phonology project 2
TRANSCRIPT
Content Page
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3
GENDER OF THE SAMPLE ........................................................................................................... 4
Vowel sound pronounced by men.............................................................................................. 6
Vowel sound pronounced by women ........................................................................................ 7
Results according to the term of the students .......................................................................... 8
THE MOST TROUBLESOME ........................................................................................................ 8
The vowel sound / ɔ / ................................................................................................................ 8
ɔ / bought global results......................................................................................................... 8
ɔ / bought produced by men ................................................................................................. 9
ɔ / bought produced by women ............................................................................................ 9
The vowel sound /ɛ / .................................................................................................................. 10
ɛ / said Global results ............................................................................................................. 10
ɛ / said produced by men ...................................................................................................... 10
ɛ / said produced by women ................................................................................................. 10
The vowel sound / a / ................................................................................................................. 11
a / hot Global results .............................................................................................................. 11
a / hot produced by men ........................................................................................................ 11
a / hot produced by women ................................................................................................... 12
The vowel sound / ʌ / ................................................................................................................ 12
ʌ / hut Global results ............................................................................................................ 12
ʌ / hut produced by men ...................................................................................................... 13
ʌ / hut produced by women ................................................................................................. 13
The vowel sound / ou / ............................................................................................................... 14
ou / boat global results ........................................................................................................... 14
ou / boat produced by male students .................................................................................. 14
ou / boat produced by female students ............................................................................... 15
THE EASIEST ONES .................................................................................................................... 16
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................ 18
Introduction
Among the field of Phonology, pronouncing vowels is a difficult task for students of
the English major who speak Spanish as a native language, that is due to the
Spanish language doesn´t have so many vowel sounds as the English language
does.
This project was designed to find out which are the most troublesome produced
vowel sounds, besides there is a comparison between which are the most
troublesome for male and female students and another comparative chart taking
into account the term the students are studying now.
The symbols used in the chart that includes the names of the student and their
terms and ID´s are B for a mispronunciation and G for a well-pronounced vowel
sound. In the graphs the color blue and the word “Good” represent vowels sound
that were pronounced correctly by the students and the color red and the word
“Bad” to represent the mispronunciations.
GENDER OF THE SAMPLE
The survey was made in a sample of 15 students, 6 women and 9 men from
different levels of the English Major at UTEC.
GLOBAL RESULTS
Vowel /ʊ / /u/ / a / / ʌ / / æ / / I / / i / / ɔ / / ou / /ɛ/ / æ / /aɪ/ /aɪ/
Word full fool hot hut hat hit heat bought boat said sad ice island GOOD BAD
2 m Erick Antonio Garcia 31-4174-2010 2 G B B B G G G B B B G G B 6 7
6 m Fredy Garcia 31-1861-2010 4 G G G G G G G B B G B G G 10 2
7 m Luis Alonso Granados 31-2366-2008 4 B B B B B G B B B B B G G 3 10
8 m Josue Hernandez 31-3319-2010 4 B B B B G G G B B B G G G 6 7
9 m Luis Perez 31-4830-2008 5 G G G G G G G B G G G G G 12 1
10 m Oscar Arnulfo Gómez 31-0974-2009 6 B G G G G G G B G G G G G 11 1
11 m Yoaho Santamaria 31-2822-2009 6 G G B B B B B B B G G G G 6 7
12 m Hugo Mendoza 31-3581-2005 9 B B G G G G G B G B B G G 8 5
13 m Walter Magaña 31-2566-1997 10 G G G G G G G G G G B G G 12 1
1 w Elizabeth Ayala 34-3200-2010 1 G B B B B B B G B B B G B 3 10
3 w Elizabeth Acevedo 31-1302-2010 2 B B B B B B B B B B G G G 3 10
4 w Aida Luz Pineda 31-4685-2009 2 G G B B B G G G G B B G B 7 6
5 w Adriana Olivares 31-1060-2010 3 G G B G G G G B B B B G G 8 5
14 w Catalina Reyes 31-2198-2003 10 G G B B G G G B B B B G G 7 6
15 w Evelin Chavez 31-0649-2007 10 G G G G B B B B G B G G G 8 5
WOMEN 6 GOOD 10 9 6 7 9 11 10 3 6 5 7 15 12
MEN 9 BAD 5 6 9 8 6 4 5 11 8 10 8 0 3
No. Student's name ID Number Term
GLOBAL RESULTS
Vowel sound pronounced by men
The vowel sound in which most of the students had a mispronunciation was /ɔ / as
in “bought” and that was due to the Spanish interference for they pronounced /ou/
just as it would sound in Spanish. Another troublesome vowel sound was /ɛ / as in
“said”, most of the students; specially women had trouble pronouncing it and
pronounced it as /eI/ as it would sound in Spanish.
Vowel sound pronounced by women
Results according to the term of the students
Contrary to what we might think, not all 10-term students are “the best” this survey
has shown that some students from lower terms are as good (and in some cases
better) as senior students.
THE MOST TROUBLESOME
The vowel sound / ɔ /
/ ɔ / bought global results
/ ɔ / bought produced by men
/ ɔ / bought produced by women
The vowel sound /ɛ /
/ɛ / said Global results
/ɛ / said produced by men
/ɛ / said produced by women
The vowel sound / a /
/ a / hot Global results
/ a / hot produced by men
17%
83%
GOOD
BAD
/ a / hot produced by women
The vowel sound / ʌ /
/ ʌ / hut Global results
/ ʌ / hut produced by men
/ ʌ / hut produced by women
67%
33%
GOOD
BAD
The vowel sound / ou /
/ ou / boat global results
/ ou / boat produced by male students
67%
33%
GOOD
BAD
/ ou / boat produced by female students
THE EASIEST ONES
The sound /aI/ as in “ice” was the only vowel sound well pronounced by all of the
students, I have to mention that I asked the students to pronounce two words with
the same sound, “ice” and “island”, I chose these two words in order to get them
confused but only trhee of them mispronounced the vowel sound /aI/ in “island”, the
pronounced it /i/, the rest pronounced /aI/ correctly but did not pronounce the word
correctly, they pronounced it as /aIsland/ and not //aIlænd/; only 4 students did it
right.
“Ice”
“Island”
Another easy vowel sound for the students was the minimal pair “hit” vs “heat”,
most of them did it right in pronouncing the short /I/ and the long /i/.
“hit”
“heat”
CONCLUSION
There is a high level of mispronunciation at UTEC due to the students don’t get
awareness of the importance of Phonology, most of them say this subject is not
necessary and they also say that the most important thing is communication, they
don’t have any idea of how important is a good pronunciation to be well-
understood.
Furthermore, a good pronunciation says a lot of the kind of students we are, it can
show if we are good or bad students.