Part 2: Phonemic transcription and analysis (Group work) (25%)

1.0 The sample

The sample that we chose is Zakiah Fathiyyah binti Mohd Nasir. She took the Guidance and
Couselling course in IPG Kampus Perlis and currently she is studying in her first semester of
foundation. She was born in Labuan and currently stayed with her parents in Kuala Terengganu.
That makes her a Malaysian. As a Muslim and Malay girl, her first language is definitely Bahasa
Melayu. However, since she stayed in Besut, Terengganu for a long time, she converse in
Bahasa Melayu with Kelantanese accent most of the time. She is a 19 year-old daughter out of
four siblings from her parents. Her father is a policeman while her mother is a housewife. She
got an As in her English paper for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). She only communicates in
English during class but not in her daily conversation. She rarely read English novels or books.

2.0 The Data (Reading Passage: Orthographic and Phonemic transcription)

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Reading Passage
a) Ortoghraphic transcription
England Prepares to Crown a Queen
King George VI of England was hardly buried last February before artist of the Royal Mint began
to design new coins and medals. Royal heralds shook the mothball out of their rich crimson and
gold coats. Sword makers polished up old blades. A London firm of clothiers opened its vaults
under Covent Garden and took inventory of dozens of ermine-trimmed crimson velvet robes,
last worn in 1937, which noblemen will hire again next summer. Officials of the Lord
Chamberlains department which deals with affairs of the royal household- begans to use the
word coronation in notes and memoranda. This was not an example of indecent hurry but the
practical application of that ancient proclamation, The King is dead; long live the King. The
new Queen Elizabeth will not be crowned until June 2, 1953, but the river of official and private
money - $ 300,000,000- that England will spend for the coronation has long since started to
flow. What is a coronation? The placing of a crown upon a young womans head? A two and a
half hour ceremony in Westminster Abbey?

b) The phonemic transcription

/glnd/ /prpers/ /t/ /kran/ // /kwin/

/k/ /d()d/ /sks/ /f/ /glnd/ /hs/ /hrdli/ /bji:d/ /ls/ /febi/ /bf r/ / rt s/ /f/
// /rjl/ /mnt/ /bgen/ /t/ /dsan/ /nju/ /kn/ /nd/ /medal/. /rjl/ /hrld/ /:k/ //
/mbl/ /at/ /v/ /j/ /t/ /krmsn/ /nd/ /gld/ /kt/. /swdmekr/ /pl/ / p/ / ld/
/bled/. /e/ /lndn/ /frm/ /f/ /kltir/ /pn/ /t/ /vlt/ / ndr/ /k nvet/ /g rdn/ /nd/ /tk/
/nventi/ /v/ /dzn/ /f/ /irmn- trm/ /krmsn/ /velvt/ /b/, /ls/ /worn/ /n/ /nan t n
tet svn/, /wt/ /nblmn/

/wl/ /hjr/ /gen/ /nek/ /smr/.

/embrli:n/ /dptmn/ /wt/ /dl/ /w/

jus/ //

/f l/ / f/ // /lrd/

// /fe/ /f/ // /r jl/ /hashld/ /b gen/ /t/

/wd/ /knen/ /n/ /nt/ /nd/ /memrnd /. /s/ /ws/ /nt/ /n/

/zempl/ /f/ /ndsn/ /hji/ /bt/ //

/prektkl/

/plken/ /f/ /et/ /enn/

/prklmen/ "//" /ki/ /s/ /ded/ ; /l/ /lav/ / / /ki/."/ / /nju/ /kwin/ /lzbt/ /wl/
/nt/ /bi/ /krn/ /ntl/ /dun/ /t/ . /nan t fft tr/, /bt/ / / /rv/ /f/ /fl / /nd/
/pavet/ /mn/ /tr hndrd tzn dl/ /et/ /glnd/ /wl/ /spen/ /f/ / / /knen/
/hs/ /l/ /sn/ /strtd/ /t/ /fl/.

/wt/ /s/ /e/ /knen/?.

/ / /ples/ /f/ /e/

/krn/ /pn/ /e/ /j/ /wmn/ /hed/?. /e/ /tu/ /nd/ /e/ /hf/ /h/ /sermon/ / n/
/wesmnstn/ /be/?

1.0 Analysis and discussion of pronunciation difficulties (on selected/segmental or

suprasegmental features)

Based on the findings collected, we discovered that the sample, Miss Zakiah Fathiyyah
binti Mohd. Nasir has faced some pronunciation difficulties. This is due to the numbers of
mispronounced words and some imperfections in her suprasegmental features expression that
are evident from her reading. We decided to select consonant (segmental feature), intonation
(suprasegmental feature) and stress (suprasegmental feature) as the three areas of difficulties
of the sample.
This subject has successfully read the whole passage spontaneously. However, she has
the difficulty in the aspect of consonant. We realised that she has followed certain patterns when
pronouncing some of the words that contain consonants in them. For some words, the sample
was trying to articulate each sound the way it looks in orthography. In Malay sound system;
there is only one phoneme for each alphabet listed, except for the alphabet e that is pronounced
as /e/ and // depending on the culturally accustomed pronunciations. For example, she literally
pronounced the sound /f/ in the word of as /f/ for the way it looks in orthography as Malay
language does not have multiple phonemes for the alphabet f. She failed to realised that the
correct pronunciation for the word of is /v/ whereby the consonant involved is /v/, the voiced
labiodental fricative. The other example is the word was that is supposed to pronounce
as /wz/ and not /ws/ even though the last orthographic alphabet of the word is
clearly /s/ the voiceless alveolar fricative and not /z/ the voiced alveolar fricative.
Other than that, while omission or silenced sound of certain phoneme are rampant in
Standard British English (SBE), but for the Malay language we always pronounce every single
sound that present in a word, therefore, she always fail to omit the sound. For example, she
pronounced the /r/ sound clearly in the words like hardly /hrdli/ and the correct pronunciation
is /ha:dli/, the word summer was pronounced as /smr/ but the correct pronunciation is
/sm/ and garden as /grdn/ but the correct one is /ga:dn/. Meanwhile the sound /w/ as
in /swdmek/ that was supposed to me omitted or silenced when pronouncing them. The
other example is the word hour that the sound of /h/ was supposed to be omitted but she
chose to pronounce it. Even though the passage is relatively simple for an adult, she still faced
several problems and difficulties in pronouncing the words that she read. Therefore, for the
segmental features, she consistently made mistakes in pronouncing the words that were
introduced since primary years and the words that we frequently use in daily conversation.
Meanwhile, for suprasegmental features, her mistakes were less obvious. However, her
reading turned quite monotonous to the end of the passage. For example, she did not apply any
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intonation when reading the last three questions. The tone pattern for the sentence, What is a
coronation? is supposed to be falling intonation but she read with rising pattern. Meanwhile the
A two and a half hour ceremony in Westminster Abbey? was read monotonously but it was
supposed to be read in rising intonation pattern. Other than that, she incorrectly stressed the
syllable of certain words. For examples, the word heralds is a noun in the sentence context.
She stressed the second syllable /rld/ ( the actual pronunciation is /herlds/) but as a noun she
is supposed to put the stress on the first syllable which is /h/.
As a conclusion, generally these are not the most awful mistakes made by the second
language speaker because some of the words are too foreign for the sample. These words
consist of the borrowed or low frequency words that a second speaker rarely uses even though
in the classroom.

4.0 Explanation of possible causes of the pronunciation difficulties

In general, we are speaking about Malaysian English (ME) that are utilised widely in our
English-speaking conversation in the country especially among the Malay speakers. Malaysian
English

(ME)

refers

to

all

the

varieties

of

English

spoken

by

Malaysians.

Nevertheless, Received Pronunciation (RP), which serves as the teaching model in the
classroom, provides points of reference to prevent learners from a common pronunciation core
to maintain intelligibility (Roach, 2009). In the discussion below, we are going to explain the
possible causes of the pronunciation difficulties for the sample and the Malaysians in whole.
The mothers tongue interference stands the primary cause of the difficulties in the
pronunciation. A mixed use of two or more languages on a daily basis by multilingual learners in
the Malaysian context will contribute to interference in the phonological systems of all these
languages (Phoon, 2010).Typical Malaysians are either bilingual or multilingual. Beside their
mothers tongue (generally Malay, Chinese and Tamil), most of the Malaysians acquired the
English language as the second language. However, the influence of the first language is very
strong thus denying the perfect acquirement of the second language which is English. Since
English is rarely practiced by the Malaysians on a daily basis, our speakers tend to insert some
of the Malay sound system elements into the English pronunciation. For example, as each
Malay phoneme belong to only one alphabet, the L2 speakers tend to implement the same
understood concept to the English pronunciation. This problem arises due to lack of knowledge
and confusion.
Besides that, the pronunciation difficulties are also caused by lack of vocabulary in
English. The factor may affect to both segmental and suprasegmental features of the
pronunciation. Understanding of vocabulary is very important to any speaker because it enables
the speakers to make sense and relate to the situation that he/ she intends to utter. Based on
the passage that we chose, there are many low frequency and uncommon vocabularies
because the vocabularies are very specific to royalties and some of the usage are only
exclusive for certain people like aristocrats and royalties. For examples, the words like
proclamation, heralds, robe, Chamberlain and coronation. Upon bumping into these words, we
might feel clueless because the words are so foreign, weird and we even unsure if the words
existed in the English language. Therefore, the difficulties to pronounce the word correctly may
arise. Furthermore, since we failed to make sense of the words with the situation the author
intended to describe, we might intonate the sentences wrongly and we begin to lose interest in
reading the passage further.

As conclusion, there are many more difficulties that we believed existed in our findings.
However, we have reached and over the words limit. As the L2 teachers and learners, we need
to have the awareness, responsibilities and commitment to deliver the true English knowledge
to the young learners so that they will be able to speak English with correct pronunciation thus
increasing their fluency and proficiency in this language.