To enable students to speak more accurately, they need more practice on producing

“received” language sounds, especially phonemes which do not exist in the students‟

first language. Assigning students to do minimal pair exercises which develop the

students‟ awareness of the difference between Indonesian and English phonemes is

highly recommended. (Kelly, 2000; Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 1996) suggests

that by developing students awareness of the differences between English and their fist

language sound systems can help them improve their pronunciation by themselves.

2. Due to the limitation of the number of subjects and the phonemes dealt with in this

study, the findings might not applicable to larger populations of students. Thus, to

obtain a more accurate and representative result, further studies with a larger number of



corpus and more various phonemes and other aspects of pronunciation are highly

recommended.

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This paper was presented in the FKIP-UKI English Department Bimonthly Collegiate

Forum held on April 13, 2007.

Documents

The Production of English Fricatives by the Freshmen of the English Department of FKIP-UKI Jakarta_An Error Analysis