AN ANALYSIS OF PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF ENGLISH CONSONANTS SOUNDS PRODUCED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS

Abstract

In communication, they not only can understand what other people say, but they also should be understood by other people when they do communication. This study is aimed to analyze pronunciation errors of English consonants sounds produced by English department students. This research is conducted by using the Descriptive Qualitative Research. The data is in the form of audio recording and the writer makes the transcription of the data. After getting the transcription of the students, the writer analyses the data to identify the error that occur with the correct transcription as the standard of assessment. The next step is the writer describes the error in a descriptive form. The result showed that the student still made some mistakes in producing some consonants sounds. From the total number of errors, there are some consonants that the students mostly pronounce them incorrectly as follow: consonant [v] is 21.4%, [θ] is 19.0%, [ð] is 26.2%, [ʃ] is 4.8%, [ʒ] 26.2% and [ŋ] is 2.4%. The errors occurred because those consonants do not exist in Indonesian language, so that they are not familiar with those sounds.

Full text

WACANA DIDAKTIKA
41 FakultasKeguruandanIlmuPendidikan
AN ANALYSIS OF PRONUNCIATION ERRORS
OF ENGLISH CONSONANTS SOUNDS PRODUCED BY
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS
oleh
Natalia Anggrarini1 Lulu Istiqomah2
1,2,) Universitas Wiralodra, Jln.Ir.H.Juanda Km 3, Indramayu,
natalia.anggrarini@unwir.ac.id , istiqomahlulu95@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
In communication, they not only
can understand what other people say, but
they also should be understood by other
people when they do communication. This
study is aimed to analyze pronunciation
errors of English consonants sounds
produced by English department students.
This research is conducted by using the
Descriptive Qualitative Research. The data
is in the form of audio recording and the
writer makes the transcription of the data.
After getting the transcription of the
students, the writer analyses the data to
identify the error that occur with the
correct transcription as the standard of
assessment. The next step is the writer
describes the error in a descriptive form.
The result showed that the student still
made some mistakes in producing some
consonants sounds. From the total number
of errors, there are some consonants that
the students mostly pronounce them
incorrectly as follow: consonant [v] is
21.4%, [θ] is 19.0%, [ð] is 26.2%, [ʃ] is
4.8%, [ʒ] 26.2% and [ŋ] is 2.4%. The
errors occurred because those consonants
do not exist in Indonesian language, so that
they are not familiar with those sounds.
Keywords: pronunciation, consonants,
errors
Keywords: Consonant Sounds,
Pronunciation Error, Phonology
INTRODUCTION
As English become an international
language, there are some people learn and
speak English. In this global era, they can
easily communicate with people around the
world by using internet that becomes one
reason they have to master English as a tool
that can make them to communicate easier.
According to Brown (2005) as citied
in Yostanto (2007), the goal of the language
learners is to make sure that they can
communicate what they have in mind
effectively; they have to be understood when
they uttering the words. From that statement
we know that pronouncing the words become
one of the important things for speakers to be
understood by other people when the
communication occurs. In this case,
pronunciation is a crucial thing.
Islamiyah (2012) found that there are
some errors made by the learners while
producing English sounds. Islamiyah added
that those errors may cause by two reasons.
The first reason is caused by the effect of their
ABSTRAK

42 UniversitasWIralodraIndramayu
Vol.11, No.3 –September 2019
first language and the other reason is that the
students have no complete understanding in
the variation of English sounds. Furthermore,
the way of pronouncing one of particular
sound may be different based on “the position
of the sound in the word” (Prator and
Robinett, 1972, pp. 86-88). As an illustration,
[t] in ‘taking’ [theykɪŋ] and in ‘atom’ [ætəm]
is pronounced in different way, it should be
note that when [t] is positioned in the initial
position, it is aspirated. However, if it is put
in the medial position, it is no longer
aspirated. Based on the background of study,
this research is formulated in a reseach
question: “What pronunciation errors of
consonants sound that mostly occurred made
by English students”?.
The purpose in this study is one of the
important in order the study will reach the
target of this paper. So, the specific purpose
of this study is to analyze the pronunciation
errors of consonants sounds that mostly
occurred made by English department
students of Wiralodra University as well as
the causes of English pronunciation errors.
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Allen (as cited in Hakim,
2012) stated that pronunciation is one of
element of the language that has big
contribution for better English speaking.
That’s very important to learn, because with
good pronunciation, our English can more
clearly and easily to understand. Kelly (2000:
9) explained that the study of pronunciation
consists of two fields, which are phonetics
and phonology.
Phonetics and phonology are related,
dependent fields for studying aspects of
language. Phonetics is the study of sound in
speech; phonology is the study (and use) of
sound patterns to create meaning. Phonetic
represent the sounds and other phenomena of
speech.
Phonetics focuses on how speech is
physically created and received, including the
study of the human vocal and auditory tracts,
acoustics, and neurology. Phonology relies on
phonetic information for its practice, but
focuses on how patterns in both speech and
non-verbal communication create meaning,
and how such patterns are interpreted.
According to Harmer (2000: 7) there is a
difference between writing English and
speaking English. When writing English, we
use 5 vowel and 21 consonant letters, but
when we speaking English we typically use
20 different vowel sounds (including 12
diphthongs), and 24 consonant sounds. This
causes some difficulties that learners faced in
learning English.
RESEARCH METHOD
This research used the qualitative
approach. The purpose of the study is to
analyze pronunciation errors of English
consonants sounds produced by English

WACANA DIDAKTIKA
43 FakultasKeguruandanIlmuPendidikan
Department students. This research is
conducted by using the Descriptive
Qualitative Research. Mardalis (1995)
explains that descriptive research is to
describe or to get information about the
current condition of certain objects. This
research is designed to identify the kind of
consonants sound that mostly pronounce
incorrectly by the students.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
In this research, the writer focused on
the student’s English consonant
pronunciation. The writer used the student’s
exercises in pronouncing list of English words
as an instrument of the research. Those
English words were contained by some
vowels and consonants, but the writer focused
in the consonants errors.
Table 1.
Types of errors in pronouncing consonants
sound.
Consonants
Errors
[f]
This one is not getting a
big problem actually. [f]
sound may have familiar
with the student’s ear, so
that most of the students
are able to produce that
sound properly. But there
are still some students that
mispronounce it, and most
of them made a mistake in
the word alphabet.
[v]
This consonant has an
opposite situation with the
[f]. From all of the
students, none of them
produced this sound
correctly. They pronounce
it as [f] instead of making
a sound of [v].
[θ]
This consonant is hard to
pronounce for some
students. They mostly
pronounce it as the sound
of [t], but some others are
able to pronounce it
properly.
[ð]
This consonant also hard
to pronounce for all the
students. Almost all of
them produce this sound
incorrectly and pronounce
it as [d].
[z]
This sound gets a contrast
situation. The [z] sound is
pronounced wrong by
most of students. The
pronunciation of [ð] Most
of the student’s errors
occur in this consonant.
Almost all the students
pronounce it incorrectly
and they pronounce it as a

44 UniversitasWIralodraIndramayu
Vol.11, No.3 –September 2019
[d] sound.
[ʃ]
The majority of the
students have pronounce
the [ʃ] sound well, but
there are some students
that still got confused with
this sound by producing
the sound of [s].
[ʒ]
Most of the students made
a mistake in pronouncing
this consonant. The
pronounciation of this
consonant as the [ʃ] sound.
[p]
Generally, the consonant
[p] is not getting any error.
But in the [ph] (aspirated),
most of students still not
aware about it and
pronounce itas a regular
[p] without aspiration.
[t]
There is no any error for
this consonant. The
students are also able to
produce this sound
properly without any error.
[d]
The next consonant
without any error is [d].
All of students are able to
pronounce it clearly.
Sometimes, the other
sounds are often
mispronounced as this
consonant.
[tʃ]
The problem in this
consonant is still related
with the two previous
consonant, [r] and [j].
Most of students produced
this sound like the regular
[c] sound in Indonesian
language and only one
student is able to
pronounce it properly.
[dʒ]
The same issue is also
happened in consonant
[dʒ]. The majority of
students produced this
sound like the regular [d]
sound in Indonesian
language and only one
student is able to
pronounce it properly.
[r]
There is a little issue with
this consonant. Actually
the student did not do a
serious error in this sound,
but the problem more
about the English accent.
As we know that English
has a more silent [r], but
the student pronounced the
sound of [r] more clearly.

WACANA DIDAKTIKA
45 FakultasKeguruandanIlmuPendidikan
Table 2.
The Dominant Errors
No
Consonants
Number
of Errors
Percentage
1
/v/
9
21.4%
2
/θ/
8
19%
3
/ð/
11
26.2%
4
/ʃ/
2
4.8%
5
/ʒ/
11
26.2%
6
/ŋ/
1
2.4%
Based on the result of student’s
transcriptions above, the student still made
some mistakes in producing some consonants
sounds. From the total number of errors, there
are some consonants that the students mostly
pronounce them incorrectly as follow:
consonant [v] 21.4%, [θ] 19.0%, [ð] 26.2%,[ʃ]
4.8%, [ʒ] 26.2%, and [ŋ] 2.4%.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
The students made an error in
pronouncing consonant [v] 21.4%, consonant
[θ] 19.0%, consonant [ð] 26.2%, consonant [ʃ]
4.8%, consonant [ʒ] 26.2%, and also
consonant [ŋ] 2.4%. Consonants [ð] and [ʒ]
are the consoants that mostly pronounce
incorrectly by the students with 26.2%. The
second place is consonant [v] with more then
twenty percent. After that, there is consonant
[θ] that almost reach twenty percent. And the
last, there are consonants [ʃ] and [ŋ] with the
number of errors less then five percent.
The writer would like to give some
suggestions that related to the result of the
research, which hopefully will be useful for
students, teachers and other researchers.The
teachers should give more attention to the
student’s pronunciation ability in teaching and
learning process and the students have to
learn and practice more to improve their
pronunciation. And the last for researchers,
the writer suggest to analyze deeper about the
pronunciation errors of consonants sounds
and find other errors on the production of
consonants sounds.
REFFERENCES
O’Grady, William., Archibald, John.,
Aronoff, Mark., Rees-Miller, Janie.
(2005). Contemporary Linguistics (6th
ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martine’s
Kelly, Gerald. (2007). How to Teach
Pronunciation. Essex: Longman.
O’connor, J. D. (1980). Better English
Pronounciation. London: Cambridge
University Press.
McMahon, April. (2002). An Introduction to
English Phonology. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.

46 UniversitasWIralodraIndramayu
Vol.11, No.3 –September 2019
Nunan, David.,& Bailee, K. M. (2009).
Exploring Second Language Classroom
Research. Boston: Heinle.
Cambridge University Press. (1999).
Handbook of the International Phonetic
Association (3rd ed.). Edinburg: Author.
Marshall, Catherine. (2006). Designing
Qualitative Research (4th ed.). Thousand
Oaks: Sage Publication.
Creswell, J., W. (1994). Research Design:
Quantitative & Qualitative Approaches.
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication.
Tiono, N., I. &Yostanto, A., M. (2008). A
Study of Phonological Error Produced by
English Department Students, English
Department, Faculty Letters, Petra
Christian University, 10(1), 79-112.
Renaldi, A., Stefani, R. P., &Gulo, I. (2016).
Phonological Difficulties Faced by
Students in Learning English, Proceedings
of the Fourth International Seminar on
English Language and Teaching, 97-100.
Islamiyah, Muflihah. (2012). Error Analysis
of English Sound Produced by English
Learners: The Influence of Transfer,
Leksika, 06(01), 1-9.