Pronunciation Errors and Repair Strategies made by Northern Upper Egypt EFL Learners: A Case Study of the Production of English Sound Segments by First Year English Department Students in Beni-Suef University

Research Abstract

Abstract The objective of the present study is to investigate pronunciation errors made on the segmental level. It explores Egyptian EFL learners’ production of thirty seven English monophthongs including the 24 consonant sounds, the 12 pure vowel sounds, and the allophone dark /l/ sound. English diphthongs and consonant clusters are not within the scope of the present study. The study also focuses on the repair strategies employed by students to avoid the use of problematic target language sounds. In addition, the study attempts to account for the discerned pronunciation errors with regard to their possible sources, i.e. whether they could be traced to learners’ mother tongue, i.e. interlingual, or to the target language itself, i.e. intralingual. The participants are ten first year students in the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Beni-Suef University. For data elicitation, participants are asked to read aloud English minimal pairs, reading sentences and a reading passage that include the tested sounds. The frequency and percentage of incorrect production for each of the words representing the 37 tested sounds are calculated. In addition, the total frequency and percentage of incorrect pronunciation for each of the tested sounds are calculated. The findings of the study revealed that 14 English sounds constitute a source of difficulty for learners including the nine consonants; /v/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /ŋ/, /tʃ/, /θ/, /p/, dark /l/ and /ð/, and the six vowel sounds /ʌ/, /ɔ:/, /ɜ:/, /ə/, /ʊ/ and /e/. Keywords: pronunciation errors, Egyptian EFL learners, repair strategies, interlingual errors, intralingual errors.

Research Keywords

Keywords: pronunciation errors, Egyptian EFL learners, repair strategies, interlingual errors, intralingual errors.