The status of /r/ in the pronunciation of Turkish PhD candidates and its rehabilitation by computer and audacity programs

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 2, 0 - 80, 01.10.2013

Mehmet Demirezen

Öz

Today, there are two major standard varieties in English pronunciation in the world: British English (BrE, also called Received Pronunciation (RP) and North American English (NAE). British English is the hub of all the varieties of English dialects.  One cannot consider NAE a separate language. Within British English and American English there are also a great variety of accents due the lingua franca effect of English. The Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA) have received more attention than others from phoneticians and phonologists. In GA, which is a rhotic accent – /r/ phoneme, can occur in positions where many of the vowels can be r-colored by way of realization of a following /r/. American-r is a retroflex consonant and in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it is indicated with a hook in the bottom right, such as [ɻ]. The retroflex approximant /ɻ/, which is an allophone of the alveolar approximant /ɹ/, are heard in many dialects of American English, particularly in the Midwestern United States. One of the biggest differences between the British and the American accents is that Americans always pronounce the/r/ phoneme word-initially, word-medially and word-finally. In this paper, general situation of /r/ phoneme and special existence of retroflex-r of NAE will be explored in the pronunciation of 45 PhD candidates, who took an oral exam at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education in the Department of English Language Education on July, 11th, 2012. In this research, the existence of /r/ phoneme will be investigated by using the Error Hunt Approach and a diagnostic test in listening comprehension, and a 50-minute lesson plan will be presented as a remedial rehabilitation refinement by Audio-articulation Model by computer and Audacity Program (1.2.6.)

Anahtar Kelimeler

Error hunt approach; retroflex-r; Audio-articulation Model; fossilization

Kaynakça

• Baker, A. (1993). Introducing English pronunciation: A teacher‘s guide to tree or three and ship or sheep. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bauman-Waengler, J. (2009). Introduction to phonetics and phonology: From concepts to transcription. Boston, MA: Pearson.
• Demirezen, M. (2011). The difficulty of North American – r: An analysis as a pronunciation difficulty
• Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, 894-901.
• Demirezen, M. (2012). The difficulty of North American-/r/: An analysis as a pronunciation difficulty.
• In A. Akbarow (Ed.), International Conference on Foreign Language teaching and applied Linguistics- Intercultural linguistic competence and foreign/second language immersive environments, 4-6 May, 2012, Sarajevo-BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA, pp.397-404.
• Espy-Wilson, C. (2004). Articulatory strategies, speech acoustics and variability. Proceedings of sound to sense: Fifty years of discoveries in speech communication, pp. B62–B76. Retrieved from www.rle.mit.edu/soundtosense/conference/pdfs/invitedspeakers/Espy-Wilson PAPER.pdf
• Kelly, G. (2008). How to teach pronunciation. Longman: Pearson Education.
• McGowan, R. S., Nittrouer, S., Manning, C. (2004). Development of /f/ in young, Midwestern,
• American children. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115, 871-884. Sander, E. K. (1972). When are speech sounds learned? J. Speech Hear Disord. 37, 55–63.