An Analysis on Students’ Ability in Pronouncing English Back Vowels made by the Fourth-semester Students of the English Department in the Academic Year 2011/2012

Abstract

Pronunciation is an important element in speaking. The speakers have to speak in correct pronunciation so the listeners can get the message or the information. Most of miscommunication happens because the speakers speak in ambiguous pronunciation. There are differences between Indonesian and English pronunciation. The differences in pronouncing consonants and vowels of both languages become a problem for most Indonesian students. Compared to Indonesian vowels, the English ones are more complex. There are twelve English vowels. They make Indonesian students get difficulty to learn English because Indonesian has fewer vowels, only eight vowels. Besides, the dialects-Indonesian dialects and English dialects- are also the problem for Indonesian students. Based on the position of the tongue, English vowels are also divided into three-like Indonesian; front vowels, central vowels, and back vowels- but most Indonesian students get difficulty in pronouncing English back vowels (o, o:, a:, Λ, u:, U). This thesis mainly discusses about the fourth-semester students’ ability in pronouncing English back vowels in British English pronunciation. It aims to describe the ability of the fourth-semester students of the English Department in pronouncing English back vowels and to know the students’ difficulties in pronouncing English back vowels in British English pronunciation of the fourthsemester students of English Department in the Academic Year 2011/2012. The researcher uses pronunciation test and then records the students’ answer one by one in visual recording for collecting the data. After collecting the data, the researcher analyzes the data based on four steps: transcribing the students’ pronunciation into the phonetic transcriptions, scoring the students’ answer, grouping the students’ errors in pronouncing English back vowels into separate divisions, and counting the percentage of the students’ errors. By conducting this research, the researcher finds that the ability of the fourth-semester students of English Department in pronouncing English back vowels is very good. But, some of them still get difficulty in pronouncing vowels [o:], [U], [o], and [u:] and also they get difficulty to read the spelling <oo> because they don’t know whether the word should be pronounced as [u:] or [ʊ]. To help the students improve their pronunciation proficiency, the researcher suggests that they should be given a lot of drills and practices relating to the pronunciation so that they can acquire the habit of using the correct pronunciation of English words containing English back vowels correctly.