Abstract:
English is a language of international communication, and it is the widely
spoken language in the world. There are many aspects to communicate properly,
one of them is pronunciation. Pronunciation affects very much on the
understanding of the meanings of the words. Furthermore, the existence of first
language phonology, Bahasa Indonesia, and the existence of students’ mother
tongue, Javanese, are often influenced the using of English.
The aim of this study is to find out the ability of the eighth semester
students of English Education Programme of Muhammadiyah University of
Purworejo in the academic year 2013/ 2014 in pronouncing six English
unfamiliarconsonantsounds (/ð /, /θ/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, and /ʒ/). This study is also
aimed to find out the dominant mistake in pronouncing unfamiliar consonant
sounds by the students andto find out kind of the mistake made by the students in
pronouncing English unfamiliar consonant sounds. In achieving those, this thesis
was conducted by using the qualitative approach. The source of data was from the
phonetic trascription of the recorded pronunciation of twenty eight students of
Eighth semester in English Education Programme students who studied in
Muhammadiyah University of Purworejo.
By conducting this research, the researcher finds that the the mean of the
percentage of correct pronunciation is 36.79 %. It means that the ability of the
students in pronouncing English unfamiliar consonant sounds are in the very low
category. The sound /ʒ/ is the most problematic for the students since the research
shows that the dominant mistake in pronouncing the sounds is sound /ʒ/ (93.85%).
Omission and deviation are familiar in the pronounciation of the students to the
sounds. The students tended to replace /ð/ with /t/ and /θ/; /θ/ with /t/, /ð/, and /f/;
/ʃ/ with /s/, /c/, and /z/; /tʃ/ with /c/ and /s/; /dʒ/ with /j/, /g/, and /d/; /ʒ/ with sound
/s/, /z/, and /ʃ/.
