CHAPTER II REVIEW TO RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 The Sound of ...
Transcript of CHAPTER II REVIEW TO RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 The Sound of ...
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW TO RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter presents the review of related literature which is based on
relevant theories and previous research findings. It covers the sound of language,
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the production speech and Royal Thai
General System of Transcription (GTGS).
2.1 The Sound of Language
Written form and spoken sound in English have difference (Yule, 2006).In
spoken English, the sound of word is important thing to be known by people since
they cannot produce the exact sound. Since, alphabet letters cannot represent the
sound of English, producing another alphabet with symbol that can represent the
sound comes as solution. A study discusses about those symbols are widely-
known as phonetic alphabet (Yule, 2006). Hence, learning English will be
challenging for foreign learners who has contrastive system of language from
English.
2.1.1 Pronunciation
Pronunciation is a sub-skill of speaking (Gilakjani, 2011). Pronunciation is
one of the difficulties faced by most foreign learner in language, even though it
has been learnt for many years. There are six factors affecting students add
something in pronunciation, which are motivation and exposure, exposure to
target language, attitude, instruction, and age. Furthermore, mother tongue also
influence was correlated to the ability of pronunciation (Gilakjani, 2011).
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In additional, Gilakjani (2011) states there are two reasons on mother tongue
influence toward the ability of pronunciation. First, the absent of sound in both
learners’ native language or even in target language, which makes the learners are
not able to produce and perceive sound. Second, the existence of different rules in
combining sound into words gives the other challenges for the learners.
As English writing and spoken are obviously different, foreign learners who
learn English from text will possibly do a mistake in their pronunciation and even
may trigger misunderstanding. Written English has no sound and is only captured
by the eyes while spoken English makes sounds and is taken by ears. Since, there
are some potential in English pronunciation, it becomes one of significant subjects
that plays a significant role.
Furthermore, Odden (2005) states the important structure of a sentence
depends on how it is pronounced. Then, pronunciation is a core to build word
structure. Gilakjani (2012) states that there are various features that make up the
production of sound in English are illustrated in feature below.
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Features of English Pronunciation
Segmental Features
Phonemes
Consonant
Voiced Unvoiced
Vowel
Single
Short Long
Dipthong
Supra Segmental Features
Linking Intonation Stress
Sentences Stress
Word Stress
Figure 1. The Feature of English Pronunciation (Burns, 2003)
The chart above shows, there are some constituent features of studying
pronunciation. What the writer is trying to highlight here that studying those
features is important to get better pronunciation in English spoken. In line with
this study, phoneme is one of the features in learning pronunciation skill.
2.1.2 Phonetics
Other than pronunciation, phonetics is a study to understand the
characteristic of speech sound (Yule, 2006). It is defined that phonetics is quite
similar to phonology, but it is indeed different. The study of phonology talks
much on the structure of sounds while phonetics talks more on the way of
producing sound physically. McMahon (2002) states that it involves more on
speech organ and muscles in articulatory phonetics; sound transmission from the
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speaker to the hearer; and in acoustic and auditory phonetics the physic of speech
travels through the air in the form of sound waves. Therefore, it has an effect on
listeners’ ear and brain. McMahon (2002) concludes that phonetics concern on
anatomy, physiology, physics, and even neurology.
The area of studying phonetic involving the study on how the speech sounds
are made is called as articulatory phonetics. Then, the study that deals with speech
sound physical properties as sound waves in the air is called as acoustic phonetics.
Furthermore, the study that deals with the perception of speech sound through the
ear is called as auditory phonetics (Yule, 2006)
2.2 International Phonetic Alphabet
Learning English will be very challenging for foreigner due to its
inconsistency between written form and sound. However, English is a wide
international language that is learnt by people in the world. Therefore, contrastive
language system will be found by those foreign language learners.
In additional, since there are troubles in learning English, such as the same
letters has different sound (e.g: cow vscenter); some letters has no sound
(e.g:high, hour, knife, use, receive)’ two letters represents only one sound (e.g:
call, phone); some letters represent two or more sounds (e.g: shy, mission,
machine, special, caution). Following this idea, the principal of International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) comes as a solution. Therefore, to reduce this confusion
and to keep the English system itself, IPA was proposed in 1888 by the
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International Phonetic Association; it has been revised in 1996 (McMahon, 2002)
then the recent revision is in 2005 (Ladefoged and Johnson, 2011).
In correlation with the use of transcription in English, McMahon (2002, p.
6) states:
The English spelling system, although it is the system of transcription we
are most used to, is both too restrictive and too lenient to do the job.
Without a universal transcription system for phonetics and phonology,
writing down the unfamiliar sounds of other languages presents an almost
insuperable challenge.
IPA is an international recognized system of transcription agreed
internationally, that helps every learners easily make comparison between accents,
pronunciation, and producing every sound. Even though students are not able to
pronounce the words precisely through transcription at least the learner knows
how the native speakers produce the sound.
Furthermore, Gut (2009) suggests the transcription standardized in IPA
helps linguists, language teachers, speech therapist, and people working in speech
technology. Gut (2009) also notes that although the symbols are usually called
phonetic symbols they also represent phoneme.
For the long discussion on the transcription above, the writer freely wants
to say that one of the widely-known transcriptions used in English standard is
IPA. The writer also wants to highlight since IPA is written differently from the
common alphabet, it may cause difficulties of writing. Moreover, the difficulties
are perceived by language learners, educators, and even language practitioners
from the other countries which are not familiar to that writing.
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The sounds of language are grouped into two major classes, vowels and
consonants. Each of these classes of sounds has a distinguishing features number.
Vowel and consonants are distinguished on the basis of differences in articulation,
as well as acoustically and functionally.
2.2.1 Consonants
Here is a complete list of the consonant symbols for English IPA:
/p/ as in pin [pɪn] /h/ as in hill [hɪl]
/t/ as in tin [tɪn] /l/ as in let [let]
/k/ as in can [kən] /w/ as in wet [wet]
/b/ as in bin [bɪn] /n/ as in not [nɑ:t]
/d/ as in do [du] /v/ as in vine [vaɪn]
/g/ as in go [goʊ] /ð/ as in they [ðei]
/m/ as in meal [mi:l] /z/ as in zoo [zu:]
/f/ as in fine [faɪn] /ʒ/ as in measure [meʒər]
/θ/ as in three [θri:] /dʒ/ as in age [eɪdʒ]
/s/ as in see [si:] /ŋ/ as in sing [si:ŋ]
/ʃ/ as in she [ʃi:] /r/ as in room [ru:m]
/tʃ/ as in chair [tʃer] /y/ as in yet [jet]
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2.2.1.1 Place of Articulation
According to Bulreigh, Peter (2005), there are thirteen possible place of
articulation in the languages of the world, but not all of them are utilized in
English. They are usually labeled according to the immobile, upper speech organ
used in their production.
1) Bilabial sounds are produced with both lips. There are two sounds of
Bilabial; voiceless and voiced. Consonant voiceless Bilabial; /p/ as in power,
whereas threevoiced bilabials, /b/ as in banana, /m/ as in mango and /w/as in
window.
2) Labiodental sounds are produced by a movement of the lower lip
against the upper teeth. There are two sounds of Bilabial; voiceless and voiced.
Consonant voiceless labiodental; /f/ as in fun, and voiced labiodental, /v/ as in
view.
3) Dental or Interdental sounds are made with the tongue tip and rims
between the upper and lower teeth or against the upper teeth. The consonant
voiceless dental; /ɵ/ as in thankand the voiced /ð/ as in these.
4) Alveolar sounds are made with the tongue tip coming near or touching
the bony ridge behind the upper teeth. There are two consonants voiceless
alveolar; /t/ as in tiger and /s/ as in snake. While voiced alveolar are /d/ as in done,
/z/ as in zoom, /n/ as in night, and /l/ as in lamp.
5) Post-alveolar sounds are made with the tongue tip approaching or
touching the rear of the alveolar ridge or the area just behind it. There is only one
post-alveolar; /r/ as in red, this islenis sound.
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6) Palatal-alveolar sounds are made with the tongue tip touching the
alveolar ridge, and with a simultaneous rising of the blade of the tongue towards
the hard palate. There are two voiceless sounds; /tʃ/ as in chest and /ʃ/ as in shell
and two voiced sounds; /dʒ/ as in gen and /ʒ/ as in major.
7) Palatal sounds are produced when the body of the tongue comes near
or touches the hard palate. Only one palatal sound in English; /j/ as yes, this is
voiced sound.
8) Velar sounds are made by placing the back of the tongue against or
near the velum, or soft palate. There is one voiceless; /k/ as in Canada, and
twovoiced; /ɡ/ as in Greenland and /ƞ/ as in England
9) Glottal sounds are produced in the larynx when air passes through the
glottis. Only oneglottal sound, namely is /h/ as in hat, this is voiceless sound.
2.2.1.2 Manner of Articulation
The manner of articulation, there are eight different manners of
articulation that use an aggressive pulmonic air-stream mechanism, plus an
additional one that has become a conventional category in the description of some
languages, including English. In this section, there are nine categories,
progressing from total closure of the speech organs to a fairly wide opening
between them. Bulreigh, Peter (2005).
1) Plosives or stops are sounds for which the speaker makes a complete
closure at some point in the vocal tract, builds up the air pressure while the
closure is held, and then releases the or explosively through the mouth.
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2) Affricate is a sound that is consists of two elements. The first element
is a plosive. This means that affricates, too, require a complete closure in the vocal
tract, but the air is released slowly enough to produce friction, which we hear as a
hissing s like sound. This second element is articulated in the same place with the
same speech organs, as the preceding plosive. The two elements are
homorganicsounds. There are two affricates sounds; the voiceless /tʃ/ as in chest
and the voiced /dʒ/ as gen.
3) Nasal has a complete closure in the vocal tract as well. They stand out
from all other English phonemes, however, in that the velum, or soft palate, is
lowered, so that air escapes through the nose. There are three sounds those are all
voiced sounds; /m/ as in mango, /n/ as in night, and /ŋ/ as in English.
4) Fricative is made when air force its way through a very narrow gap
between two speech organs, thereby production audible friction. There are nine
consonants for this sound; the voiceless/f/ as in fun, /ɵ/ as in thank,/s/ as in snake,
/ʃ/ as in shell and /h/ as in hat, while the voiced /v/ as in view, /ð/ as in these, /z/ as
in zoom and /ʒ/ as in major.
5) Laterals or lateral approximants are also made with air that escapes
around the sides of a partial closure of the speech organs, but the air passage is not
quite as narrow as in lateral fricatives. English has only one lateral, namely voiced
sound; /l/ as in lamp, where the tip of the tongue touches the center of the alveolar
ridge.
6) Approximant is a generally made with a wider gap between the speech
organs than is the case in the production of fricatives. The speech organs approach
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each other, but they do not touch each other. The three English approximants are
all lenis phonemes: /r/ as in red, /j/ as in yes, and /w/ as in window.
Figure 2. English Consonant Chart
2.3 Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS)
Royal Thai General System of Transcription is the international official
system for rendering Thai language words in the Latin alphabet, published by
the Royal Institute of Thailand. It is used in road signs and government
publications.
Thai uses an alpha-syllabic script. In Thai writing word division is not
ordinarily indicated which may complicate the Romanization. The Romanization
system is not reversible to its original script form.
2.3.1 Consonants
Thai characters are Romanized in two ways depending on whether they
denote syllable-initials or syllable-finals. The Romanization of syllable-finals is
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indicated in parentheses. There are 44 consonant symbols in the Thai alphabet
which produce 20 initial consonant sounds when used at the beginning of a
syllable and 7 final consonant sounds when used at the end of a syllable. See table
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Table 1. Transcript of Thai Consonants
Thai Consonants Romanized Characters
Pronounces Initial Final
ก K k Kokhai = chicken
ข Kh k Khokhai = egg
ฃ Kh k Khokhuat= bottle
ค Kh k KhoKhwai = water buffalo
ฅ Kh k Khokhon = person
ฆ Kh k Khora-khang = bell
ง Ng ng Ngo ngu = snake
จ Ch d Cho chan = plate
ฉ Ch d Choching = cymbals
ช Ch d Cho chang = elephant
ซ S d So so = chain
ฌ Ch d Cho choe = tree
ญ Y n Yoying = women
ฎ D d Do cha-da = headdress
ฏ T d To pa-tak = goad
ฐ Th d Tho than = pedestal
ฑ th/ d d Thomontho = Mandodari
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ฒ Th d Thophu-thao = elder
ณ N n No nen = novice monk
ด D d Do dek = child
ต T d To tao = turtle
ถ Th d Thothung = sack
ท Th d Thothanan = soldier
ธ Th d Tho thong = flag
น N n No nu = mouse
บ B b Bo baimai = leaf
ป P b Po pla = fish
ผ Ph b Pho phueng = bee
ฝ F b Fofa = lid
พ Ph b Pho phan = tray
ฟ F b Fo fan = teeth
ภ Ph b Pho sam-phao = sailing boat
ม M m Mo ma = horse
ย Y Yo yak = giant
ร R n Ro ruea = boat
ล L n Lo ling = monkey
ว W w Wowaen = ring
ศ S d So sala = pavilion
ษ S d So rue-si = hermit
ส S d So suea = tiger
ห H Ho hip = chest
ห L n Lo chu-la = kite
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อ O O ang = basin
ฮ H Ho nok-huk = owl
The table above shows the Thai consonants, but some of them have not
been used in daily language. Those consonants can be replaced with other
consonants, such as ฃ, ฅ and ฆ can be replaced with one of these consonants; ก,
ข and ค based on the context. Another consonant can be replaced with the others
that have same pronunciation; ฉ, ฌ, ฑ, ฒ, ผ and ฝ. Additional, few consonants
in English such as, /t/ and /th/ those are changed into d sound due to they do not
have in their language.