INNOVA Research Journal, ISSN 2477-9024

Developing awareness of unknown sounds to improve merging and

substitution pronunciation mistakes

Desarrollo de la conciencia de los sonidos desconocidos para mejorar la fusión

y la sustitución errores de pronunciación

Evelyn Almeida

Diana Castillo

Soledad Parra

Universidad Central del Ecuador, Ecuador

Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Ecuador

Autor corresponsal: evalmeida@uce.edu.ec, dacastillo@uce.edu.ec, dsparra@uce.edu.ec

Fecha de recepción: 26 de Septiembre de 2017 - Fecha de aceptación: 15 de Abril de 2018

Resumen: A pesar de que el énfasis en la enseñanza de la pronunciación de un segundo idioma ha

sido casi nulo entre los educadores e investigadores de EFL, estudios recientes muestran la

pronunciación como un factor clave para aprender un segundo idioma. Este artículo revisa la

literatura de expertos en el campo que destacan la relevancia de la enseñanza de la pronunciación.

Con el fin de proporcionar a los lectores una base teórica, el documento presenta primero una

revisión de las discusiones recientes sobre la necesidad de enseñar la pronunciación. Luego ofrece

una descripción de las características de la pronunciación, factores influyentes, problemas como

la fusión y la sustitución causada por las diferencias entre el sistema fonológico del Primer y

Segundo Lenguaje y las metodologías de enseñanza. Dentro de este contexto, hemos favorecido

uno de los enfoques que arrojan luz sobre el desarrollo de la conciencia de la pronunciación.

Finalmente, se proponen algunas actividades que tienen como objetivo ayudar a los estudiantes a

pronunciar sonidos desconocidos de una manera clara e inteligible.

Palabras Claves: pronunciación; conciencia fonológica; errores de fusión; sustitución

Abstract: Although emphasis on teaching pronunciation of a second language has been almost

null among EFL educators and researchers, recent studies portray pronunciation as a key factor to

learn a second language. This paper reviews literature of experts on the field who highlight the

relevance of teaching pronunciation. In order to provide the readers with a theoretical basis the

paper first presents a review of recent discussions on the necessity to teach pronunciation. Then

it offers a description of the features of pronunciation, influential factors, problems such as

merging and substitution caused by the differences between the First and Second Language

phonological system, and teaching methodologies. Out of this context, we have favored one of

the approaches which shed light on the development of pronunciation awareness. Finally some

activities which aim to help learners pronounce unknown sounds in a clear and intelligible way

are proposed.

Key Words: pronunciation; phonological awareness; merging; substitution mistakes

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Introducción

English is one of the most spoken languages around the world. Millions of people use this

language as their mother tongue, their second or their foreign language. Regarding Ecuador,

even though Spanish is the mother tongue, the need to learn English and have effective

communication skills in this language is imposed, like in most countries, mainly by business

opportunities, the educational system requirements, the possibility of traveling or studying

abroad, the social demands such as cultural expectations and globalization. (Marginson & van

der Wende, 2006)

Research about learning pronunciation in a second language or foreign language has been

very limited until the beginning of the 21st century. As Derwing and Munro (2005) mentioned,

pronunciation had become a casualty of Communicative Language Teaching before this century.

This approach gives emphasis to the meaning of a word and pays little attention to pronunciation,

under the belief that exposure will improve pronunciation. However, after 2005, several L2

pronunciation studies have appeared in the literature, especially in theses or conference papers.

For instance, we can refer to the annual conference Pronunciation in Second Language Learning

and Teaching or the new Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. These latest initiatives have

placed L2 pronunciation as an area worthy of investigation.

Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996) established that pronunciation is the

foundation of speaking. Furthermore, they claim that the most important part of learning a

second language “rests on pronunciation” since it allows students to express their ideas and have

effective communication with native speakers (p. 23). Unfortunately, in Ecuador the importance

of teaching pronunciation is ignored by a large number of teachers who prefer to pay more

attention to grammar or vocabulary, somehow ignoring the fact that in everyday spoken

language, the most important thing to be considered is appropriate pronunciation.

The process of learning pronunciation can be affected by many factors like age,

motivation, methods and quality of teaching, as well as the influence of the learner´s mother

tongue (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996). Regarding the learner´s language, if the

sounds or phonemes of the mother tongue are similar to the ones on the target language, it

becomes an advantage when learning pronunciation, but the non-existence of particular English

sounds in the mother tongue has proved to be a problem for the students. For instance, according

to Tritch (2016), learners face merging problems when they pronounce the new sounds in

terms of the speech sounds of their mother tongue or substitution problems when the

learners wrongly substitute a new sound with the most similar sound they know.

Tritch (2016) remarks that merging and substitution can cause serious problems of intelligibility

and communication breakdowns. The definitions of merging and substitution proposed

by Tritch are used in the current research to understand and analyze some common

pronunciation problems made by learners.

The interest for reviewing this topic occurred because on a regular basis, teachers face

learners who have a good knowledge of grammar structures and vocabulary, but perform very

poorly on speaking mainly because of their pronunciation. The aim of this paper is to provide

teachers a theoretical background about the relevance of teaching pronunciation and offer some

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tools to help students overcome the pronunciation problems caused by merging or substitution

problems.

Literature review

Since the aim of this paper is to improve the pronunciation of L2 Learners, it is necessary

to define the word pronunciation. According to Burns & Claire (2003), “pronunciation refers to

the phonology of the language or the meaningful perception and production of the sounds of that

language and how they impact on the listener” ( p. 5). In fact, the way people articulate sounds

can mark the social class of the speaker, their education, age, and other social aspects

(Macháčková, Bc., 2012).

As Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (2010) established, most EFL teachers’ goal is

for their students to have good pronunciation or native-like pronunciation, but “there are so

many varieties of English and so much variation within each type that it is almost impossible to

define the ideal pronunciation”. The authors also added that a more realistic goal currently

recommended is intelligible pronunciation, which means being understood by native and non-

native speakers with minimal effort. A similar idea proposed by Tritch (2016) is that the goal

should be to achieve accurate pronunciation that allows students to have a fluent conversation

(p.2).

Poor pronunciation can make communication difficult not just for the learner who might

feel frustrated, but also for the listener who will find it difficult to follow the conversation

Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 1996). Russell (2016) established that pronunciation

(

requires habit formation, which implies constant repetition. In order to hear a "strange" sound,

our brain needs to form new connections that will allow it to recognize these sounds. Tritch

(2016) added that in this process of recognizing new sounds in the target language, at the

beginning, the adult students are literally unable to hear the sounds which are entirely strange to

them. The author strongly suggested that teachers provide students with activities that help them

recognize and produce the unknown sounds. From all of the above, it is clear that mastering

pronunciation requires much practice and repetition, and that teachers should explicitly help their

students to achieve adequate pronunciation in the target language.

Pronunciation features

To understand pronunciation better, it is necessary to analyze the features of

pronunciation. According to Ramelan (1994), there are 2 primary features of

pronunciation:

1

2

.Segmental features, or just segmental, which refer to sound units arranged in a sequential

order, e.g.: vowels, consonants, diphthongs.

.Supra-segmental features, or just supra-segmental, such as stress, pitch, length, intonation,

and other features that always accompany the production of segmental.

Although the segmental and the supra-segmental features are both important aspects of

pronunciation, it is necessary to mention that the activities proposed in this paper to practice

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pronunciation were focused mainly on improving the pronunciation of the segmental features of

the phonemes /dʒ/, /ʃ /,/r/ and the liquid /s/, which were taken as examples of merging and

substitution pronunciation problems.

Factors influencing pronunciation

Tritch (2016) suggested that teachers should pay attention to key factors that influence

pronunciation in order to help the learners overcome pronunciation problems.

Age

Age has been an issue long analyzed in first and second language acquisition. In this

discussion, the critical period hypothesis for language acquisition was a concept proposed by

Lenneberg (1967) that established that children learn a language and the sounds of the words

accurately by imitation of the sounds they hear. However, when dealing with children older than

twelve or adults, this “learning through imitation” ability seems to be absent. Therefore,

Shoebottom (2012) suggests that teachers should take a different route by taking advantage of

adults’ ability to analyze concepts and understand easily the explanations on how sounds are

produced, which could motivate them to improve their pronunciation.

Motivations

Students learn and improve more in any area if they are motivated. Celce-Murcia, Brinton

and Goodwin ( 2010) identify three goals or desires that motivate students in language

learning:

1

2

.Learners want to be accepted into a group (integrative motivation)

.Learners want to be accepted as real members of the group, not like “outsiders”

(assimilative motivation)

3

.Learners need the language to reach a goal (instrumental motivation)

With this knowledge, the teacher’s job is to identify which of these goals is the student´s

primary goal, and to use that knowledge to motivate students to improve their

pronunciation (p.21).

Quantity and quality of Teaching and Methods

The kind of teaching and model of pronunciation that students have been exposed to also

play an important role in pronunciation. In this sense, Tritch (2016) mentions that the amount

of practice students have had and the variety of activities- not just “repeat after me” repetition-

make a strong difference in the adequacy of pronunciation. Therefore, it is important for

teachers to provide an accurate model and several different opportunities to practice

pronunciation.

Exposure to the Target Language

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The amount of English the learners hear is also another factor that clearly affects

pronunciation. According to Tritch (2016), learners who are taking English as a second

language have a better chance to improve their pronunciation than those who are taking English

as a foreign language.

Influence of the learner´s L1

The students´ first language or mother tongue can have a positive or negative influence

on the pronunciation of the language they are trying to learn. If the sounds in both languages are

very similar, the influence could be positive, but when the sounds they are trying to produce are

not part of their L1 or are used in a different way, negative interference occurs (Tritch 2016).

Problems caused by differences between first language and second language

According to Tritch (2016), two types of problems occur when learners try to produce

unknown sounds.

Merging

Tritch (2016) established that when learners hear new sounds or can tell the difference

between two sounds, they tend to interpret the sounds of the new language in terms of the

phonemes of their mother tongue. This explains why Spanish speakers add the sound of the

vowel “e” /3/ to words that start with the liquid /s/ and they pronounce /estudənt/ instead of

/

’stiu:dənt/. Tritch (2016) observed the fact that such students are not able to perceive the

difference between /estudənt/ and /’stiu:dənt/, and defined the problem as “merging” when the

interpretation of new sounds via the phonemes of the mother tongue leads to pronunciation

mistakes.

Substitution

Tritch (2016) notes that another common error for learners is to substitute a sound that

doesn´t exist in their mother tongue with a sound that is somewhat similar and familiar for them.

For example the phoneme /ʤ/ does not exist in Spanish, so students substitute it by the /j/

phoneme that their brain recognizes. Therefore, learners pronounce the word “jungle” as

/

jungle/ instead of /’dʒʌŋgəl/ or “general” as /jeneral/ instead of /dʒɛnrəl/. Likewise, if the

learners are not aware of the difference between the English /r/ and the Spanish /ř/, they simply

substitute the sounds and pronounce “ready” as /ředi/ and not /ˈredi/, adding a tongue vibration

that is part of the Spanish /ř/ articulation.

Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996) also analysed how the mother tongue

interferes in the process of learning a new language and established that the pronunciation

problems mentioned above are caused by native language interference or language transfer,

two concepts that parallel Tritch’s (2016) ideas of merging and substitution.

The most difficult sounds for spanish learners

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Earlier, we mentioned that pronunciation problems can occur when the learners use the

sounds of their L1 to produce some desired sound in the language they are learning. If we

compare English and Spanish, it is clear that these two languages share many similar sounds.

Nevertheless, there are also sounds that are unique to each language. According to Malo (2014),

there are 20 vowel phonemes in English, while Spanish has only 5 vowel phonemes. Regarding

consonants, English also has more consonant phonemes than Spanish. This causes merging or

substitution pronunciation problems for learners that are unable to perceive the new sounds. As

Tritch (2016) mentioned, learners will often try to make the desired English sounds match the

Spanish sounds they know that are closer in pronunciation.

For teachers, knowing which target language vowels and phonemes are not part of the

existing phonological system of the learners could help with the development of strategies to

help students overcome the problems they face when dealing with the unknown sounds. The

following chart illustrates which phonemes are not part of the Spanish phonological system.

Three of them have been analyzed in this paper as examples of substitution mistakes. In the case

of the liquid /s/, this sound was chosen for analysis because it is one of the most common

merging mistakes for students to make.

Table 1: Consonant phonemes that are not part of the Spanish phonological system

Phoneme

Existe en español

Example

Existe en ingles

Example

Van

She

Visión

He

Jack

/

v/

ʃ /

ʒ/

h/

ʤ/

r/

ð/

θ/,

-

+

-

+

|-

-

+

-

+

Carro

Nada

Alófono de /d/

-

They

Three

Source: modified from (Garcia, 2015)

Approaches to teach pronunciation

In the process of teaching and learning pronunciation, it is necessary to discuss different

approaches that have been developed to deal with this issue. For instance, the bottom-up

approach and the top-down approach proposed by Dalton & Seidlhofer (1994) have great

acceptability in the field. The bottomBotton-up approach means that the students will learn the

pronunciation of inividual phonemes first, and later they will develop their intonation. This

means that teaching the segmental features could be adequate for developing good

pronunciation because later on, the suprasegmentals might develop themselves (p.70). On the

other hand, the top-down approach deals with patterns of intonation first, and then if it is

necessary, the individual phonemes are taught.

Two more approaches that deal with pronunciation are the intuitive-imitative approach

and the analytic-linguistic aproach. According to Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996),

the intuitive-imitative approach deals with the ability of the learner to reproduce sounds without

any explicit information. Similar to how children learn languages, learners simply reproduce

sounds by imitation. In contrast, the analytic-linguistic approach provides the learners with all

the possible tools and explicit information about the phonetic alphabet, articulatory descriptions,

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a chart of the vocal apparatus, and more (p.2). This approach provides all the necessary tools for

students to produce the different sounds in a conscious way.

Tritch (2016) posited that adults had developed a phonological filter that allows them to

identify the sound of their mother tongue, but that also “filters out” the unfamiliar sounds of

foreign languages. Therefore, adult learners need to consciously “learn to hear again”, meaning

that they need to be aware that unfamiliar sounds are part of their target language, and require

practice in order to perfect their pronunciation. Tritch’s (2016) ideas on how to teach

pronunciation to adults agrees with the analytic-linguistic approach .

Phonological awareness

Russell´s (YEAR) idea that students are literally unable to hear strange or new sounds

leads us to the concept of phonological awareness. According to Gillon (2004), phonological

awareness involves the detection and manipulation of sounds at three levels of sound structure:

(1) syllables, (2) onsets and rimes, and (3) phonemes. This author also established that the

learner performing different phonemes must be aware of the units of sound in order to perform

the operation properly. Tritch (2016) goes further in suggesting that learners should know how

to move their mouth in order to make the new sound, including where to place the tongue and

how to shape the lips. Learners should know exactly what they physically must do in order to

produce similar sounds. In this sense, “phonological awareness is an individual’s awareness of

the phonological structure, or sound structure, of words” (Gillon, 2004). As we can see,

developing phonological awareness can help learners to overcome pronunciation problems.

Fromkim (2011) argues that the phonics similarity criterion reflects the ways in which

allophones function together and the kinds of generalizations that children or students can make.

Her studies reflect that one of the reasons students make pronunciation mistakes is the over-

generalization of sounds due to the lack of phonological awareness. It is clear that for teachers,

the process of teaching the sounds that do not exist in the students` mother tongue is a necessity

and should be part of the syllabus.

The question now is, “how should ESL/EFL teachers teach pronunciation?” Authors like

Derwing & Munro (2005), Blanco & Carrillo (2001), and Tritch (2016) have suggested using

explicit and analytical phonology to overcome phonological deficits. These researchers suggest

that training in the perception and articulation of L2 sounds can help learners to form new

phonological categories. The activities presented below aim to help learners develop awareness

of unfamiliar sounds and provide them a chance to practice the new sounds.

Some suggestions to teach the /ʃ /, /ʤ/, /r/ or liquid /s/ phonemes

There are different techniques that teachers can use to teach pronunciation. Malo (2014)

mentions that knowing how to articulate the sounds, constant repetition through drills, and

understanding of phonemes are excellent tools to teach pronunciation.

Fromkim (2011) defines the phonemes as “a contrastive phonological segment whose

phonetic realizations are predictable by rule” (p. 556). Understanding and identifying the exact

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place of realization or articulation helps in this process of learning pronunciation. Therefore, it

could be a good idea to use pictures of articulatory phonetics. For instance, students might

benefit from understanding that the 'sh sound' /ʃ/ is voiceless palatal and fricative, and that to

produce it, air is forced between a wide groove in the center of the front of the tongue and the

back of the tooth ridge (Pronuncian.com, 2016). This might sound complicated, but it may be

easier to understand this process by showing students the picture of the articulatory phoneme:

The / ʃ / sound

Source: (Pronuncian.com, 2016)

When teaching students how to produce the different phonemes, it is important not to

confuse students by telling them what a glottis, larynx, alveolar ridge or any of the vocal tract

elements are. As Macháčková, Bc, (2012) suggested, it could be better to use phonology as a

tool to help students associate the phoneme with the sound, produce the sounds, and make the

process of learning simpler and easier to remember. Tritch (2016) suggested teachers to allow

students to see the shape of the tongue, the exact position of the mouth and teeth, and to make

them notice how the air goes through the mouth and as they practice the sounds.

Another useful activity to help the learners become aware of the different speech sounds

are the “minimal pairs”. Teachers ask students to analyze pairs of words that sound similar (e.g.,

shop and chop, thin and tin, match and mash.) The difference between these words is just one

phoneme, and in phonological terms, these kinds of words that differ only in one sound are

called minimal pairs. Below is an example of an activity developed with minimal pairs.

Instructions: listen to the teacher reading the words below. Circle the word you hear.

Each word will be repeated twice.

/

ʃ /

/ tʃ /

Shows

Sheet

Shop

Cash

Mash

Wash

Chose

Cheat

Chop

Catch

Match

Watch

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Wish

Witch

/ʤ/

/

ʃ /

Shop

sheep

share

shore

Job

Jeep

Jared

George

Source: authors

To help students become aware of the sound and place of articulation of the / ʃ / phoneme

for shop, teachers should tell students that “sh” is represented with the phoneme / ʃ /, but that it

is also possible to have this sound with the combinations “t-i” or “c-i”, as in the words

“

national” or “official”. Most importantly, teachers should give students the chance to practice

each sound for at least one week. A suggestion to do this is by using tongue twisters as warm-

ups at the beginning of each class.

Here are some examples of tongue twisters that can be used to improve the pronunciation

of the /dʒ/, /ʃ /, /r/ and the liquid /s/:

PHONEME

TONGUE TWISTERS

Jean, Joan, George and Gerald judged generally.

Georgia, put the orange juice into the fridge.

/dʒ/

dʒ/

/

The juice was there for ages because Georgia forgot his orange juice in the fridge.

I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

/

s/

Liquid

s/

liquid

s/

liquid

/

Seven slick, slimy snakes sliding slowly southward.

/

Sammy Smellie smelt a smell of small-coal: Did Sammy Smellie smell a smell of small-coal?

If Sammy Smellie smelt a smell of small-coal,

Where's the smell of small-coal Sammy Smellie smelt?

/

ʃ /

I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish to wish the witch wishes, I won´t

wish the wish you wish to wish.

Susan shines shoes and socks, socks and shoes shine Susan. She stopped shining shoes and

socks, for shoes and socks shock Susan.

/

r/

Jerry's jelly berries taste really rare.

/

Robber the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural road.

Adapted from: www.sn.schule.de/~msweixdorf/dokumente/tongue_twisters.pdf

To help students with the /dʒ/ phoneme, teachers should make sure they understand that

this phoneme occurs with the consonant J or G+ e/I, as in the words:

jump, Jill, Joan, juice, July

general, George, fridge, orange,

region, originally, engineer

Teachers should then teach the learners how to produce this sound. Teachers can refer to

the sound produced in the word “jeep” and show a picture of the vocal tract with the articulatory

parts to indicate where students should press their tongue:

The / ʤ / sound

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Source: (Pronuncian.com, 2016)

Once the students are aware on how to produce the sound, the practice can be done

through the tongue twisters presented above. Tritch (2016) pointed out that learning the

pronunciation of unfamiliar sounds is not easy and takes a long time, as well as a lot of practice,

until students learn to move the muscles of their mouth in new ways (p.8). Tongue twisters could

contribute enormously when teaching pronunciation. As Wells-Smith (2012) said, tongue twister

exercises help exercise the muscles in the mouth, enabling clearer pronunciation, clearer speech

patterns, and allowing students an easier time pronouncing previously difficult sounds.

Likewise, to teach the /r/ phoneme, and to help students be aware that the Spanish /ř/ has

some differences in the way of articulation, teachers can repeat the words “carro” and “car”

many times. Then, a picture of the vocal tract with the articulatory parts to produce the /r/

phoneme can be shown to help learners realize that the tip of the tongue never touches the tooth

ridge, nor makes contact with any other part of the vocal tract. Teachers can help students

practice the /r/ phoneme by having them repeat the tongue twister, “Ray Roger ran across a

really risky rough road”.

Finally, to develop awareness of the liquid /s/, teachers can ask students to repeat the

phoneme /3/ and the phoneme /s/ many times and ask the students to listen carefully. Teachers

can call their attention to the shape of the mouth while both phonemes are being produced, and

ask them to reproduce both sounds and then reduce it down to a short initial “s”. Make sure the

students notice that in order to produce the phoneme /s/, the lips are held slightly tense and the

mouth is almost closed with the tongue touching the side teeth, like in the picture:

The /s/ phoneme

Source: (Pronuncian.com, 2016)

Teachers can tell the learners that the liquid /s/ occurs only in clusters at the beginning of

words like in: school, stay, smell, small, stay, student etc. Remind them that the phoneme /s/

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becomes a pronunciation problem for Spanish students only at the beginning of words. Make

students practice the liquid /s/. Here is another activity for the /s/ phoneme done with tongue

twisters.

Choose a tongue twister and repeat it three times

Six slippery snails, slid slowly seaward.

The students brought six sticky

skeletons to school

Seven slick, slimy snakes

sliding slowly southward.

Sammy Smellie smelt a smell of small-coal: Group work:

Group work:

Did Sammy Smellie smell a smell of small Find at least 5 new words that start Use the words to invent your

coal? with the liquid /s/and write them own tongue twister.

If Sammy Smellie smelt a smell of small- down

coal,

1.

2.

3.

Where's the smell of small-coal Sammy

Smellie smelt?

4

5

.

Source: authors

Concluding remarks

This paper has provided a brief overview of the latest findings about teaching

pronunciation. Based on the review of scholarly research conducted to write this paper, it can be

concluded that many of the pronunciation problems for L2 learners occur when learners are not

aware of new sounds in their target language, thus leading to merging or substitution errors.

Teachers’ explicit instruction of phonological sounds can contribute enormously to

improve students’ pronunciation of unfamiliar sounds. In general terms, we suggest that teachers

teach unfamiliar phonemes in an inductive way following the concepts of the analytic-linguistic

approach in order to help older students develop phonological awareness. We also demonstrate

that the process of learning pronunciation takes time and needs constant repetition, and that the

use of tongue twisters as oral exercises can benefit students greatly. Finally, based on these

findings, some suggestions were made in terms of other possible activities to help students

develop awareness of new sounds and provide practice to achieve accurate pronunciation.

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