Mother Tongue Influence on English Pronunciation: Solutions from Linguistics
“Isn’t overcoming mother tongue influence a utopian idea?”
This article attempts to address the challenge of mother tongue influence on English pronunciation, to briefly explain the linguistic reasons, and to demonstrate how Linguistics provide solutions for overcoming the interference of mother tongue; particularly, from the application of Articulatory Phonetics (a sub-branch of Linguistics that studies how speech sounds are articulated/uttered).
The quote above is a rough paraphrase of a question I was asked by one of the participants after my presentation titled Clear pronunciation: A tool for intelligibility and effectiveness in teaching, as part of an activity for a Faculty Induction Program (online) which I attended last year. One can definitely argue that the influence of our mother tongue will always be present. However, is it unrealistic to try to overcome it?
Certainly it is a universal phenomenon that there is interference of the mother tongue in the usage of English language. For instance, a Spanish who is learning English often experiences difficulty with the English vowel sounds because there are only five vowel sounds in Spanish, whereas English has about 20 vowel sounds. Similarly, the Zeliangrong (ZLR) people find it difficult to pronounce the word jug with the ‘j’ sound, and many mispronounce it as *zug. The linguistic explanation will be the lack of ‘j’ in their sound systems. Another example is the replacement of ‘sh’ shoes with ‘s’ *soos. This phenomenon is due to the absence of the sound combination pattern s + h in the ZLR languages, which functions as a single sound unit in English.
Among the Ao speakers, words like ball, and Bible gets mispronounced as *pol, and *Pible. In the work of Alexander R Coupe on the Ao language, the ‘b’ sound is absent in the phonological (sound) inventory. However, since the ‘b’ sound is there in Ao names like Moachiba, Imlibenla, for instance, the mispronunciation of the word seems to be because of the position of where the sound ‘b’ of English words occur, and not because of the absence of the ‘b’ sound in the language. So, the explanation for the mispronunciation of the word ball and Bible could be the non occurrence of ‘b’ sound in the beginning of words in the Ao language, resulting in the replacement of a close sound to ‘b’ which is ‘p’. For Hindi speakers, English words like school, and stream is often spoken with the addition of an initial ‘is’ as in *iskul, and *istreem. The reason for this phenomena could be that in Hindi, the sound combination such as ‘sk’ and ‘st’ are unavailable (in the word initial position). Another reason is that when a word is loaned into Hindi vocabulary from another language, ‘-is’ gets attached in the beginning of the word.
To overcome mispronouncing ‘j’ as *z as seen in paragraph 3, one can practice the place and manner of articulation. The ‘j’ sound is a palatal sound (produced by raising the front of the tongue to the palate; the roof of the mouth). That means, when you say the English words like jug, the front of the tongue is raised to let it touch the roof of the mouth. For the ‘sh’ sound in English words like shoes, shine, and shape, pronouncing them incorrectly as *soos, *sine, and *sep can be avoided by learning how to articulate the ‘sh’ sound, which is phonetically represented by ‘ʃ’’; an alveolar sound. Similar to the ‘dz’ sound, ‘ʃ’’ is uttered by raising the front of the tongue to the palate. However, the two sounds ‘dz’ and ‘ʃ’ differs in the fact that ‘dz’ is produced with vibration of the vocal cords, and ‘ʃ’ without vibration. The two sounds ‘p’ and ‘b’ from the example of the Ao language in paragraph 4 are produced in the same place, i.e., by the coming together of both the upper and the lower lips. However, similar to the distinction noted in between the two sounds ‘dz’ and ‘ʃ’, ‘p’ and ‘b’ is distinguished by the presence or the absence of vibration of the vocal cords. The ‘p’ sound is uttered without vibration, whereas, the ‘b’ sound with vibration.
By dissecting the sounds ‘sk’ and ‘st’ mentioned in para 4 into individual units, it enables easier production of correct clustered sounds. In the sound ‘sk’, ‘s’ is an alveolar (sound produced by raising the tongue to the alveolar ridge; raised bony part at the back of the teeth). And it is a sound without the vibration of the vocal cords. ‘k’ is velar (sound produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate of the velum). Inorder to achieve the ‘sk’ and the ‘st’ sounds in words like school , and stream without adding ‘is’ in front of the words, practising sss + cool, and sss + treem, can be helpful.
In this article, I have presented just one factor which affects English pronunciation, viz., the influence of mother tongue. The article has briefly discussed some mispronunciations in only a few languages (international and local), viz., Spanish, Zeliangrong languages, Ao, and Hindi. It has also demonstrated how applying the knowledge of articulatory phonetics can aid in overcoming some difficulties in English pronunciation resulting from the interference of mother tongue.
Speech is the most effective medium through which humans communicate, and clarity in communication is a necessity to facilitate good communication. Correct pronunciation is one of the ways through which good communication can be achieved. With a little bit of practice, a little effort, and a little measure of desire to learn and improve, I think overcoming the challenge of mother tongue interference on English pronunciation contrary to being a utopian concept is a practical possibility, though it may not be easy due to priorly ingrained speech habits.
Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC Accredited UGC recognised Commerce and Arts College. The editorial team includes Chubamenla, Asst. Professor, Dept. of English and Rinsit Sareo, Asst. Manager, IT, Media & Communications.
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