Error Analysis On Thai Regular Final Consonants .
Error Analysis on Thai Regular Final Consonants Pronunciation of Chinese TFLUniversity StudentsJitladawan Srisunthornthai, Mae Fah Luang University, ThailandThe Asian Conference on Language Learning 2015Official Conference ProceedingsAbstractThe purpose of this study is to analyze the errors in Thai regular final consonantpronunciation of Chinese university students studying Thai as a Foreign Language(TFL). The sample group of this study consists of twenty-one first-year Chineseuniversity students undertaking the Thai Language and Culture program during the2014 academic year at the School of Liberal Arts, Mae Fah Luang University, ChiangRai province, Thailand. For this study, twenty-seven monosyllabic words comprisedof the eight Thai regular final consonants: /! /, /!n/, /!#/, /! /, /!%/, /!&/,/!'/, and /!(/ have been chosen from wordlists for children, a part of BasicWordlist for Learning and Teaching Thai at Elementary Level, produced by theDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction Development, Ministry of Education. Theerrors were collected from the wordlists’ pronunciation form. Frequency andpercentage were employed to calculate pronunciation errors of Thai regular finalconsonants. The findings revealed that errors on /-&/ are the highest, followed by/!n/, /!(/, /!%/, /!'/, /!#/, /! /, and /! / respectively. This study alsorecommends that error analysis should be implemented in order to createpronunciation exercises as a basic tool for solving the pronunciation problems of Thairegular final consonants encountered by Chinese TFL university students.Keywords: Error analysis, Thai regular final consonants, pronunciation, Thai as aForeign Language (TFL), Chinese university studentsiaforThe International Academic Forumwww.iafor.org
IntroductionIn this era of globalization, the popularity and need for studying the Thai languagehave expanded because of the growth of investment, the tourism industry, economicinterdependency, and business expansion both into and out of Thailand. Thus, manylearners choose to study the Thai language as the vital tool in order to obtain betterjobs and develop themselves for regional competitiveness.Nowadays, many educational institutions in Thailand offer Thai language courses fornon-native speakers. Mae Fah Luang University is one such institution. A bachelor’sdegree in Thai language and Culture (TLC) has been offered at Mae Fah LuangUniversity since 2007 so as to provide both Thai language skills and Thai culturalknowledge for non-Thai learners.Most learners who enroll in the TLC program are Chinese. When Chinese learnersstudy Thai as a foreign language (henceforth TFL), they face various linguisticproblems because native language interference has directly influenced their foreignlanguage acquisition as Ponmanee (1999: 59) has also affirmed.Final consonants are one of the critical problems among Chinese students studyingTFL. Based on my teaching experience, I have noticed that some Chinese learnerscontinually encounter pronunciation problems because they cannot distinguish thedifference between Chinese and Thai languages.Studies on the analysis of pronunciation errors of Chinese learners studying Englishare abundant; nevertheless, the error analysis of pronunciation errors of Chineselearners studying Thai, especially Thai final consonants, are rarely found. In order toimprove and develop learning and teaching TFL, research on this issue should beconducted.Comparison of Standard Chinese (SC) and Standard Thai (ST) final consonantsAccording to Chumnirokasant (1999: 239), there are nine Thai final consonants: fourstops (/Öp/,/Öt/,/Ök/, and /Ö?/), three nasals (/Öm/, /Ön/, and /!&/), and two semivowels (/Öw/ and /Öj/). On the other hand, there are only two final nasals /Ön/ and/!&/ in Standard Chinese (Lin, 2007) as shown in Table 1.
What are Thai regular final consonants?As mentioned earlier, there are nine Thai final consonants. However for this study, theresearcher has used all Thai final consonants except /! / because there is no finalconsonant in this group, for example * ‘aunt’. Each Thai alphabet in thethird column in Table 2 represents the writing form of Thai regular final consonants.
“homophones1”.Research questionsWhat are the frequent errors in the pronunciation of Thai regular final consonantsmade by first-year Chinese TFL university students?ObjectivesTo analyze pronunciation errors of Thai regular final consonants made by ChineseTFL university studentsMethodologyParticipantsTwenty-one first year Chinese university students studying Thai Language andCulture Program during the 2014 academic year at the School of Liberal Arts,Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai province, Thailand.Word ChoiceThe twenty-seven monosyllabic words were chosen from Basic Wordlist for Learningand Teaching Thai at Elementary Level, which is for young children, produced by theDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction Development, Ministry of Education,Thailand.Table 3 shows the selected twenty-seven monosyllabic words. For each Thaifinal consonant, the researcher tried to choose words whose initial consonants,vowels, and tones are different. For example, for /ch ùp/ and /ca p/ in the first rowfor Thai final consonant /Öp/, the initial consonants were /ch/ and /c/, the vowels were/ ù/ and /a/, and the tones were a falling tone and a low tone respectively.1one of a group of words pronounced in the same way but differing in meaning or spelling or both, asfor example bear and bare
InstrumentThe pronunciation form was used for collecting the data. This form contains twentyseven monosyllabic words with eight Thai regular final consonants: /- /, /-#/, /-n/,/- /, /-%/, /-&/, /-'/, and /-(/. All selected words in Table 4 have been orderedaccording to the number specified in Basic Wordlist for Learning and Teaching Thaiat Elementary Level.
Data collectionEach student had to pronounce each word two times. Thai phonetic symbols wereused to transcribe their pronunciation in the pronunciation form.Data analysisFrequency and percentage were employed to calculate errors in the pronunciation ofThai regular final consonants made by first-year Chinese TFL university students.
FindingsThe results revealed that the most frequent errors occurred with the use of /!&/(40.48%) in the pronunciation of Thai regular final consonants made by first-yearChinese TFL university students, followed by /Ök/ (25.40%), /Öj/ (22.22%), /Ön/(21.91%), /Öw/ (15.87%), /Öp/ (14.29%), /Öt/ (12.7%), and /Öm/ (11.91%)respectively as illustrated in Figure 1.The pronunciation errors of Thai regular final consonants will be exemplified asfollowed:1./ÖN/This final consonant sound was revealed to be pronounced incorrectly the mostfrequently (40.48%) by Chinese students. In this study, /Ön/, /Öm/, /Ö?/,and /Öj/ were found to substitute for the final /ÖN/.
From this table, it can be seen that Chinese students employed /Ön/ with the highestfrequency (16.67%), followed by /Öm/ (15.48%), /Ö?/ (7.14%), and /Öj/ (1.19%).2./Ök/The pronunciation errors of /Ök/ (25.40%) were the second highest. Most Chinesestudents replaced /Ök/ with /Ö?/, /Öp/,/Ön/, and /Öt/.Table 6 shows that Chinese students employed /Ö?/ the most (11.11%), followed by/Öm/ (9.52%), /Ö?/ (3.18%), and /Öj/ (1.59%).3./Öj/The number of pronunciation errors found in the final /Öj/ (22.22%) is the thirdhighest. Four final sounds are typically substituted for it: /Öw/, /Ö?/, /Öt/, and /Ön/.
Based on Table 7, it can be seen that Chinese learners pronounced /Öj/ as /Öw/(9.52%), /Ö?/ (7.94%), /Öt/ (3.18%), and /Ön/ (1.59%) respectively.4./Ön/The errors of /Ön/ pronunciation were calculated at 21.91%. Although /Ön/ wascategorized as a final nasal in Standard Chinese, Chinese students still were confusedand could not pronounce this final sound accurately as seen in Table 8.It was found that /Öm/ (13.33%), /ÖN/ (3.81%), /Ö?/ (3.81%), /Ök/ (0.95%), and/Öj/ (0.95%) were often substituted for /Ön/. Chinese learners mostly utilized /Öm/instead of /Ön/ because of the same manner of articulation that is used in nasals.5./Öw/Four final sounds were selected to replace final /Öw/. These were /Ö?/, /Öt/, /Ön/, and/Öj/, respectively.
As seen in Table 9, /Ö?/ has the highest number of pronunciation errors (7.93%),followed by /Öt/ (4.76%), /Ön/ (1.59%), and /Öj/ (1.59%).6./Öp/Only two final /Ö?/ and /Ön/ sounds were discovered in substituting the pronunciationof final /Öp/as shown in the following table.To replace the final consonant /Öp/, Chinese students most frequently used/Ö?/ (9.53%) and /Ön/ (4.76%). Since the place of articulation of /Öp/ is bilabial,Chinese learners could easily imitate the pronunciation of this sound. For this reason,the pronunciation errors of this sound were rarely found.7./Öt/The use of /Ön/, /Ö?/, and /Öt/ in English were 6.35%, 3.17%, and 3.17%,respectively, in order to replace the final /Öt/ in Thai.
Noticeably, only one low proficiency student pronounced final /Öt/ in Thai as final/Öt/ in English. This error might have arisen from their misunderstanding about thepronunciation of this sound.8./Öm/Many substituted final sounds were employed for pronouncing final /Öm/ in thisstudy: /Ön/ (4.76%), /Ö?/ (3.57%), /ÖN/ (1.19%), /Öt/ (1.19%), and /Öp/ (1.19%).Chinese students likely tended to pronounce final /Öm/ by using /Ön/ because both ofthem have a similar manner of articulation (nasals).ConclusionThe most frequent pronunciation errors of Thai regular final consonants were!& , followed by!n ,!( ,!% ,!' ,! ,!# , and ! , respectively. The pronunciation errors found in the studycommonly have the same phonetic features with the given Thai final consonants, forexample the same place of articulation or manner of articulation.
From above table, it can be concluded that in the first group, “Stops”, Chineselearners mostly employed ! to substitute for the final consonant /Öp/ and/Ök/. All sounds were stops but had different places of articulation (/Öp/ bilabial,/Ök/ velar, and ! glottal respectively). On the other hand, /Ön/ was used toreplace /Öt/. They had same place of articulation that was alveolar, but the manner ofarticulation differed (/Öt/ stops and /Ön/ nasals respectively).The “Nasals” group consisting of /Öm/, /Ön/, and /ÖN/ was replaced by the nasals/Ön/, /Öm/, and /Ön/, respectively. Since there are two final nasals sounds, /Ön/, and/ÖN/, in Standard Chinese, it was noticed that Chinese learners could perceive thatthese sounds were nasals; however, they probably had insufficient informationconcerning the correct place of articulation. This may have led to the pronunciationerrors of Thai regular final consonants.As for the “Semi-vowels” group, most Chinese students employed /Ö?/ insteadof /Öw/. Due to an obviously dissimilar manner and place of articulation, Chinesestudents seemed to be confused about the correct pronunciation of each Thai finalconsonant. Chinese students also used!'to replace!( . It can besummed up in that both !' and !( are semi-vowels but they have adissimilar place of articulation ( !( palatal and !' bilabial, respectively).DiscussionThe pronunciation errors of Thai regular final consonants are partially caused bynative language influence and/or inadequate knowledge of Thai linguistics. Thoughthese two final sounds are nasals and similar to final sounds in Standard Chinese,Chinese learners used various final sounds to replace Thai final consonants /Ön/ and/Öm/.
In other words, Chinese learners employed only two final sounds to substitute for theThai final consonant /Öp/. The place of articulation of this Thai final consonant isbilabial, so it may be easy for Chinese learners to remember its pronunciation.It was noticed that Chinese students tended to use /! / to replace every Thai finalconsonant as the following table shows.For this study, most Chinese students studying in the TLC program came from theYunnan province2 (Wikipedia, 2015). Concerning the aspect of ethnicity, “Yunnanhas the highest number of ethnic groups among all provinces and autonomous regionsin China. Among the country’s 56 ethnic groups, 25 are found in Yunnan.” (Yunnan,n.d.). Regarding regional dialects, notable features found in many Yunnan dialectsinclude the partial or complete loss of distinction between finals!%and!& , as well as the lack of /y/ (Wikipedia, 2015). Furthermore, Lin (2007: 3)gave an opinion about the influence of regional dialects on Standard Chinesepronunciation, saying that:2Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country.
“Most Chinese learn to speak SC only after they have acquired their regional dialectsand may learn from schoolteachers who do not have correct SC pronunciationthemselves. In addition, many Chinese speakers regard SC simply as a practical toolof communication and often retain their local accents when speaking SC, especiallywithin their local communities.”It can be said that both the Yunnan dialect, as a regional dialect, and Standard Chinesedirectly affected these Chinese students in studying the pronunciation of the Thailanguage. When they pronounced each Thai word, the Yunnan dialect and/or StandardChinese interfered with the Chinese learners’ perception of Thai (as a foreignlanguage); accordingly, teachers should regularly notice and consider the suitablypractical solutions to raise their awareness and comprehension in studying Thaipronunciation.Interestingly, an avoidance strategy was used by a few students with a low proficiencyin Thai. They were likely to avoid pronouncing some difficult or unknown words.Moreover, only one student pronounced the Thai final consonant /Öt/ as /Öt/ inEnglish. This may stem from the shortage of Thai linguistic knowledge and Thaiwriting form that make them lack self-confidence in pronouncing Thai words.RecommendationsIn teaching a second/foreign language, teachers should focus on Contrastive Analysis(CA) in order to gain information about differences and similarities of the L1 and L2of learners. Doing this could enable them to predict possible problems that may ariseamong foreign learners. Besides, error analysis should be implemented in order toprovide pronunciation skill supplementary teaching documents, consisting of Thailinguistic knowledge, activities, and exercises, as a basic tool for solving thepronunciation problems of Thai regular final consonants encountered by Chinese TFLuniversity students.
AcknowledgementI would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.Wison Sukwisith for his valuableguidance and also the Mae Fah Luang University Research Fund for its support in thisstudy.
ReferencesChumnirokasant, Dusdeporn. (1999). The Sounds in Thai (1). In Thai 3 Unit 1-6(pp. 201-243). Bangkok: Sukhothai Thammatirat Open University. (In Thai)Homophone. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged(10th ed.). Retrieved May 28, 2015, from Dictionary.com ophoneLin, Yen-Hwei. (2007). The Sounds of Chinese. Cambridge, UK; New York:Cambridge University Press.Ponmanee, Sriwilai. (2002). Foundations of Teaching Thai As a Foreign Language.Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Book Center. (In Thai)Wikipedia. (2015, May 26). Retrieved May 31, 2015 from n. (n.d.). Retrieved May 31, 2015 from China.org nan/yunnan-ban.htmContact email: jitladawan.sri@mfu.ac.th
pronunciation exercises as a basic tool for solving the pronunciation problems of Thai regular final consonants encountered by Chinese TFL university students. . The pronunciation errors of Thai regular
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