The Distinctive Phonologic Feature of Korean English Learners

Jan Patrick S. Arrieta Joahnna D. Nolasco Sally T. Sy

University of the Philippines - Baguio TESOL Certification Course Baguio City, Philippines

May 2012

I. Problem A. Background Learning a foreign language requires the acquisition of sounds from the L2 which the L1 does not originally have. The problem reverberates across the globe where phonetic deviations may occur. This issue is evident for a Korean learning English wherein the learner utters sounds that distorts the words. The inflection of sounds poses a problem when communicating orally when the L1 speaker with the phonological deviation may be interpreted differently. Confusion shall result in a conversation when the aural and oral representations may be due to the fact that Korean language lack the fricative sounds. The study and training and phonetics is important for the teacher and the learner. In an attempt to circumnavigate the problem, pronunciation was given high priority during the 1930s and 1960s in the United States. Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the oral approach and situational language introduced the spoken before written language and aimed at the formation of good pronunciation habits through drills and dialogues. A shift in the teaching paradigm was noted when two approaches gave high import for pronunciation. The first, Silent Way gives attention to the accurate production of sounds, stress, intonation from the very beginning. Richard and Rodgers (1986) contributed the Communicative Language Learning which allows for plenty of pronunciation drills. Along with these is the notion of andragogy or adult learning (DeYoung, 2008) which states that learning can best be achieved by learners who develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning. Motivation is clearly an indicator in the success of learning pronunciation. According to Morley (1991, as cited by Carter & Nunan, 2001), intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence. The

method for teaching pronunciation broke away from the drills and dialogues to the use of communicative activities focusing on meaningful interaction which directs the attention of learners away from the grammar rules or language form and towards the commencement of meaning that is being communicated. To establish the needed skills in pronunciation, phonetics provides the technical underpinning of pronunciation teaching (Carter and Nunan, 2001). The challenge, therefore, is to teach learners acceptable or intelligible English which can cross cultural boundaries. Prator (1957) recognized the problems of producing a manual to teach pronunciation. He says that others are attempting to use speech-correcting manuals prepared for the typical American undergraduate. These, with their literary readings, their emphasis on isolated sounds, their treatment of all sounds and combinations as of equal importance, their preoccupation with clarity of articulation, bear little relationship to the special problems of the foreign student. The latter must learn new speech rhythms and intonation patterns, acquire a more natural and less bookish delivery, form the habit of obscuring unstressed vowels, concentrate on unfamiliar sounds, and the like. He adds that the materials are adapted to the use of students with a variety of nonEnglish linguistic backgrounds. Serving as a guide in teaching pronunciation, any pronunciation text devoted almost exclusively to phonemic differences concentrates on what is most obviously and most easily acquired through imitation. It neglects precisely those phases of the phonemes of the language in which imitation is most likely to fail, and analytical knowledge and systematic drill to be of great value. Prator (1957) states that our own solution to regard unintelligibility not as the result of phonemic substitution, but as the cumulative effect of many little departures from the phonetic norms of the language. A great many of these departures may be phonemic; many others are

not. Under certain circumstances, any abnormality of speech may contribute to unintelligibility.

B. Statement of the Problem The issue at hand is focused on the description of the phonological deviation of Korean English as opposed to the standard English of Great Britain and the United States of America. Ultimately, the research would like to understand the phonological characteristics of the Korean-English language and speech sound acquisition, and the developmental pattern for phonological process in Korean learners. Furthermore, the research would like to describe characteristics of English speech sound acquisition in successive English-Korean learners and interference patterns that result from the influence of two independent phonological and phonetic systems.

II. Review of Related Literature This chapter presents the relevant literature which will show the factors relevant to phonological deviations and therefore the difficulty of learning foreign accents or the adaptation to L2 pronunciation. According to Carter and Nunan (2001), starting with pronunciation in individual and social life, it is easy to see why the notion of correct pronunciation is questionable as a learning target as soon as we realize how inextricably bound up it is with social and individual identity. They continue by saying that accents express peoples membership to particular communities, and with it conflicting tendencies such as power and solidarity, in-group and out-group, prestige and stigmatization. In addition to social identity, pronunciation expresses individual identity and reflects ego-boundaries which can be extremely resistant to change. This reveals the sensitive nature of pronunciation

teaching in comparison to mastering grammar or vocabulary, has come to be generally accepted. When issues in the individual and social life are understood, it is time to continue with the second area of pronunciation in language use and language system. This concerns the role that pronunciation plays in conveying our meaning in discourse, either for transactional or interactional aims. This could be done in genres or context such as everyday conversations, school lessons, job interviews, and so on. The goal at this point is to enable the learner to communicate the message. Focusing on the Korean-English pronunciation inflection, Sun-Ah (2003) describes that there are factors which affect the prosodic phrasing including a syntactic constraint as well as non-syntactic factors such as focus, speech rate, weight of a phrase. She argues that prosodic phonologists typically neglect relating the domains defined by tonal properties, especially the domain smaller than the Intonational Phrase, to the domain of segmental phonological rule. Based on several phonetic experiments, she shows that the tonally marked prosodic phrases in Korean - i.e. The Accentual Phrase and the Intonational Phrase - serve as the domain of several segmental phonological rules such as Lenis Stop Voicing and Obstruent Nasalization. Continuing her argument, she shows that the these tonally based prosodic domains can account for the variable domain of phonological rules which depend on non-syntactic or nonlinguistic factors better than the syntax based prosodic domains proposed by the Prosodic Phonologists can account for these phenomena. She proposes that the prosodic constituents in Korean should not be defined based on the syntactic information as proposed elsewhere. Rather, she says, they should be define based on the intonational pattern of an utterance. The statements of Sun Ah is in congruence with those Cho (2004). According to the paper, Phonetic Differences is one of the most baffling difficulties of Korean learners of English experience. The problem arises from the complexity of English

words in spelling and sound correspondences according to Kim, et al (1988). Suh as cited by Cho (2003) notes the orthography of Korean language in which each letter corresponds to a sound unit, a phoneme. However, an English letter or grapheme does not have one sound of phoneme, but is pronounce in several different ways, depending on the word. Cho (2004) posits the difference in consonants and vowels between the two languages cause additional problems. Another issue worthy of note is differences in consonants. Cho (2004) says that all Korean consonant stops, fricatives, and affricates are voiceless, whereas English has pairs of voiced and voiceless stops, fricatives, and affricates. Many Korean students have difficulty pronouncing voiced consonants such as /b, d, g, v, , z, /. Koreans have to make efforts to pronounce English labiodental consonants such as /f, v/, because the Korean language does not have them. Since Koreans has one liquid sound / / for the English /l/ and /r/, Korean students have problems distinguishing /l/ from /r/ when pronouncing or listening. Also, Korean students have difficulty distinguishing these pairs of voiced and voiceless sounds from each other, as in the case of /f/ & /v/; /p/ & /b/; // & //; /t/ & /d/; /z/, /j/ & / dz/, and /r/ and /l/. The issues does not stop here, Korean syllabic normally follows CVC, with a consonant in the initial position followed by a vowel, whereas in English three consecutive consonants often come in the initial position. In that case, Korean students follow the pattern of Korean syllabic structure and insert an extra vowel between the consonants - i.e. plight is often pronounced as polite. Aside from the difference in consonants, issues arise from vowels as well. An English vowel that korean students have difficulty pronouncing is // which does not exist in Korean and some tend to substitute the Korean /o/ for it. The phonetic difficulties reverberates in the dissertation of Huh (2007). Koreans also use full strong vowels sounds. Since there is no word stress, there are no weak forms. Some students feel uncomfortable when pronouncing unstressed English vowels such as schwa. A discrepancy is also noted

when students have learned either of the Inner Circle English - American or British. Most Korean students have learned American English rather than British English and tend to pronounce r-colored vowels, often overstressing them. On the subject of stress, in contrast to English, a stress-timed language, Korean is a syllabi-timed language. Since Korean is not a rhythmic language, it has neither word stress nor sentence stress. Each syllabi is given the same emphasis in a word, and every word if pronounced with the same prominence in a sentence. With no distinction in pronunciation between function words and content words, the same interval is maintained between syllables, thus creating a very monotonous sound. One of the major tasks for Korean students is to gain familiarity with English stress and rhythm. Input from Huh (2007) states that difficulty may arise in the first encounter of the learner with a textbook in a classroom, rather with English utterance in a real life outside the classroom. He adds that orthography may be one of the most influential factors that affect their L2 pronunciation. But in the case of bilingualism, the heritage language should receive support and continuity. Finch (2009) suggests avoiding overemphasis on the grammatical accuracy of student speech or writing. From here, the initiation of pronunciation is carried on to learning English and might create the difficulties in pronunciation. However there was a conflict between the maturation of the pronunciation. This was noted in the study of Yeni-Komshian, Flege, and Liu (2000) stating that the English pronunciation of participants with ages of arrival 1 - 5 years was close to monolinguals, heavier accents were noted as ages of arrival increased from 6 to 23 years. They have found out that Koreans with ages of arrival 1 7 years was distinctly accented while those with ages of arrival 12 to 23 years were rated as monolinguals. Participants with ages of arrival of 1 - 9 years pronounced English better than Korean, whereas the reverse was true for ages of arrival of 12 - 23

years. The results were more consistent with the view that deviation from native pronunciation result from the interactions between the languages of bilinguals rather than with the view of a maturationally defined critical period for language learning. Overall, there really is an issue when a non-native speaker of English is learning English pronunciation. The challenge is placed on the teachers shoulders on how to conduct pronunciation lessons and to provide a yardstick for measuring English proficiency that could be labeled as acceptable.

III. Implications to Classroom Teaching in an ESL/EFL Environment Addressing the above concerns is found in the content of this chapter arising from a corpus of research. The absence of a particular methods to address the issue will be viewed as a floodgate of opportunity for ESL or EFL teachers and learners. This diaspora of teaching and learning methodologies are shaped by forces primarily of the environment English is in. Kachru and Smith (2008) states that nativization of the language is inevitable when words are adapted when coming into contact with another culture. Carte and Nunan opines that the diversification of learning goals is accompanied by a broadening of attitudes towards different native and non-native varieties, including accents. This caused the increased complexity of pronunciation teaching and requires the teachers awareness, skill, and knowledge in this area. The ultimate goal for an ESL or EFL class is to deliver the learning content with the maximal use and application of the learner in real world scenario. This makes it incumbent upon the teacher to conduct a needs assessment or profiling of the student either through student profile questionnaires which will highlight the age, exposure to the target language, amount and type of prior pronunciation instruction, aptitude, allitude and motivation, and the role of the learners first language (L1) (). We must take

note that the results of the needs assessment will identify the path that the teacher will take. Carter and Nunan (2001) writes that many of the elicited data directs the learning purpose and setting in which instruction takes place. A pronunciation syllabus changes if is designed for an ESL or EFL course. Furthermore, there is influence of the surrounding linguistic environment on the teaching procedures, the complex question of target norms and intelligibility as an objective hinges upon the students setting and learning procedures. They continue by saying that ElS learners will strive to become comfortably intelligible for the native speakers around, and ultimately may want to approximate to a native target norm in order to integrate with the native speaker community. Carter and Nunan (2001) contrasts the EFL learners, stating that EFL learners may primarily be aiming for an ability to use English as a lingua franca for communication in international settings, often with a variety of other non-native speakers; therefore, the EFL learner is not concerned with sounding like a native speaker. The burden is placed on the teachers shoulders to be able to render lively discussions and take command of the range of different models for L2 pronunciation learning. The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages provides guideline on how to better teaching. Effective teaching requires at least three kinds of competence of teachers: linguistic proficiency in the target language, knowledge about this language, and the ability to identify and select specific aspects of language and combine them for presentation bad practice in ways which are effective for learning. The recommendation is for teachers to become both good informants or models of the target language and good instructors. Here is a roster of suggested methods of teaching pronunciation: elicited mechanical production, listen and repeat, discrimination practice, sounds for meaning contrasts, cognitive analysis, communication activities and games, whole brain activities, and learning strategies.

Going back on the premise of this paper, the teachers decision on what kinds of activities to use in any particular situation heavily depends on the characteristics of the learner and mediating variables such as learning purpose, learners age and setting. Likewise, it would also be beneficial if the teacher can homogenize the classroom according to categories which will help in the facilitation of discussions such as interests and generation qualities. And on a final note, going back to the lessons from Prator as early as the 1950s, he says that the best way to learn pronunciation is by pronouncing. There is no substitute for extensive imitation and practice under conditions approaching those of everyday life as nearly as possible. No textbook, no amount of analytical work, can fully supply this need. He hopes that the instructor will supplement the work of the text in various ways. The instructor should encourage his students to carry on, outside the class, the oral reading suggested at the end of almost every lesson, and he should make additional suggestions.

IV.References A.Books Carter, R. & Nunan, D. (2001) The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge University Press. DeYoung, S. (2009). Teaching strategies for nurse educators. Jurong, Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte. Ltd. Kachru, Y. & Smith, L. (2008). Cultures, context and world englishes. New York: Routledge. Kim, Chung-bae & Myung-shin Shin. (1988). Various problems in English education in Korea. Seoul: Hanshin Pub. Co. Mesthrie, R. & Bhatt, R. (2008). World englishes: the study of new linguistics varieties. Cambridge University Press. Prator, C. (1957). Manual of American English pronunciation. New York: Rinehart. B.Journals Cho, B. (2004). Issues concerning Korean learners of English: English education in Korea and some difficulties of Korean students. The East Asian Learner 1(2): 31-36.

Finch, A. (2009). Korean community schools in the UK: key issues and recommendations. Journal of Korean Language Education 20(3): 205-234. Yeni-Komshian, G., Flege, J., & Liu, S. (2000). Pronunciation proficiency in the first and second languages of Korean-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3(2): 131-149. C.International Studies Huh, J. (2007) A comparison study on the effects of two explicit pronunciation syllabi on Korean adult EFL learners learning of English sounds. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. D.Electronic sources Richard, J. (n.d.) Communicative language teaching today. Viewed May 15, 2012 from http://www.professorjackrichards.com/pdfs/communicative-language-teachingtoday-v2.pdf