FACTORS AFFECTING THE PRONUNCIATION AMONG INTERMEDIATE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBIA

FACTORS AFFECTING THE PRONUNCIATION AMONG INTERMEDIATE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBIA

Maria Lisseth Gelvez Lizcano

UNIVERSIDAD DE PAMPLONA

Faculty of Education

Department of Languages and Communication

Pamplona

June 2012

FACTORS AFFECTING THE PRONUNCIATION AMONG INTERMEDIATE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBIA

Maria Lisseth Gelvez Lizcano

Proposal

Gabriel Eduardo Cote Parra

UNIVERSITY OF PAMPLONA

Faculty of Education

Department of Languages and Communication

Pamplona

June 2012

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 –Introduction…………………………………………………………... 4

Purpose…………………………………………………………………… 4

Research Questions……………………………………………………….. 5

Chapter 2 -Literature Review……………………………………………………… 6

Definitions ……………………………………………………………….. 6

Theoretical framework……………………………………………………. 7

Previous studies…………………………………………………………… 8

Chapter 3 -Methodology........................................................................................... 14

Design........................................................................................................... 14

Data Collection............................................................................................. 14

Participants........................................................................................ 14

Setting……………………………………………………………… 15

Instruments....................................................................................... 15

Data Analysis……………………………………………………………… 16.

Ethical Cosiderations................................................................................................ 17

References................................................................................................................ 18

Factors Affecting the Pronunciation among Intermediate Foreign Language Learners at a Public University of Colombia

Introduction

One of the main aims of a foreign language learner should be to become fluent speakers and pronounce the FL without a foreign accent, but this is not possible in all learners, not matter their effort. There are different factors that affect the accented perception of production of a language speech. Flege, Schirru, and MacKay (2003) classify these factors into three types: maturational factors, amount and nature of L2 input, and interaction of L1–L2 sound systems. Many speech perception studies have suggested that the mechanisms that are operative for L1 acquisition are less effective as starting age of exposure to the L2 increases (Johnson &Newport, 1989). As a consequence, learners who were first exposed to the target language in childhood tend to be more successful than learners whose exposure started later in life.

According to Rallo and Romero (2012) the instructional setting does not always provide the best conditions for speech learning, partly because many foreign language teachers themselves do not succeed in producing the L2 sounds accurately. As a result, it gives the impression that it is improbable that students who are exposed to foreign-accented speech will acquire a native pronunciation.

Consequently, I am interested in identifying the factors that affect the pronunciation among foreign language learners, since as future foreign language teachers it is very important to be fluent speakers and pronounce the foreign language with the correct and proper accent of it.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this case study is to identify the factors affecting the pronunciation among intermediate FL learners at the University Of Pamplona. At this stage in the research, the pronunciation will be generally defined as the ability to use the correct stress, rhythm and intonation of a word in a spoken language.

Research Questions

What are the factors that affect the pronunciation among FL learners?

How do the factors affect the pronunciation among FL learners?

Literature Review

This chapter will be focused on the philosophical foundation and research literature on factors that affect the accent and pronunciation of FL learners, and will be based on three aspects: first definitions, second theoretical framework and third previous studies.

Definitions

There are several definitions about speech, accent and pronunciation which have been discussed by various professionals from different fields.

Speech is the vocalized form of human communication. It is based upon the syntactic combination of lexical and names that are drawn from very large (usually to about 10,000 different words) vocabularies. Each spoken word is created out of the phonetic combination of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech sound units. These vocabularies, the syntax which structures them and their set of speech sound units differ, creating the existence of many thousands of different types of mutually unintelligible human languages. Most human speakers (polyglots) are able to communicate in two or more of them. (Tucker 1999)

According to The New Oxford American Dictionary (2005) in linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation. Similarly, Lippi-Green (1997) defines that an accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside (a geographical or regional accent), the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language (when the language in which the accent is heard is not their native language), and so on.

Pronunciation refers to the ability to use the correct stress, rhythm and intonation of a word in a spoken language. A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the area in which they grew up, the area in which they now live, if they have a speech or voice disorder (Beech, Harding and Hilton-Jones, 1993).

Theories

Some experts in the field of speech propose different theories in order to better understand the factors affecting the accent and pronunciation.

The critical period theory states that if learning takes place after the critical period (usually considered around puberty) for acquiring native-like pronunciation, an individual is unlikely to acquire a native-like accent (Scovel, 2000) This theory, however, is quite controversial among researchers. Although many subscribe to some form of the critical period, they either place it earlier than puberty or consider it more of a critical “window,” which may vary from one individual to another and depend on factors other than age, such as length of residence, similarity of the non-native language to the native language, and the frequency with which both languages are used. (Piske, MacKay & Flege, 2001).

Furthermore, The Speech Learning Model (SLM) (Flege, 1995) makes the assumption that the ability to perceive and produce L2 sounds is not lost in late adolescence or adulthood. Late learners can perceive and produce the target sounds with varying degrees of success, depending on the nature and conditions of L2 exposure and use. Crucial to the SLM is the relationship between the L1 and L2 sound systems, which has a strong impact on how the L2 sounds are perceived and produced. One of the postulates of the SLM is that the ‘‘L1 and L2 sound systems exist in a common phonological space’’ (p. 238) and hence influence each other. As argued in Flege et al. (2003), this interaction involves two mechanisms, namely, category assimilation and category dissimilation, with the understanding that an L2 sound assimilates to an L1 sound when it is perceived as an instance of the L1 sound, despite audible differences between the two sounds.

Previous studies

Previous studies on acquisition of a foreign language have suggested that the inability to produce non-native sounds accurately may be related to an inability to perceive these sounds in a native like fashion.

Motivation and Interest

Simon and D'Hulster (2010) conducted a research on the effect of experience on the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast, where they examine the effect of second language practice on the acquisition of the English vowel contrast /e/–/æ/ by native speakers of Dutch. Also they report on the results of production and perception tasks performed by three groups of native Dutch learners of English in Belgium, differing in experience with English, as measured through study choice and progress. The outcomes of the present study propose that even in EFL contexts other factors, such as motivation and interest in the English language; give

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