AN ANALYSIS OF ERROR IN ENGLISH VOWELS PRONUNCIATION:

STUDENTS OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN KARAWANG

RESEARCH PAPER
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement
For Degree of Bachelor of Education in English Education

Dien Alfanita
1510631060043

FACULTY OF ENGLISH EDUCATION TEACHER TRAINING

AND EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SINGAPERBANGSA UNIVERSITY
KARAWANG
2019
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Every human being has a language. It is used to convey messagesto other people

and without a language the people will find it difficult to communicate and express their

ideas, thought and wishes. According to James (2010:5) Language is a system that

connects thoughts, which cannot be heard, seen, or touched, with sounds, letters,

manual signs, or tactile symbols (e.g., Braille) which can. In this way, one person’s

private ideas may be communicated to another person.

In learning a language, there are four skills involved. Those are listening,

speaking, reading, and writing. One of the most important skills to learn language is

speaking. Speaking is one of the language skills which are needed by the student for

communication. It is very important to master speaking well by implementing the

experience of learning the language in the real life. To practice speaking is not easy for

the students. Therefore; many students get some problems to do it. The difficulties

which are encountered by the students can relate to their linguistic competence such as

lack of vocabulary, poor grammar, lack of idea to speak, wrong intonation, and

inappropriate pronunciation. One of the difficulties is the difficulty in pronouncing

English vowel. Many indonesian students find difficulties in learning some English

sounds, because they do not find them in their own language and also they have not

been trained to produce this new sets of sounds.

Pronunciation cannot be separated from communication since people use

sounds to communicate and understand lexical, grammatical and socio-linguistic

meaning. Pronunciation is one of the language components which are very important

for the students to know. In fact, there are many difficulties for students to express

everything in English because they lack of practicing and feel ashamed to pronounce

it. Pronunciation skill is certainly needed by the students in order to express the meaning

accurately and fluently in their communication and to achieve good communicative

competence. The students can learn more about pronunciation in phonology.

Pronunciation plays an important role in learning a second or aforeign language.

Because phonology relates with pronunciation, much has been said concerning the

importance of pronunciation. Brown(2007:87) argues that communicative competence

as the goal of alanguage classroom comprises organizational competence, which

includes grammatical and discourse competence; pragmatic competence, which

includes functional and sociolinguistic competence; strategic competence; and

psychomotor skills (pronunciation).

Although students have English subject at school, most of them often make

errors, especially in pronunciation practice. With regard to this, this study was intended

to find and analyze the students’ errors in pronouncing English vowels hoping that the

findings may be beneficial for pronunciation teaching as they provide rather

comprehensive data on what the students lack and need to improve accordingly.
 Based on the explanation above, this study is going to observe the errors

encountered by university students second semester. The errors encountered in

pronounciation will be the focus of the study. The researcher intend to observe the Error

Analysis of Pronouncing English Vowels at the second grade of junior high school.

The researcher does the research based on research that had been done before,

but in the exsiting research was examined about “An analysis of student’s errors in

pronouncing English vowels (A case study of the eleventh grade of SMA N 1 Sigaluh

Banjarnegara in the academic year 2006/2007”. In this study the researcher was

conducted under consideration that pronouncing English vowels plays an important

role and “An Error Analysis on the Pronunciation of Diphthong made by the Students

of the First Grade in Smk Puspajati Buluspesantren Kebumen in the Academic Year

2012/2013” done by Yuni Pangestuti Werdiningsih. In this research study the

researcher uses descriptive qualitative method. This study attempts to find out the

difficulties encountered by the students of the first grade vocational high school in

producing English diphthong.

In this study, researcher conducted a study of analysis of error in English vowel,

because in the exsisting research had not been any research on this, therefore researcher

conducted research on this topic.

B. Limitation of Problem & Formulating Research Question

In this research, the researcher limits the study on pronunciation of English

vowel and the causes of error in pronouncing vowels. This limitation is essential since

it will help the researcher to focus on the object of the research. The researcher

just focused on the analysis of students’ errors in pronouncing English vowels.

 Based on the limitation above, some problems need to be answered from this research:

1. What vowel sounds are difficult to be pronounced by the students?

2. What are the causes of error in pronouncing English vowels?

C. Objective of the Research

The objective of the research is to find out the vowel sounds which are difficult

to be pronounced and to find the factors that make the students in the second grade of

SMPN 8 Karawang are difficult to pronounce it.

D. Definition of Term

1. Error Analysis

The fact that learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed,

analyzed, and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner,

led to a surge of study of learners’ errors, called error analysis (Brown, 2007 : 259). Error

analysis is a type of linguistics analysis that focuses on the errors learners make (Gass

and Selinker, 2008 : 102).

Error Analysis, a branch of Applied Linguistics emerged in the sixties to reveal

that learner errors were not only because of the learner’s native language but also they

reflected some universal strategies. This is a reaction to Contrastive Analysis Theory

which considered native language interference as the major source of errors in second

language learning what behavioristic theory suggested. Errors can be taken as red flags;

they provide windows onto a system that is, evidence of the state of a learner’s knowledge

of the L2. They are not to be viewed solely as a product of imperfect learning; hence,

they are not something for teachers to throw their hands up in the air about. As such, they

are evidence of an underlying rule governed system. In some sense, the focus on errors
 is the beginning of the field of second language acquisition, which at this point is

beginning to emerge as a field of interest not only for the pedagogical implications that

may result from knowing about second language learning, but also because of

thetheoretical implications for fields such as psychology (in particular learning theory)

and linguistics. Error analysis may be carried out in order to:

1. Find out how someone learns a language

2. Find out how someone knows language, and

3. Obtain information on common difficulties in language learning.

Thus, error analysis is the study and the analysis of error made by language

learners which function as to give the information on how they learn a language, how well

they know the language and what difficulties faced by them in achieving the objective. In

addition, the students also make some mistakes in their learning procces. In order to analyze

learner language in an appropriateperspective, it is crucial to make a distinction between

errors and mistakes, technically two very different phenomena. According to (Brown,

2007: 257) an error, a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker,

reflects the competence of the learner. While, a mistakes refers to a performance error that

is either a random guess or a ‘slip’ in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly.

All people make mistakes, in both native and second language situation.

2. English vowels

Every language surely have vowel. Because vowel is very important for the speaker to

pronounce the word well, so they can deliver the message to another speakers.Richard

(2002:584) Vowel is a speech sound produced without significant constriction of their air

flowing through the mouth. Vowels are produced when the airstream is voiced through the

vibration of the vocal cords in the larynx, and then shaped using the tongue and the lips to
modify the overall shape of the mouth. The position of the tongue is a useful reference point

for describing the differences between vowel sounds. Nathan (2008:18) states that, vowels

are not classified in the same framework as consonants in traditional phonetics, because they

are not made with significant obstruction in oral tract. Consequently, they do not have a

point of articulation.

3. Pronunciation

Kelly (2000:1) says phonemes are different sounds within a language. Although there

are slight differences in how individuals articulate sounds, we can still describe reasonably

accurately how each sound is produced. Whereas syntax is syntax is about sentence

formation, and semantics about sentence interpretation, phonetics and phonology cover the

field of sentence utterance. Phonetics is about sounds of language, phonology is about

sounds system of language. Phonetics is a too necessary to the study of the phonology

aspect of language. Language have different accents: they are pronounced differently by

people from different geographical places, from different social classes, of different ages

and different educational backgrounds. The word “accent’ is often confused with dialect.

We use the word “dialect” to reefer to a veracity of a language which is different from other

not just in pronunciation but also in such matters as vocabulary, grammar and word-order.

Different of accent, on the other hand are pronunciation differences only, Roach Peter

(2000:4). On the other hand, Hornby (2000:64) states that pronunciation as a way in which

a language spoken. It means that the basis of pronunciation is not only consonants and

vowels, but also accent, inflection, and intonation.

Pronunciation is one of the important matters every second language learners should

master. The other hand, pronunciation is the way a certain sound or sounds are produced.

Which refers to sounds in the mouth, pronunciation stresses more the way sounds are
perceived by the hearer, Richard (2002:492). Without the skill, it is impossible for the

learners to communicate with others people using the language they are learning. The

inability to interfere with communication due to a misunderstanding. This is caused by the

fact that the pronunciation is wrong sound can give a different meaning. In Indonesia

English pronunciation is one of the most difficult tasks in English learning. This is caused

by the large difference between the sound of Indonesian and their English. These

differences would certainly bring trouble for Indonesian students to pronounce English

words. The difficulty then overcome by transferring sound pronunciation Indonesian into

English. With this fact, no doubt to say that the students will make mistakes in

pronunciation.
 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. Exsisting Research

Dealing with this study, there are some studies previously conducted by some

researcher before. First, “An analysis of student’s errors in pronouncing English vowels (A

case study of the eleventh grade of SMA N 1 Sigaluh Banjarnegara in the academic year

2006/2007”. In this study the researcher was conducted under consideration that

pronouncing English vowels plays an important role. The problem of this study are what

kinds of error the students make in pronouncing English vowels and why these errors occur.

The researcher tried-out to thirty three students. The instrument used by the researcher in

her final object was tape recorder which used to record students pronunciation. In analyzing

the data, error analysis was used in which there were four steps: transcribing students’

pronunciation into the phonetic transcription grouping the students’ errors in

pronouncing English vowels into separated divisions, employing the percentage

descriptive analysis to count all error and interpreting the result of the data analysis.

The total percentage of various errors in pronouncing English vowels is 23.33%. There are

five type of dominant errors. There are vowels [i:] (5.31%), vowel [ӕ] (6.22%), vowel [a:]

(6.67%), vowel [ɔ:] (6.67%), and vowel [ә] (0.76%). In this research, the researcher fined

the similarity and the difference from the previous study above. The similarities are the

study of error analysis on the pronunciation and the data were got from recording, and use

descriptive qualitative as a method to interpret the error.

 The second research was done by Yuni Pangestuti Werdiningsih with her research

entitled “An Error Analysis on the Pronunciation of Diphthong made by the Students of the

First Grade in Smk Puspajati Buluspesantren Kebumen in the Academic Year 2012/2013”.

In this research study the researcher uses descriptive qualitative method. This study

attempts to find out the difficulties encountered by the students of the first grade vocational

high school in producing English diphthong. The difficulties are identified by errors made

and explained based on the error sources. The data are collected through recording the

utterances made by students. The students’ pronunciation were transcribed into phonetic

transcription and then analyzed. The test was given to 38 students. Based on the analysis,

the researcher finding indicates the 1458 or 76.74% of 1900 English diphthong produced

by the students constitute error. The data analysis clarify English diphthong [eә] are most

frequently error, on the contrary English diphthong [ɔI] is least frequently in error. The

diphthong error are mostly yielded by the interference errors, which comprise 85.32% of

the errors, 10.29% of them are interlingual errors and 4.39% by the developmental errors.

1. The General Concept of Pronunciation

A. Definition of Pronunciation

Pronunciation is an essential part of speaking (oral communication). It involves

making correct sounds of a particular language, as well as how the sounds are put

together in the flow of speech (not just in isolated words). A necessary part of

intelligible pronunciation in English also involves knowing how to stress words

correctly and how to use intonation appropriately.

Moreover, based on Christiane Dalton and Barbara Seidlhofer in Pronunciation

book, they stated that pronunciation in general terms as the production of significant
sound in two senses. The first sense is talk about pronunciation as the production and

reception of sound speech.

B. The Difficulties of Pronunciation

Jones finds out few difficulties regarding to pronunciation. Students have to

make the foreign sounds with their own organ of speech. Moreover, it is also a

difficult that students must learn to use the sounds in proper places with accurate

usage of pitch, stress and length. To overcome the problem, the necessity of ‘ear-

training’ i.e. if the learners’ ear is good by nature, learning pronunciation can be

successful.

C. Factors that Affect Pronunciation Learning

1. Age. The debate over the impact of age on language acquisition and specifically

pronunciation is varied. Most researchers, however, agree that adults find

pronunciation more difficult than children do and that they probably will not

achieve native-like pronunciation.

2. Amount and type of prior pronunciation instruction. Prior experiences with

pronunciation instruction may influence learners’ success with current efforts.

Learners at higher language proficiency levels may have developed habitual,

systematic pronunciation errors that must be identified and addressed.

3. Aptitude. Individual capacity for learning languages has been debated. Some

researchers believe all learners have the same capacity to learn a second language

because they have learned a first language.

4. Learner attitude and motivation. Nonlinguistic factors related to an individual’s

personality and learning goals can influence achievement in pronunciation.

Attitude toward the target language, culture, and native speakers; degree of

acculturation (including exposure to and use of the target language); personal

 identity issues; and motivation for learning can all support or impede

pronunciation skills development.

5. Native language. Most researchers agree that the learner’s first language

influences the pronunciation of the target language and is a significant factor

in accounting for foreign accents. 6 It is possible that students can not learn

English well. Students might be difficult to pronounce English words because

it is different from their native language.

D. Aspects of Pronunciation

Pronunciation has two main features; there are segmental and super segmental

features.7 Segmental feature includes phoneme that consist of vowel and consonant.

In addition, super segmental includes stressing and intonation.

1. Segmental

The segmental feature concerns with the phonemes which includes of vowel

and consonants of a language. These have been well described on this figure below:

Figure 1.

Segmental Features of the Phonemes

2. Vowels

Vowels are voiced sounds produced when there is vibration in vocal

cords.8 Vowel sounds may be single (like /e/ in / let/), or combination

 vowels, it involve a movement from one vowel to another (like /ei/ in /late/).

This combination is known as diphthongs.

3. Every language surely have vowel. Because vowel is very important for the

speaker to pronounce the word well, so they can deliver the message to

another speakers.Richard (2002:584) Vowel is a speech sound produced

without significant constriction of their air flowing through the mouth.

Vowels are produced when the airstream is voiced through the vibration of

the vocal cords in the larynx, and then shaped using the tongue and the lips

to modify the overall shape of the mouth. The position of the tongue is a

useful reference point for describing the differences between vowel sounds.

Nathan (2008:18) states that, vowels are not classified in the same

framework as consonants in traditional phonetics, because they are not made

with significant obstruction in oral tract. Consequently, they do not have a

point of articulation. According to Ramelan (1994:52), vowel sound are,

therefore, classified and described on the basis of the following variables:

1)Which part of the tongue is raised; 2)How high in the mouth some part of

the tongue is raised (the degree of the raising the tongue). 3)The position of

the two lips, that is, whether the two lips are rounded or unrounded. The

following is a vowel diagram and the description of each of the English

vowel.
 Figure 2. The classification of Main english vowels

The diagram is a representation of the ‘vowel space’ in the Centre of the

mouth where vowel sounds are articulated. 1)‘Close’, ‘Mid’, and ‘Open’

refer to the distance between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. 2)‘Front’,

‘Centre’, and ‘Back’ and their corresponding ‘vertical’ lines refer to the part

of the tongue. 3)The position of each phoneme represents the height of the

tongue, and also the part of the tongue which is (however relatively) raised.

According to Ramlan (1994:59), pure vowel is a vowel in the production of

which the organs of speech remain a given position for an appreciable period

of time. Kelly (2000:30) states that, the word ‘pure’ is used to differentiate

single vowel sound from diphthong. The sounds have been divided up into

categories, according to the characteristics of their articulation, and each

category begins with a brief outline.

A pure vowel in details:

No Phonetics Key Words Phonetic Writing

symbols

1 / i: / bee [bi:]

2 /I/ bit [bIt]

 3 /ε/ bet [ bεt ]

4 /æ/ bat [bæt ]

5 / a: / Far [fa:]

6 /ɔ/ hot [hɔt]

7 /ɔ:/ Cord [ kɔ:d ]

8 / u: / who [hu:]

9 /U/ could [ kUd ]

10 /Λ/ But [ bΛt ]

11 / ә: / bird [ bә:d ]

12 /ә/ Ago [ әgou ]

The description of each of the English vowel

1. [ i: ] Articulatory definition: [ i: ] is an unrounded close front vowel Articulatory

description:

a. In producing [i:] the front of the tongue is raised.

b. It is raised almost to the close position;

c. The lip position is unrounded or spread, it may even be neutral.

d. The jaws are slightly apart from each other.

e. The organs of speech are relatively forties or tense, which can be felt by

putting the fingertips on the muscles bellow the jaws

List of words: He [hi:] She [si:] Bee [bi:] Key [ki:] Eve [i:v]

2. [ I ] Articulatory definition: [ I ] is an unrounded half close to close front vowel

Articulatory description:

a. In producing [I] the front of the tongue is raised; the raising is somewhat

retracted so that it is not really a front vowel, but in

 b. The tongue is raised to a point slightly above the half close position: the

tongue position is clearly lower than that for [i:];

c. The lips are spread or neutral;

d. The jaws are a bit wider than for [i:].

List of words: Sin [sIn] Sit [sIt] Fill [fIl] Bid [bId] Live [lIv]

3. [ε] Articulatory definition: [ε] is an unrounded half close to half open front Articulatory

description:

a. In producing [ε] the front of the tongue is raised.

b. The front of the tongue is raised to a point half way between the half

open and half close position

c. The lips position is spread or neutral;

d. The opening between the jaws is medium, a bit wider than for [I]

List of words: Head [hεd] Fell [fεl] Set [sεt] Bed [bεd]

4. [æ] Articulatory definition: [æ] is an unrounded open to half open front vowel

Articulatory description:

a. In producing [æ] the front of the tongue is raised;

b. The front of the tongue is raised a little bit to a point midway between

the open and the half open position.

c. The lip position is spread or neutral;

d. He jaws are rather widely opened.

List of words: Band [bænd] Land [lænd] Bad [bæd] Bat [bæt]

5. [a:] Articulatory definition: [a:] is an unrounded open back vowel Articulatory

description:

a. In producing [a:] the back of the tongue is raised;

 b. The raising is somewhat advanced from the real back position.

c. The raising of the tongue is only slight so that the tongue can be said to

be very low in the mouth, and is then at the fully open position. d. Hough

classed as a back vowel, the lips for the production of [a:] are not

rounded, but they are neutral;

d. The jaws are fairly wide apart.

List of words: Harm [ha:m] Hard [ha:d] Heart [ha:t] Barn [ba:n]

6. [ɔ] Articulatory definition: [ɔ] is a rounded open back vowel Articulatory description:

a. For the production of [ɔ] the back of the tongue is slightly raised.

b. The raising of the back of the tongue is so slight that it is almost near the

fully open position; thus the tongue is very low in the mouth.

c. The lips are slightly rounded, but not protruded.

d. The jaws are rather wide apart.

List of words: Hot [hɔt] Cot [kɔt] Pot [pɔt] Lost [lɔs]

7. [ɔ:] Articulatory definition: [ɔ:] is a rounded half open back vowelArticulatory

description:

a. In producing [ɔ:] the back of the tongue is raised.

b. This raising almost reaches the half open position.

c. The lips are more closely rounded than for [ɔ:], that is, in between open

lip rounding.

d. The jaws are fairly wide apart from each other.

List of words: Caught [kɔ:t] Dawn [dɔ:n] Stalk [stɔ:k] Port [pɔ:t]

8. [U] Articulatory definition: [U] is a rounded half close to close back vowel Articulatory

description:
 a. In producing [U] the back of the tongue is raised; this raising is advanced

from the true back position.

b. It is raised to the point slightly above the half-close position.

c. The lips are fairly closely rounded, and slightly protruded, with no

tension of the muscles.

d. The jaws are little bit apart from each other.

List of words: Could [kUd] Put [pUt] Cook [kUk] Fully [fUlI]

9. [u:] Articulatory definition: [u:] is a rounded close back vowel Articulatory description:

a. In producing [u:] the back of the tongue is raised;

b. It is raised to a point very near the close position.

c. The lips are closely rounded with little protrusion.

d. The jaws are only slightly separated.

List of words Fool [fu:l] Pool [pu:l] Food [fu:d]

10. [Λ] Articulatory definition: [Λ] is an unrounded half open centro-back vowel. (or an

unrounded open to half open centro back vowel) Articulatory description:

a. In [Λ] some part between the front and the back of the tongue, almost

the central part of the tongue, is raised; (thus centro back vowel).

b. It is raised to the half open position, or slightly to a point between the

half open and open position;

c. The lip position is unrounded or neutral;

d. The jaws are wide apart

List of words: Bud [bΛd] Tusk [tΛsk] Lust [lΛst] Cud [kΛd]

11. [ә:] Articulatory definition: [ә:] is an unrounded half close to half open central vowel

Articulatory description:
 a. In producing [ә:] the central part of the tongue is raised; the central part

of the tongue is that part of the tongue between the front and the back.

b. It is raised to a point between half close and half open position;

c. He lips are rounded or neutral as for [I];

d. The jaws are slightly separated from each other.

List of words: Lurk [lә:k] Curt [kә:t] Hurt [hә:t] Burn [bә:n]

12. [ ә ] Articulatory definition: [ ә ] Is an unrounded half open to half close central vowel

Articulatory description:

a. In producing [ә] the central part of the tongue is raised.

b. It is raised to the half position, or even lower.

c. The lip position is spread or neutral.

d. The opening between the jaws is medium.

List of words: Statement [steitmәnt] Sofa [soufә] Colder [koulәd]

E. Definition of Error

According to Hornby, error is something done wrong or condition of being

wrong in beliefs or conduct. The term error also means the faulty side of learners’

speech or writing. They those part of conversation or composition that deviate from

selected norm of mature language performances14. Error in speech or writing as

second or foreign language learners is regards as showing faulty or incomplete

learning.

Error is different from mistakes. Therefore, it is crucial to make a distinction

between them in order to analyze learners’ language in proper perspective. Error is

deviation from student structure since the learners has not completely mastered the

rules of the language they learned15. He also states that the mistakes are structural
 deviation, which occurs because the learners cannot determine the choice of

expression in proper accordance the situation.

F. Error Analysis

Making error is a natural phenomenon in language learning acquisition, but

errors need to be corrected. Studying about errors made by the learners is important

for the teachers because they will understand on their learners’ language acquisition

by knowing and analyzing the learners’ errors.

Besides, studying learners’ errors serves two major purposes: first, it provides

data from which inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be

made. Second, it indicates to teachers and curriculum developers which is the part

of the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and which

error types detract most from a learners’ ability to communicate effectively.

The fact that learners do make errors, and these errors can be observed, analyzed

and classified is called error analysis. There are some steps of analyzing error, they

are:

a) Identifying errors: the first step in analyzing errors is to identify errors. In

this case, we have to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem

to be the normal or correct pronunciation in the target language, which

correspond with them.

b) Describing errors: once at all the errors have been identified, they can be

described and classified into types or categories.

- Explaining errors: trying to explain why errors occur.

- Error evaluation: where the purpose of the error analysis is to help

learners learn an L2, there is a need to evaluate errors.

 G. The Types of Errors

There are four taxonomies of errors. Each of them is classified into several

categories errors.

1. Linguistic category taxonomy

The errors are classified according to the linguistic component, using linguistic

terms, namely phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic

2. Surface strategy taxonomy

 Omission

Omission is characterized by the absence of one more elements, which

are needed in a phrase or a sentence construction. For example, the

word ‘test’ [test] is pronounced as [tes].

 Addition

Addition is characterized by the presence of one or more elements that

are not needed. For example, the word ‘car’ [ka:] is pronounced as

[kΛr].

 Misformation

Misformation is characterized by the use the wrong form of elements

in a phrase or a sentence. For example is when the learner pronounced

the word ‘thin’ [ðin] as [tin].

 Misordering

Misordering is characterized by the incorrect placement or order of

one more language elements in a phrase or a sentence. For example,

the word ‘ask’ [a:sk] is pronounced as [a:ks]

3. Comparative category taxonomy

There are two categories of errors, as follows:

a. Interlingual error

The errors are caused by negative transfer or interference of the learner’s mother

tongue in the language.

b. Intralingual error

The errors are caused by interference within the target language itself.

4. Communicative Effect Category Taxonomy

It consist of two categories. They are as follows:

a. Local errors

Local errors are caused by the omission of one or more language elements in a

sentence construction, which disturb the process of communication. An awkward

sentence is usually the result of this kind or errors.

b. Global errors

Global errors are the errors, which cause the entire message conveyed not to be

understandable for readers or listeners.

 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Research Approach

The research was designed using qualitative approach. Richard (2002:456) states that

research is the study of event, problem or phenomenon using systematic methods, in order

to understand it better and to develop principles and theories about it. According to Hornby

(1995: 734) method is a way of doing something. To conduct a research, the writer should

have a suitable method research. Commonly, there are two types of research method used,

firstly quantitative and secondly qualitative research. Quantitative research is related with

numeric data and uses statistic to count the data, while qualitative just present is through

description in words into a long sentence. In this research the researcher used qualitative

research. It offers analysis to look deeper into problems, qualitative approach helps to

discover new thoughts and individual views.

B. Research Method

The researcher applies a descriptive qualitative method in conducting the research.

Descriptive method is used together which information about the real condition and situation

for the time being. By using the descriptive method, the researcher wants to analyze the

students’ pronunciation errors that made by the students of second grade at junior high

school in Karawang and finds its possible causes. By using the descriptive method, the

researcher wants to analyze the students’ pronunciation errors that made by second grade

students of junior high school and finds its possible causes.

C. Research Setting

This research took place at SMPN 8 Karawang in the second grade students. The reason

why the researcher choose that class, because there are a problem in some of the student

in pronouncing the vowels, and the technique used in determining participants is purposive

sampling. Purposeful sampling is a technique widely used in qualitative research for the

identification and selection of information-rich cases for the most effective use of limited

resources (Patton, 2002).

D. Research Sample

The subjects of the research is the 2nd grade students of SMPN 8 Karawang. There are

six classes in the second year; the researcher only took 6 students in one class based on

low achievement, middle achievement and high achievement. Because it’s the suitable

way to see how many student still cant pronouncing vowels correctly.

E. Instrument of the Research

Research instrument has an important role to obtain the result of the research. It is a set

of methods which is used to collect the data. Sugiyono (2009:222) states that in qualitative

research is the primary instrument for data collection and analyzing the data and make the

conclusion. The researcher uses some pronunciation test items (English words), observation

and interview. Some supporting test items are Oxford Dictionary, Kamusku, and a recorder.

Those items are very important for they provide the detail of information for the researcher

to do the research.

F. Technique of Data Collection

 Technique of collecting data is the main step in conducting research, since the main

objective of the research is to get the data. The researcher uses observation and interview

technique in collecting the data (Sugiyono, 2010:308).

In this research, the data is collected once through recording the utterances produced

by the students of second grade at junior high school in Karawang. The researcher consider

that awareness of the subject about the object of this study may lead to the artificial

performance. In the gathering of the speech data, factors which may affect the authenticity

of the data are: the self-consciousness felt by the subject and the pressure in the situation

of the studio recording: unfamiliarity with the context or lexis of the test sentences; the

pressure to achieve a ‘good result’ for the tester, and the artificial environment and

discomfort associated with remaining still a studio recording. It can be conclude that the

data taken by the researcher reflects the actual performance of the subjects because the

factors that affect the authenticity of the data do not occur in the process of collecting the

data. In collecting data, the researcher did some steps. The steps explains in detail as

follow:

1. The researcher prepared instrument to test the students’ pronunciation.

2. The researcher asked the students to record their pronunciation.

3. Then, the researcher listened to the recorded pronunciation several times and

transcribed them by using the phonetic symbol from the transcription.

G. Data Analysis

In analyzing the data, the researcher takes some steps. The first is finding out the error.

To find out the error, the researcher listens to the recording of the subjects’ utterances. The

pronunciations of the words are, then, transcribed into phonetic transcription. The researcher
 uses Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary by Hornby as a standard pronunciation to

decide whether the subjects’ English vowels pronunciation is correct or not by using

KamusKu. After collecting the data, the next step are classifying the data and analyzing the

data. In analyzing the data, the following techniques are conducted

1. Firstly, the researcher analyzed the students’ pronunciation.

2. Secondly, the researcher made category the students’ pronunciation based on the right

and wrong pronunciation.

3. The researcher made percentage the students’ pronunciation.

4. The researcher found the dominant error of the students’ pronunciation produced by

the students and the reason why they dominantly made their error.

5. The researcher drew the conclusion and suggestion based on the data analysis. The

researcher employed the percentage descriptive analysis to count all error by using a

simple formula as follow:

∑ 𝑬𝒓
𝑿𝟏 = 𝑿 𝟏𝟎𝟎%
∑𝑾

In which :

X1 : is the percentage of error

Er : is various kind of error

W : is words

Σ : is the total number