27. Interference of Mother Tongue while Acquiring EngRsh Language in India. A. Linda Primlyn*

Transcription

1 27. Interference of Mother Tongue while Acquiring EngRsh Language in India A. Linda Primlyn* Abstract: Mother tongue injluence is a hindrance while acquiring a second language and it may allect that of another eitherpositively or negatively. Hence, it altects the pronunciation of the language learner. The most significant one is phonology the dillerence in pronunciation, stress, intonation, etc. The 44 basic sounds of English are to be made familiar to the students. It has been analysed by selectt.ng ten students at random and given ten sentences to read, in order to check whether they couldpronounce the sentence correctly according to British English. The students selected for the study had some knowledge in pronunciation, phonetics, etc. It was found out that they did notfmd any dijcftcultv inplacing the stress, but they followed syllable based rhythm, maybe due to the noticed that the Intonation followed by the students was correct to a certain level and that if the words were pronounced correctly then the intonation would flow ftuently. A questionnaire was given to the same students toftnd out the dilrtculties faced by them inpronouncing English words. Key Words: Commum.cation, Dialect, Phonetics, Phonology, Stress, Intonation, Phoneme, Mother Tongue, Lexicon, Stylistic, Discourse, Rp, Lexical, Acoustic, AuditorV,Pronunciation Introduction Language is anything and everything that is used to communicate one's thoughts, ideas, and feelings with one's surroundings. It may be through speech, writing, gestures, symbols, signals, objects, sounds, pictures, etc.a. C. Gimson in An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English points out that "A language is a system of conventional signals used for communication by a whole community' (3). It brings people together, but at certain times,language itself becomes a barrier for communication when it is not understood by the receiver. Interference of Mother Tongue The language that a learner picks up fwst in his natural environment is called the mother tongue. Learning a second language may affect that of another either positively or negatively. So it is necessary for the language learners to keep in mind that ' languages are used for communication ' languages have a sound system which may be partially different from each other. Vol..V9&10 Jan.- Dec. 2013

2 204 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies languageshavegrammaticalelements. languages have a word order languages have supra segmental features languages have an origin, growth, extinction, dialectical differences, etc. Acquisition and Learning Acquisition and Learning are to be viewed from different angles, first mother tongue LI and the second language L2. According to Stephen Krashen, "Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drilf ' (6-7). Characteristics of English Language English is spoken and read not only in England and the United States but also in many countries of the East and the West. It is now spoken as a second language throughout the world. The qualities and characteristics inherent in the language to which English owes much of its ever-increasing global appeal are ' Its extraordinary receptive and adaptable heterogeneousness. ' Its simplicity. ' Grammar is not so complex but flexible. ' It has a masculine quality. ' It is a logical language. The difference between the past and the present perfect or the past perfect is maintained with great consistency. ' It is a very compact language. ' Thevarieties of intonation express shapes of meaning. ' Spelling out the alphabet is easy with the right arrangement of phonemes. ' The sounds are difficult to pronounce, unless the native speaker has more influenceovertheenglishlanguage. ' Most words in English have several meanings which can be an advantage for the learners to convey different meanings using the same word in a different context. On the other hand, this might cause confusion especially for beginners. ' On the whole it is easy to script and easy to learn. ' English is considered to be the window of the modem world. F.G. French says "Anyone who can read English can keep in touch with the whole world without leaving his own house" (Elizabeth 32). ' About 60% of the books in the field of science and technology are in English. Dialect The variety of language used by a particular group of people is called dialect. Within a given dialect, no two speakers speak exactly alike. Speech habits between them differ. The differences may arise from a variety of causes, such as locality, social surroundings or early influences, and there are often individual

3 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 205 peculiarities for which it is difficult or impossible to account. The variety that has evolved in India called "Indian English" also has several sub-varieties depending mainly on the regional languages or mother-"tongue. The dialect spoken in a particular region is called regional dialect. (eg. Chennai Tamil, Madurai Tamil, Coimbatore Tamil, Tirunelveli Tamil and Kanyakumari Tamil were the different dialects spoken in Tamil Nadu. The different dialects used in KanyaKumari District are noted as West Tamil, East Tamil, Pandi Tamil, etc.) Dialects, based on the social status of the speaker are called as social dialects. It depends upon the social class to which the speaker belongs to. The individual's use of language is called Idiolect. Dialectal differences may be phonological, morphological, syntactic or lexical. The most significant one is phonology, the difference in pronunciation, stress, intonation, etc. One dialect is in no way linguistically superior to the other. One considers how one dialect deviates from the standard variety, but that does not imply that it is superior to other dialects. The major influence in pronunciation was the Great Vowel Shift which began in the in Britain.The pronunciation after the Great Vowel Shift dramatically changed the way people spoke, leading to different words, and the elimination of others. Importance of Pronunciation Pronunciation is an important element for the learner, because correct pronunciation is the mark of refined language and culture. It has got a higher status and concern due to the advent of Linguistics. The two branches--phonetics and phonology, deal with speech sounds and phonemes respectively, and they have great impact in learning pronunciation. The objectives of learning pronunciation are 1. To enable the distinction between speech sounds of English and those of theirmothertongue. 2. To cultivate an attitude for intelligible, audible and cleatpronunciation. 3.To produce correct sounds and speak with fluency, pause and rhythm 4.To know the strength, importance and beauty of English 5.To develop interest to pursue the study of language 6. To develop confidence to speak correctly with proper stress and intonation patterns using strong and weak forms. 7.To develop good speech manners 8. To develop an awareness about production of speech sounds and vocal organs, manner andplace of articulation 9. To develop non-verbal language like facial expression, eye contact and use of diagrams, charts, etc. 10. To develop the ability to speak long sentences for a long time correctly. Phonetics Phonetics is that aspect of linguistics which deals with the study of

4 206 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies used in human speech, i.e., how speech sounds are produced, transmitted and received by human beings. Accordingly we have articulatory phonetics, dealing with the production of speech sounds, acoustic phonetics, with the transmission of sounds, and auditory phonetics, with the reception and perception of sounds. Since our primary concern here is the interference of mother tongue while acquiring English language, a description of its phonetic characteristics and phonemic behaviour is to be studied. The nature and production of the sounds of English, i.e., the articulatory phonetics of English, may be studied first, and then their patterning, i.e., the phonemics or the phonological system of English.A study of the classification of sounds is essential for this purpose. Phonology The selection and organization of sounds in a particular language constitute the phonology of that language. A sound is made by definite movements of the organs of speech. Speech sounds are mainly classified into two types mainly vowels and consonants. According to Received Pronunciation (RP) there are 44 speech sounds in English (20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds) but there are only 26 letters in English alphabet. In English there is no direct relationship between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters). A phoneme is the link between the orthography (written words) and the sound (spoken words). The phonetic transcription is the written representation of phonemes which helps us to pronounce the word correctly. The three most important elements of pronunciationare 1.Stress:Words or parts of a word, one says loud and long. 2. Intonation: The way one's voice goes up and / or down as one speaks, especially at the end of what he says. 3.Phonemes: as in the separate sounds of pen: /p/, /e/, /n/. Stress While learning English pronunciation, it is very essential for a foreign learner to learn how to give stress to a word. Stress is a dynamic feature of a language. It may be described as the degree of force with which a sound or syllable is uttered. It is essentially a subjective action. A strong force of utterance means energetic action of all the articulating organs. It is usually accompanied by a gesture with the hand or head or other parts of the body. It involves a strong push from the chest wall and consequently a strong force of exhalation which generally gives the objective impression of loudness. Weak force of utterance involves weak action of the chest wall resulting in weak force of exhalation, and giving the objective acoustic impression of softness. Many words have two pronunciations which are called strong and weak forms. In most of these cases the weak form contains la/ while the strong form contains some other vowel. Whether a word is pronounced in the strong way or in the weak way it depends on the kind of sentence in which it occurs.

5 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 207 Intonation Intonation plays an important role in communication. The pitch of the voice is determined by the vibration of the vocal cords. The faster they vibrate, the higher the pitch is. This is clearly observable in the different pitch ranges of musicians. Word tone is used with reference to the pitch patterns in the structure of words. Tone Languages use the pitch of individual syllables to distinguish meanings. e.g. Chinese. ' Intonation gives more information to the listener, and expects response. ' It helps to distinguish different kinds of sentences such as statements, questions, commands and requests. ' It helps to recognise the grammar and syntactic structure. ' It indicates the speaker's attitude and feelings at the moment. ' It produces the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be perceived as stressed. Phoneme A phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit of sound in the sound system of the language. The phonemes of a language are distinctive or contrastive. They stand in contrast with one another in the phonological system of that language. In other words, when one phoneme is substituted by another, it produces a meaning change. Thus, when /p/ is substituted by /b/ in the word pet /pet/, it becomes bet /bet/, a different word with a different meaning. Thus in the phonemic system of a language the focus is on contrast. They form a network of contrasting sounds. Thus a phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound which can bring about a change of meaning. Each language has its own set of phonemes. Problems in Pronunciation Pronunciation can be defined as the way in which a learner sounds the words of a language while speaking. Everyone faces problems in pronouncing a word while learning a new language. It is very difficult for the learners to pronounce a word correctly that sounds like a native speaker's. There are two types of speech; they are 'Good' and 'Bad'. 'Good' speech may be defined as the way of speaking which is clearly intelligible to all ordinary people and 'Bad' speech is the way of talking which is difficult for most people to understand. It is caused by mumbling or lack of definiteness of utterance. Pronunciation is an aspect of verbal communication which makes it more effective and attractive. Therefore, the significance of pronunciation becomes highly considerable in the process of verbal communication. The problem is, the speakers of a particular language have a very deep and strong impact of the sounds of the alphabet on their pronunciation. The causes for difficulties in Pronunciation I. Mother tongue interference of the learners 2. Teachers are not competent enough with standard pronunciation 3. Auditory problems of the learners prevent them from receiving the exact sounds Vol..V9&10 Jan.- Dec. 2013

6 208 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 4.Lack of knowledge of stress and intonation 5.Lack of exposure to standard speeches 6. Learners have very few opportunities for speaking 7. Because there is no examination in Phonetics, the learners will not take phonetics seriously Remedial Measures to promote correct Pronunciation When a learner perceives a new word he should see to it, and repeat it till he can pronounce it properly. The fundamentals of phonetics will be of much help for the learner. He will attempt to produce sounds with more confidence. The 44 basic sounds of English are to be made familiar to the students. Singing songs, reciting poems and loud reading can be employed with a view to learn pronunciation. It is very important to listen to the language and pronunciation of the learned native speakers of the language. English of the native learned speakers of South East England has been accepted as the Standard English. It is accepted worldwide, known as Received Pronunciation with 44 sounds. Audio visual aids should be used. Practice to pronounce a word correctly must be emphasized. Most of us write with our right hand; however with practice we can learn to write with the left hand. Likewise, with practice, learners can acquire English and stop using LI. Study of phonetics is very interesting, if pursued earnestly. Listening-speaking opportunities should be given. In teaching, the procedure should be from simple to complex and from known to unknown. ' Spell a difficult word while talking orreading in the class. Repeat the word frequently and make the students to repeat. Audio Visual Aids The different teaching methods, a teacher adopts is known as Audio visual aids. It provides suitable learning experiences to learners to acquire new information to improve their pronunciation more effectively. Use of Audio-visual aids will. Help to learn meaningfully and long lasting ' Develop skills. Give vividness to learning situations. Motivate the learner ' Give clarity to learning ' Make the abstract concrete. Reduce verbalism. Make learning interesting ' Stimulate self activity Though Visual aid is a supplement to oral and written presentation, it will make learning more interesting and effective.it has been analysed by selecting ten

7 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 209 students at random and given ten sentences to read, in order to check whether they could pronounce the sentence correctly according to British English. A close observation was made in each sentence and was analysed. The students selected for the study have some knowledge in pronunciation, phonetics, etc. The following are the sentences given for reading: 1. Communicative competence is the need of the hour. (/kamju:nikativ khmpitnts s do ni:d av Ha aha/) 68% of the students pronounced this sentence correctly. Others pronounced la/ sound in 'competence' instead of /i/ and some failed to pronounce the /t/ sound in 'competence.' 2. Scott Christian College was established in (/skh t kristian k li wz esu]eblift in eiti:n nainti Ori:/) Here the word 'College' is pronounced correctly by 16% of them. Others used the sound /e/ instead of /i/ in 'college'. 3.The cake Imade yesterday was bitter. (/69 keik ai meid jestadei wz bita/) 68% of the students read the sentence correctly. Others made mistake in pronouncing the word 'cake' by using the vowel /I: / instead of /ei/. ouncing the word 'cake' by using the vowel /I: / instead of /ei/. 4.No one can assess my access codes (/ no wen keen ases mai sekses kahd /) Only 36% of the students pronounced the sentence correctly. The same mother tongue influence of /o/ in the words 'no', 'one' and 'codes' is seen here and they found it difficult to differentiate the pronunciation between 'assess' and 'access'. 5.The deer and bear came together. (/ do dia aend bea keim tageda /) Only 16% of the students pronounced it correctly. The mistake is because of the influence of the mother tongue. There is no diphthong like /ia/, /ea/ in the mother tongue vowel system. So they failed to produce these diphthongs. The influence of the rhotic Ir/ is also seen in the sentence. 6. He read the news aloud. (/ hi red do nju:z alakd/) 52% of the students pronounced it correctly. Others failed to pronounce it correctly as they are not aware of the past form. 7.Open the doorplease. (/afpn do dh :pli:z/) No one pronounced it correctly. This may be due to the influence of the mother tongue, or they would have learnt the pronunciation wrongly and havepracticedit. 8. The teacher praised the student. (169 ti: a preizd Ha stju:dnt/) Only 36% of the students uttered the sentence correctly. This is because most of them have the habit of leaving the /j/ sound before the vowel /u/, as it has to be in /stju:dnt/. 9.English is an International language. (/iqgli iz an intanse nllaeqgwil/) Many students pronounced the word 'language' wrongly because they used the vowel /e/ instead of /i/. They may have leamt it in that way and have practicedlikewise. Vol..V9&10 Jan.- Dec. 2013

8 210 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 10. Arnixed voice choir came to our church yesterday. (/a mikst vlis kwaia keim tu ala LL jesladei/) The students struggled in uttering the words 'mixed' and 'choir'. Only 32% of the students did it correctly and others used the /d/ sound in 'mixed' instead of /t/. Some made mistake in pronouncing the word 'choir'. They used IQ/ instead of /k/ sound. Observance By observing the above ten sentences uncled by the students, it was found out that they did not find any difficulty in placing the stress, but they followed syllable based rhythm, maybe due to the influence of the mother tongue which has syllable based rhythm. Only a few students were correct in following the stress-timed rhythm. It had also been noticed that the Intonation followed by the students was correct to a certain level and that if the words were pronounced correctly then the intonation would flow fluently. A questionnaire was given to the same students to find out the difficulties faced by them in pronouncing English words. 1.Is the pronunciation taught by your teacher useful to you? 2. Do you feel that mother tongue has an impact on your pronunciation? 3. Do you feel the lack of foreign exposure brings down the standard of one's pronunciation? 4. Do you have support from your surrounding in pronouncing a word correctly? 5.Do you practice to pronounce a word correctly? 6. Do you blindly followthe spelling in pronouncing a word? 7.Do you feel that the speech organs affect your pronunciation? 8. Have you ever felt that you are pronouncing a word wrongly? 9.Do you study transcription along with a word? 10. While learning phonetics as a subject, do you give more importance to examination rather than learning the basics of pronunciation? Techniques and Games The techniques and games through which one can learn pronunciation easily and effectively are ' Tongue Twisters which will help one to pronounce words correctly in related sounds. It helps to drill and mould the speech organs to be suitable for pronouncing a word. ' Quiz helps to develop the knowledge of students in pronunciation. He is given the spelling of a word, its etymology, whether it is a noun or a verb and then he can be asked to pronounce the word. This will improve one's listening ability and help to learn more words with correct pronunciation. Song is another method to improve pronunciation and word phrases. ' CDs and DVDs provide varieties of speech, pronunciation. It is good to record one's speech and see whether he is up to the mark or not.

9 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies 211 Language Lab is a must in schools and colleges to give the students some kind of exposure to develop his pronunciation skill. Word games may be of use, i.e. give a word and with the letters of the word, make as many new words as possible. Memorising words i.e. write 10 to 20 on the blackboard, and then erase it and make the students to write as many as possible. Dictations, consulting dictionary, transcription, syllabification, etc. are other remedial measures for teaching spelling. Conclusion It is clear from the above statements presented in this paper that the students should give more importance to study phonetics only to overcome the influence of mother tongue. It is necessary to memorise the symbols of sounds properly and to apply it in speech. Education is given to a student only to increase his knowledge but the present system gives more importance to credits rather than thinking how much the student would be benefitted through this lesson. So it is to be pointed out that oral examination will be of much use to estimate the capability of the learner. Suggestions After analyzing the difficulties faced by the language learners while acquiring English language, the following solutions are suggested to correct one's pronunciation. There are many options to overcome the problems or difficulties in pronouncing a word. ' The first and foremost thing is one must be a passive listener. Listen to the native speaker, and then observe how to pronounce a word, how to place stress in words, how rhythmically to use the language, how to use intonation in sentences, how to practice a word he has learnt. They are of great importance. ' Referring to Pronunciation Dictionary, when needed, helps to learn phonetic symbols withproper sound practice and recognition. ' Second Language has to be introduced at an early age, may be along with mothertongue. ' Teachers should be well versed in pronouncing a word correctly which will be useful for the learners to develop their pronunciation skill. In addition to this, the learners should be taught the phonetic sounds clearly along with the alphabet. At a higher level, they should be taught transcription, so that they can rely upon the dictionaries to learn pronunciation of certain words. ' Change in environment will improve pronunciation, style and attitude. For example, people who immigrate to Britain could cope up with the British accent after a few months. ' Go by spelling while pronouncing a word will mislead the learners. Vol..V9&10 Jan.- Dec. 2013

10 212 Journal of Literature, Culture & Media Studies ' It is good to implement phonetic paper in Schools and Colleges. ' Language as a skill can be mastered only through constant practice. "No theory is of any value unless it works in practice." -Louis Pasteur REFERENCES Edge, Julian & Sue grton From Experience to Knowledge in ELT NewYork:Oxford University Press. Print. Elizabeth. M. E. S. and Digumarti Bhaskara Rao Methods of Teaching English. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House. Print. Gimson, A. C An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London: Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd. Print. Jones, Daniel An Outline of English Phonetics. New Delhi: Rekha Printers Private Limited. Print The Pronunciation of English. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Print English Pronouncing Dictionary. l7th ed. Roach, Peter., James Hartmen and Jane Setter. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Print. Krashen, Stephen D "Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition." English Language Teaching Series. London: Prentice-Hall International (UK) Ltd. Print. Laver, John Principles of Phonetics. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Print. Ross, Alan S. C How to Pronounce It. London: Banish Hamilton Limited. Print. Saraswathi, V English Language Teaching: Principles and Pracu.ce. Chennai: Orient Longman Private Limited. Print. * Assistant Professor of English, Scott Christian College (Autonomous), Nagercoil, South India. Pin lindaprimlyn@yahoo. co. in, h.ndaprimlyn8884@gmail.com