MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature
Some Problems with the Pronunciation of
English Typical of Native Speakers of
German
(a tentative case study)
Bachelor thesis
Brno 2008
Author of the thesis:
Pavel Hrubeš
Supervisor of the thesis:
PhDr. Jaroslav Ondráček
Bibliografický záznam
HRUBEŠ, Pavel. Some Problems with the Pronunciation of English Typical of Native
Speakers of German (attempt for a case study): bakalářská práce. Brno: Masarykova
univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury, 2008. Vedoucí
bakalářské práce PhDr. Jaroslav Ondráček.
Anotace
Bakalářská práce ,,Některé potíže s anglickou výslovností, typické pro rodilé mluvčí
němčiny (pokus o případovou studii)" zkoumá potíže nerodilých mluvčích s výslovností
angličtiny. Porovnává systémy hlásek angličtiny a němčiny a pokouší se odhadnout jaké
výslovnostní potíže mohou z tohoto rozdílu pramenit. Pokusem o případovou studii na
šesti rakouských mluvčích některé tyto potíže ilustruje.
Annotation
The bachelor thesis ,,Some Problems with the Pronunciation of English Typical of
Native Speakers of German (a tentative case study)" explores the troubles of non-native
speakers with the pronunciation of English. It compares the sound systems of English
and German and tries to guess what pronunciation-related difficulties might spring from
the difference. It illustrates some of these difficulties with an attempt for a case study on
six Austrian speakers.
Klíčová slova
fonetika, fonologie, výslovnost angličtiny, rozdíly mezi systémy hlásek němčiny a
angličtiny, problémy s výslovností angličtiny typické pro rodilé mluvčí němčiny,
osvojování výslovnosti angličtiny u nerodilých mluvčích
Keywords
Phonetics, phonology, the pronunciation of English, differences between the sound
systems of German and English, problems with the pronunciation of English typical of
German native speakers of German, acquisition of the pronunciation of English by nonnative
speakers
2
Affirmation
I declare that I wrote this bachelor thesis myself and used only the sources mentioned in
the enclosed bibliography.
I agree that the thesis will be deposited in the library of the Faculty of Education at
Masaryk University in Brno and made available for academic purposes.
In Brno on April 14th
2008 Pavel Hrubeš
3
Acknowledgements:
I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to my supervisor PhDr. Jaroslav
Ondráček for all his help, advice and support.
I would also like to thank my Austrian friends who took part in the research for their
willingness and for their hospitality during my visits to Vienna.
4
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 6
I. THEORETICAL PART ........................................................................................................................ 8
1. NON-NATIVE PRONUNCIATION............................................................................................... 8
1.1 FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING OF THE PRONUNCIATION ......................................................... 8
1.1.1 The age of the learner .......................................................................................................... 8
1.1.2 The learner's native language ............................................................................................. 9
1.1.3 Exposure to the target language .......................................................................................... 9
1.1.4 Phonetic ability .................................................................................................................. 10
1.1.5 Attitude to the language ..................................................................................................... 10
1.1.6 Motivation.......................................................................................................................... 10
1.2 TYPES OF LEARNING PROBLEMS............................................................................................... 11
2. SOUND SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH AND GERMAN.................................................................. 13
2.1 CONSONANTS VS VOWELS ....................................................................................................... 13
2.2 CONSONANTS .......................................................................................................................... 13
2.2.1 Classification of consonants .............................................................................................. 13
2.2.2 Consonant systems of English and German....................................................................... 14
2.2.3 Individual consonants of English in detail and possible problems with their pronunciation
16
2.3 VOWELS .................................................................................................................................. 19
2.3.1 Classification of vowels ..................................................................................................... 19
2.3.2 Vowel systems of English and German .............................................................................. 19
2.3.3 Individual vowels of English in detail and possible problems with their pronunciation.... 20
II. PRACTICAL PART........................................................................................................................... 23
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 23
2. ANALYSES OF INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS' RECORDINGS AND QUESTIONNAIRES... 25
2.1 SPEAKER NO. 1 ........................................................................................................................ 25
2.2 SPEAKER NO. 2 ........................................................................................................................ 27
2.3 SPEAKER NO. 3 ........................................................................................................................ 29
2.4 SPEAKER NO. 4 ........................................................................................................................ 30
2.5 SPEAKER NO. 5 ........................................................................................................................ 31
2.6 SPEAKER NO. 6 ........................................................................................................................ 32
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 34
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................................... 36
APPENDICES.......................................................................................................................................... 38
5
Introduction
Generally, this thesis is concerned with the problems that non-native speakers
may have with the pronunciation of English. Why I consider this topic important could
be shown on an example of a friend of mine. When it comes to writing, he can speak
good English. He can speak even very good English, actually, but when he talks to
people, he does not try to pronounce correctly at all. He just keeps his typically Czech
pronunciation and justifies it with his thinking that it sounds strange, when people are
trying to imitate the pronunciation of a foreign language. It might be comfortable for
him, however, his conversational partners often have problems to understand him,
some even do not like talking to him because of that or they are making fun of him.
This is just an extreme example of how incorrect pronunciation might put limits to
people's communication.
In the last years I have been coming quite often to Vienna to visit my Austrian
friends. As I am also interested in the German language, it has always been interesting
for me to listen to their English and try to trace the influence of their native tongue in
their grammar and vocabulary as well as in their pronunciation. Therefore, after having
read the interesting bachelor thesis by Klára Sedláčková from last year1
, in which she
focused on the speakers of Portuguese and their acquisition of the pronunciation of
English, I decided to choose a similar topic, this time, however, focusing on the native
speakers of German.
I divided the thesis in two parts ­theoretical and practical. The theoretical part
deals first with the problems that learners of any foreign language have to face when
acquiring its pronunciation. Second, I compared the sound systems of English and
German and tried to find out what the differences are and what pronunciation-related
difficulties this might bring to those learners of English, whose native tongue is
German.
The practical part is based on a small research, which I did with six of my
Austrian friends. Its aim was to roughly verify to what extent the expected difficulties
1
<http://www.is.muni.cz/th/160409/pedf_b/Bakalarska_prace.pdf> (April 13th 2008). It is always this
work what I mean when talking about Klára Sedláčková and her work, further in my thesis.
6
actually appear in the pronunciation of the native speakers of German and to illustrate
some of these difficulties.
7
I. Theoretical part
1. Non-native pronunciation
Correct pronunciation is part and parcel of any foreign language, which one
wants to learn. One might have mastered the grammar and gained perfect knowledge
of vocabulary, but when it comes to an oral interaction, a complete communication
breakdown may occur, when one is not able to pronounce in a way which is intelligible
to the partner. Leaving aside possible somatic and health-related causes of inability to
pronounce in an understandable way, the primary cause of most complications with the
pronunciation of a foreign language is the mere fact, that the language is non-native.
Our articulators are mostly only used to pronouncing those sounds, which are being
used in our native tongue. Other sounds often seem "strange" to us, some of them even
seem "impossible to articulate", or they even might be quite easy to articulate, but
pronouncing them is accompanied by an inner emotional block, warning us that
pronouncing such a "weird" sound is not normal (in the introduction of his book The
Sounds of English and German William G. Moulton compares it to the feeling of
wearing wrong clothing, to a socially improper behaviour). However, these sounds
need to be learned, if we want other people to understand what we say. The learning of
the pronunciation of a new language is being affected by several factors: the age of the
learner, learner's native language and its phonetic system, the amount of exposure to
the target language, individual phonetic ability, personal attitude to the target language
and the type and intensity of motivation to learn it.
1.1 Factors affecting learning of the pronunciation
1.1.1 The age of the learner
One of the main factors, which might affect one's ability to learn the sound
system of a new language, is the person's age. Many people assume, that the younger
the learner is, the better are they able to hear, distinguish and imitate the new sounds.
Considering the ease with which children are able to learn their native tongue, it
sounds quite logical and numerous examples could be found of children doing more
than well in acquiring a second language pronunciation in an early age, and vice versa
8
­ the elderly having huge problems with that. However, it is not easy to clearly state,
whether there is or is not any age-related limit to the ability to acquire a perfect
pronunciation of a second language, since the results of the numerous researches
concerning this topic are conflicting. In their books on pronunciation teaching both
Joanne Kenworthy2
and Marianne Celce-Murcia3
sum up the results of various
researches, of which some prove the assumption, while others refute it.
1.1.2 The learner's native language
The question of the learner's first language and its phonetic system is
determining to a large extent, at least when it comes to the number and difficulty of the
new features one needs to acquire. Each language has a specific system of sounds.
When contrasting two languages, there are always more or less differing points to be
found, concerning individual sounds, as well as intonation, rhythm or various
combinations of sounds. Therefore for instance native speakers of other Germanic
languages might have an easier starting point for learning the pronunciation of English,
than native speakers of Chinese. But still, it is not the only obstacle and it is definitely
not a fatal one.
1.1.3 Exposure to the target language
Quite an important factor is the extent to which the learner is being exposed to
the learned language and also if they listen to the language in its native or non-native
form.
2
KENWORTHY, Joanne. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman group UK, 1987.
3
CELCE-MURCIA, Marianne; BRINTON, Donna M.; GOODWIN, Janet M.. Teaching Pronunciation:
A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996.
9
1.1.4 Phonetic ability
Even a certain degree of aptitude might take its part on the process. "Some
people are able to discriminate between two sounds better than others, and/or are able
to mimic sounds more accurately."4
Celce-Murcia mentions the works of J. B.
Carroll5
, in which he assumes the existence of what he calls "Phonemic coding ability:
the capacity to discriminate and code foreign sounds such that they can be recalled."6
The individual strength in this ability is claimed to be decisive for the ease of
"achieving a readily intelligible pronunciation"7
.
1.1.5 Attitude to the language
According to Joanne Kenworthy, it has been shown in many studies, that those
learners, who have a positive attitude towards the speakers of the language they are
learning, "tend to develop more accurate, native-like accents"8
. Also the learner's
feeling of identity plays an important role. Generally said, the closer emotional
relationship the person has towards the learned language, towards its native speakers
and/or the country where the language is spoken, the more probable it is, that they will
tend to try to mimic its sound accurately.
1.1.6 Motivation
Another rather psychological factor determining the success of the learning
process is the driving motive, which leads the learner to learn the particular language
and to try to achieve a correct pronunciation. Celce-Murcia mentions three types of
motivation: integrative motivation ­ "a desire to be socially integrated in the target
4
KENWORTHY, Joanne. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman group UK, 1987. pp. 6-7.
5
CARROL, J. B.. The Prediction of Success in Intensive Foreign Language Training. In R. Glaser (Ed.),
Training, Research and Education (pp. 87-136). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962.
CARROL, J. B.. Twenty-five Years of Research on Foreign Language Aptitude. In K. C. Diller (Ed.),
Individual Differences and Universals in Language Learning Aptitude (pp. 83-118). Rowley, MA:
Newbury House, 1981.
6
CELCE-MURCIA, Marianne; BRINTON, Donna M.; GOODWIN, Janet M.. Teaching Pronunciation:
A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996. p. 17.
7
Ibidem.
8
KENWORTHY, Joanne. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman group UK, 1987. p. 8.
10
culture"9
; assimilative motivation ­ "a desire on the part of the learner to become an
indistinguishable member of the target speech community"10
; instrumental motivation
­ "an individual learns a second language to attain a certain goal, for instance a job
promotion"11
. However, not only the type of motivation is important, but also its
intensity might be a decisive point.
1.2 Types of learning problems
When a native speaker of one language learns the pronunciation of a different
language, several types of problems are likely to occur. In The Sounds of English and
German, which deals with the opposite issue (i.e. native speakers of English learning
the pronunciation of German), William G. Moulton classifies these learning problems
into four groups: Phonological problems12
, Phonetic problems, Allophonic problems
and Distributional problems.
1. Phonological problems. The speaker carries over the phonological habits of
their language into the target language and uses the wrong phoneme. In the case of the
speaker of German using English, the example might be the word they. Instead of
using the phoneme //, which is unknown in the German language, the speaker says
/de/, which changes the meaning of the word completely (day).
2. Phonetic problems. Carrying over phonetic habits, the speaker uses the
wrong phone13
. E.g. producing the clear German /l/ where the so-called "dark /l/"
should be pronounced. It does not necessarily bring about any misunderstanding, but it
sounds at least strange.
9
CELCE-MURCIA, Marianne; BRINTON, Donna M.; GOODWIN, Janet M.. Teaching Pronunciation:
A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996. p. 19.
10
Ibidem.
11
Ibidem.
12
Moulton originally used the term "phonemic problems", but according to the European terminology
tradition I preferred using the word "phonological"
13
Although the term `phone' is not widely used these days, I preferred to use it as Moulton (1962) did in
his book.
11
3. Allophonic problems. Carrying over allophonic habits the speaker uses the
wrong phone or phoneme. For instance when uttering the English word rot, a German
speaker might use the German uvular allophone //, which is unknown for an English
listener and the word might be therefore misunderstood as /ht/.
4. Distributional problems. Carrying over those habits concerning the
distribution of particular phonemes may also cause difficulties. E.g. German speakers
are used always to pronounce the initial /k/ in the words such as Knie (i.e. knee) or
kneifen (i.e. to pinch). On the other hand, the English initial cluster kn (as in the words
knee or knife) is always pronounced as simple /n/. Another kind of a distributional
problem might be the case when a speaker of German pronounces an English word
using an unvoiced consonant in the syllable-final position, although it is spelled with
its voiced counterpart. That is common in German. E.g. the word das Rad (wheel) is
pronounced with a voiceless /t/ at the end. But carrying this habit over into English
might for instance bring about such confusions as god/got, had/hat, pig/pick etc.
12
2. Sound systems of English and German
Both German and English are part of the Germanic language group. Thanks to
this, they have quite a few common features, whether it be in grammar or vocabulary.
However, though they are generally much more similar than for instance English and
Czech, there are still significant differences in many aspects between the two
languages. The sound systems make no exception. Let us now take a short look at the
issue.
2.1 Consonants vs vowels
Defining the boundary between vowel and consonant sounds becomes quite a
tricky thing when we take a closer look at them. "The most common view is that
vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes from
the larynx to the lips."14
However, this rather phonetic point of view doesn't appear to
be that helpful when it comes to certain borderline sounds, such as for example the
English /w/. These might sometimes be phonetically classified as vowels, but
phonologically ­ considering the way they are distributed ­ they function the same as
usual consonants commonly do. And as it is rather the phonological side of
pronunciation what is of bigger interest for us in this work, it will be the criterion of
distribution what we will prefer for distinguishing vowels and consonants from each
other.
2.2 Consonants
2.2.1 Classification of consonants
Consonants are possible to be classified according to the following criteria:
a) voicing ­ the presence or absence of simultaneous vibration of the vocal
cords creates the "voiced" vs "voiceless" counter-part.
14
ROACH, Peter. English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991. p. 10.
13
b) place of articulation ­ for the purposes of this work, we might distinguish
the following places of articulation:
bilabial both lips
labio-dental lower lip + upper teeth
dental tongue tip + upper teeth
alveolar blade of the tongue + alveolar ridge
post-alveolar blade/tip of the tongue + area between alveolar ridge and palate
palatal front of the tongue + palate
velar back of the tongue + velum
uvular back of the tongue + uvula
glottal vocal cords
c) manner of articulation ­ for the purposes of this work, we might
distinguish the following manners of articulation:
plosive
affricate
fricative
nasal
trill
tap or flap
approximant
lateral approximant
2.2.2 Consonant systems of English and German
The following charts illustrate the consonant systems of both English and
German. The chart for English is based on the one depicted in Roach. The chart for
German was made up by myself and is based on several sources (especially on Kohler
and Kovářová). The reason why I did not use a single source is, that the charts in these
sources often varied in the inclusion/exclusion of certain sounds. Especially in the case
of Kohler, some sounds were included, which on the one hand might be useful when
14
transcribing a German speech, but on the other hand are of minor or no importance for
us in this work, because they either carry no phonological information (e.g. the glottal
plosive //) or they are mere phonetic variations of the same phoneme (e.g. the
variations /, r, , /) and for a native speaker of German they represent neither a help
nor an obstacle in acquiring the sounds of English.
The yellow cells mark those sounds of English, which do not appear in the
German phonetic system. Grey colour marks the sounds, which are voiceless.
English consonant sounds
Place of articulation
Front Back
bilabial labiodental dental alveolar post-
alveolar
palatal velar uvular glottal
plosive p b t d k g
fricative f v   s z   h
affricate  d
nasal m n 
trill
approximant w 15 j
Mannerofarticulation
lateral
approximant
l
15
Although Roach and other phoneticians of English use the simple /r/ symbol for the English postalveolar
approximant, the same symbol is typically being used for the German alveolar trill. To avoid any
confusions I decided to prefer marking the English post-alveolar approximant with the symbol // that is used by
both the IPA chart and in the narrow phonetic transcription anyway.
15
German consonant sounds
Place of articulation
Front Back
bilabial labiodental dental alveolar post-
alveolar
palatal velar uvular glottal
plosive p b t d k g
fricative f v s z   ç j x h
affricate pf ts  d
nasal m n 
trill r R
approximant j
Mannerofarticulation
lateral
approximant
l
2.2.3 Individual consonants of English in detail and possible
problems with their pronunciation
Now we will take a more detailed look at each single consonant of English and
try to estimate the possible mistakes in pronunciation, which the speakers of German
might be likely to make with regards to the nature of the German language:
/p/ ­ voiceless bilabial plosive; basically does not differ from the German /p/.
In the word-final position and in the word-medial position before an unstressed vowel
the English /p/ is unaspirated, while in German it is usually strongly aspirated.
Speakers of German might therefore also pronounce it with aspiration. This, however,
has not a big impact on intelligibility.
16
/b/ ­ voiced bilabial plosive; in the syllable-final position it might be
mispronounced as /p/ (see 1.2 above).16
/t/ ­ voiceless alveolar plosive; same aspiration-related case as /p/.
/d/ ­ voiced alveolar plosive; in the syllable-final position it might be
mispronounced as /t/ (see 1.2 above).
/k/ ­ voiceless velar plosive; same aspiration-related case as /p/ and /t/.
/g/ ­ voiced velar plosive; in the syllable-final position it might be
mispronounced as /k/ (see 1.2 above).
/f/ ­ voiceless labiodental fricative; no problems expected.
/v/ ­ voiced labiodental fricative; the speakers of German might tend to alter
the initial /v/ in some words with /f/.
// - voiceless dental fricative; does not exist in German. The speakers might
replace it by /s/, /f/ or /t/.
// - voiced dental fricative; does not exist in German. The speakers might
replace it by /z/ or /d/.
/s/ ­ voiceless alveolar fricative; in the German language sp and st in the wordinitial
and stem-initial position is pronounced as /p/ or /t/ respectively; the speakers
might tend to carry this habit over into English.
/z/ ­ voiced alveolar fricative; no problems expected.
// ­ voiceless post-alveolar fricative; no problems expected.
16
The final /b, d, g/ may be devoiced in the final position. That is a natural event in English and it is not
to be taken as an error. However, it should never become fully voiceless. When judging the recordings in
the practical part of my thesis, I was not considering the difference between the two ways of
pronunciation as my technical possibilities were too limited as to allow me to find out whether particular
sounds were pronounced as fully voiceless or just devoiced.
17
// ­ voiced post-alveolar fricative; in German this sound appears only in
borrowed words and it might be replaced by //.
/h/ ­ voiced glottal fricative; no problems expected.
/t/ ­ voiceless post-alveolar affricate; no problems expected.
/d/ ­ voiced post-alveolar affricate; in German this sound appears only in
borrowed words and it might be replaced by /t/. The sound /j/ might also be used
occasionally, because in German it corresponds to the grapheme j that is used for /d/
in English.
/m/ ­ voiced bilabial nasal; no problems expected.
/n/ ­ voiced alveolar nasal; no problems expected.
// ­ voiced velar nasal; no problems expected.
/w/ ­ voiced bilabial approximant; this sounds does not exist in German, it
might be therefore replaced by /v/.
// ­ voiced post-alveolar approximant; this typically English sound is unknown
in the German language and might be mispronounced in various ways, mostly replaced
by one of the variants of the German /r/ - uvular fricative or trill, alveolar trill etc.
/j/ ­ voiced palatal approximant; no problems expected.
/l/ ­ voiced alveolar lateral approximant; German does not know the English
`dark /l/' ­ the speakers might tend to use the clear German /l/ in all cases.
18
2.3 Vowels
2.3.1 Classification of vowels
There are three main criteria, which we can use for distinguishing the vowels
from one another. First, it is the horizontal position of the tongue with its `Fronť,
`Centraľ and `Back'17
positions. It tells us which part of the tongue is raised the
highest towards the palate. Second, it is the vertical position of the tongue, showing us
"the vertical distance between the upper surface of the tongue and the palate"18
. We
might thus generally distinguish positions ranging from `Close', through `Close-miď
`Miď and `Open-miď to `Open'. The third criterion is the lip rounding. We
distinguish three basic shapings of the lips: `Roundeď (as in /u/), `Spreaď (as in /i/)
and `Neutraľ (as in //).
2.3.2 Vowel systems of English and German
As we just did with the consonants, we will now first take a look at two
diagrams, which compare the vowels of both languages and then we will explore them
individually in bigger detail and see what the differences are.
Vowels of English (according to Kelly19
):
17
The single quotes in this paragraph imply, that the terms used do not stand for the so called cardinal
vowels, but rather for the whole area of e.g. close vowels etc.
18
ROACH, Peter. English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991. p. 11.
19
KELLY, Gerald. How to Teach Pronunciation. London: Longman, 2000. p. 5.
19
In the table we can see seven short vowels and five long vowels. Apart from
these there are also eight diphthongs: /, e, , e, a, , , a/.
Vowels of German (according to Kohler20
):
Here we have eight short and eight long monophthongs, plus three diphthongs:
/a, , a/. One special monophthong is to be included as well ­ the so-called syllabic
r ­ // lies between // and /a/. It occurs only in the unstressed position in the suffix ­
er.
We can see that not only the consonant systems, but also the vowel systems of
both the languages are quite different. Unlike English, German uses several front
rounded vowels /y:, , , oe/. The number of diphthongs which are used in English is
almost three times bigger than in German. Some vowels which are being used in the
similar positions in the words slightly differ in quality etc.
2.3.3 Individual vowels of English in detail and possible problems
with their pronunciation
/i:/ ­ long front close slightly spread monophthong; no problems expected
// ­ short front close slightly spread monophthong; no problems expected
20
KOHLER, Klaus J.. Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1977. p.
176.
20
/e/ ­ short front mid slightly spread monophthong; the English /e/ should not
represent a problem. However, German recognises more variants of the sound,
therefore some speakers might sometimes pronounce the English /e/ similarly to the
rather close German /e:/. This should not affect the intelligibility, though.
// ­ short front open-mid/open slightly spread monophthong; this vowel does
not occur in German. The speakers might replace it by /e/.
// ­ short central open-mid/open neutral monophthong; no problems expected,
although the German /a/ is more open.
/:/ ­ long back open neutral monophthong; no problems expected,
// ­ short back open/open-mid slightly rounded monophthong; no problems
expected
/:/ ­ long back mid rounded monophthong; when a letter r occurs in the
spelling of the English word after o (as in the word for), the vowel /:/ might be
replaced by the German mid-close vowel // + //.
// ­ short back close-mid rounded monophthong; no problems expected
/u:/ ­ long back close rounded monophthong; no problems expected
// ­ short central mid neutral monophthong; as well as in English the German
`schwa' occurs exclusively in unstressed position and it does not vary much from the
English one. However, J. D. O'Connor states in his book Better English Pronunciation
that "non-final // is usually too like English //, and final // usually too like English
//".21
21
O'CONNOR, J.D.. Better English Pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. p.
143.
21
/:/ ­ long central mid neutral monophthong; according to the same book it
might be replaced by the lip-rounded vowel + syllabic r: /:/.
// ­ centring diphthong; might be replaced by //.
/e/ ­ centring diphthong; might be replaced by /e/.
// ­ centring diphthong; might be replaced by //.
/e/ ­ closing diphthong; speakers might reduce it to a long monophthong /e:/.
/a/ ­ closing diphthong; no problems expected
// ­ closing diphthong; no problems expected
// ­ closing diphthong; speakers might replace it by a long monophthong /:/.
/a/ ­ closing diphthong; no problems expected
22
II. Practical part
1. Introduction
In the practical part I wanted to illustrate and examine the problem by
recording six native speakers of German from Austria speaking English and by
analysing these recordings. In the first part of the recording they were reading a text
aloud. The advantage of this is that all the speakers use the same words, which brings
the possibility of comparison. On the other hand, a spontaneous speech may show
some mistakes, which would not be made when reading. This I tried to compensate in
the second part, where the speakers were shown two pictures from newspaper and
were asked to describe and comment on them spontaneously. After the recording the
speakers filled in a questionnaire aimed at the background of their English
pronunciation learning. This should serve for a better understanding of the differences
in the pronunciation of the individual speakers. The complete text, the pictures and the
questionnaire are included in the appendices.
For the reading part I decided to use the same text as Klára Sedláčková did with
the Portuguese speakers in her work. There were two reasons for that: First, I
considered it a good idea as using the same text enables or at least facilitates a possible
future comparison of the two works. Second, after preliminary estimating possible
mistakes that the speakers might have a tendency to make, I went through the text
thoroughly and considered it fit for the purposes of my work. I only made a single
adjustment, which was adding Also I remember how to the beginning of the final
sentence. The reason for that was that I wanted to find out whether the speakers will
have problems with pronouncing the word also similarly to the German /alzo:/.
The pictures were shortly (i.e. less than one minute) shown to the speakers
before the start of the recording, in order to give them the chance to think of what they
want to say. Both the pictures were chosen on purpose in order to raise the probability
that the speakers would spontaneously use certain words. In the first picture, it was
almost inevitable to use such words as knee/kneeling, prey etc. In the second picture it
was the word finger. All these might cause problems to the German speakers.
23
Although not all the speakers did use these words in their description, the main goal
was to give them a topic to spontaneously talk about.
The final interview was done not orally but in writing. The questions were
again based on the interview done by Klára Sedláčková. However, most of the
questions were rephrased so as to get more accurate answers and also quite a few
completely new questions were added. On the other hand, I decided not to ask the
speakers to evaluate their own pronunciation (like Klára Sedláčková did), because all
the speakers were my friends and their answers would very likely have been affected
by this fact.
The recordings were made with an mp3 recorder borrowed from a friend of
mine. The original set of the first five recordings, which I had taken during my first
visit to Vienna was lost due to an unexpected defect of the recorder. Because of this
some speakers (speakers no. 1, 3, 4 and 5) did their recordings twice, still using the
same text/pictures. However, as their second recording session took place after a two
weeks break, I think the impact of their previous experience with the text is not as big
as to influence their pronunciation very much.
24
2. Analyses of individual speakers' recordings and
questionnaires
I tried to choose the speakers so as to keep as close mutual similarity among
them as possible. This regards especially their common Austrian origin and a similar
level of their education (the criterion was passing the `Matura22
'). Despite the fact, that
all the speakers involved in the study are living in Vienna, all of them actually come
from other parts of Austria, such as the area of Vorarlberg23
, Salzburg or Styria. I was
also trying to keep an equal ratio of sexes, but due to various reasons only one male
speaker was recorded (most of my other male friends either did not have time to meet
me for the recording, or they did not have the `Matura'). One more fact which might
play its important role and which should be kept in mind is that all the speakers
involved are very often coming into contact with non-native speakers of various
origins, whether it be through their common passion for travelling, or due to the simple
fact that Vienna is a highly multicultural town.
Now we are going to take a thorough look at the individual speakers. We will
see what mistakes they were making in particular parts of the recording and what the
background of their learning of the English pronunciation is like, according to their
answers in the questionnaire. The acceptability of the speakers' pronunciation variants
was checked using the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary edited by J. C. Wells.
2.1 Speaker no. 1
The first speaker is a female, aged twenty-five, coming from the area of
Vorarlberg. She was making quite a few mistakes in her pronunciation, but she was
still easy enough to understand, as well as all the other subjects in this study. The main
mistakes she was making during the recording are as follows:
22
"The official term for Matura in Austria is Reifeprüfung. The document received after the successful
completion of the written and oral exams is called Maturazeugnis." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matura
(April 11th 2008).
23
Vorarlberg lies in the very West of Austria, near the border with Switzerland. The dialect in this part of
the country is generally more similar to the Swiss variant of German, rather than to the one, which is
spoken in Vienna. It might be an interesting topic for further research, to find out whether the differences
in various local variants of German also affect the speakers' pronunciation of English in any way.
25
- using voiceless sounds instead of the voiced ones at the ends of words.24
E.g.
in these cases: words - /w:ts/, big - /bk/, seemed - /si:mt/ or good - /gt/.
- replacing the sound // by a sound oscillating between /d/ and /dz/, especially
in the case of the definite article the - /d/, but also at the beginnings of other words
such as then - /den/, these - /di:z/, that - /dt/ or in the middle position as in other -
/d/.
- the word job was pronounced incorrectly, using voiceless sounds for both of
the consonants - /tp/ instead of /db/.
- the speaker added /k/ to the end of such words as thing and preying. Instead of
/pe/ she said /pek/ and instead of saying // she said /k/ which sounds
incorrect and might be even misunderstood as think rather than thing.
- the word weird /wd/ (American standard pronunciation /wd/) was
pronounced starting with a voiced labiodental fricative instead of a bilabial
approximant25
, ending with a voiceless consonant and using a form of r resembling
rather the German trill than the English approximant: /vit/.
- the vowel // was problematic. By this subject (and most of the others too) it
was rather pronounced as /e/. It is a big problem, because it makes it impossible to
distinguish between certain words, which only differ with the vowel used. The
situation gets even worse when `Auslautverhärtung' co-occurs. The speaker thus
uttered the words and, sad, fat incorrectly as /ent, set, fet/ respectively.
24
This mistake is clearly caused by the influence of the German phonetics. According to Alena Kovářová,
the phenomenon of the loss of voicing in the word-final or syllable-final position, when the voiced
consonant turns into a voiceless one, is called "Auslautverhärtung" in German ­ `hardening of the end of
the syllable/worď. I will be using this term in my work.
25
As classified by Roach (1991). The IPA chart classifies the sound /w/ as a labial-velar approximant.
26
- there was a strong tendency to use the diphthong // instead of //, which
cannot really be taken as incorrect, but it implies the influence of German. This
tendency was common for most of the speakers I recorded.
- however, in the word older she preferred using a monophthong instead of a
diphthong - /ld/.
- another difficulty came with the diphthong /e/ in the word always, which
was pronounced as /:lwez/, using a short monophthong instead.
This speaker studied English for over nine years; she had begun in the age of
ten. In the beginnings her only contact with native English was through music. These
days she meets more people from abroad, who talk to her in English; sometimes she
also watches English spoken movies without subtitles. She says she is "convinced",
that her teacher's pronunciation was good. Her pronunciation is important for her only
when she talks to a native speaker. She admits that her pronunciation is mostly
influenced by who the actual listener is.
2.2 Speaker no. 2
This subject is a thirty-one year old female from the Salzburg area. These are
the mistakes she made:
- she had also problems with `Auslautverhärtung'. An example of a word
mispronounced this way is the verb form lived, pronounced not as /lvd/, but as /lft/.
The same case is again the above-mentioned adjective good, pronounced as /gt/.
Speakers should especially beware of this kind of mispronunciation as it may bring
about actual confusions of meaning and might cause unpleasant misunderstandings.
The speaker's utterance about children eating McDonalďs food mispronounced as
eating McDonalďs foot /ft/ was still quite funny, but under certain circumstances
`Auslautverhärtung' might put the speaker in an awkward situation.
27
- the /v/ and // in the noun van was replaced by /wen/ and made the word
sound just the same as the preceding word when in the same sentence.
More difficulties occurred in the sphere of vowels:
- although her // sounded good in some words, for instance in the word
America, in some other words it turned into a rather close German /e/, as in the
adjective sad - /sed/.
- long vowels were sometimes pronounced shortly. E.g. in the sentence I see
people - /a s ppl/, or in the word four - /f/.
- words with the final unstressed schwa sound (corresponding to the suffix -er)
were pronounced using the more open German vowel //, which in German is being
used in the same position. The words bigger, remember were thus pronounced as
/bg, memb/ respectively.
- the closing diphthong // in the noun road was repeatedly replaced by a
monophthong /rt/ (`Auslautverhärtung' occurring again).
The second speaker had also started learning the language when she was ten
and she studied English for eight years at school. She doesn't study English anymore,
but still, she gets more often in touch with native speakers nowadays, when she talks to
some of her foreign friends and when she travels. She also prefers watching original
versions of movies with/or even without subtitles. In the beginnings of her studying of
the English language, she could mostly hear the language at school from a non-native
speaker. However, she says that she used to train her pronunciation a bit with her
teacher, whose own pronunciation she considers to have been good. She uses English
regularly when travelling abroad, but she has never been to an English speaking
country. And her pronunciation matters to her more when she talks to a native speaker.
She has never thought about her own pronunciation and the mistakes that she might be
making.
28
2.3 Speaker no. 3
Speaker no. 3 comes from Vorarlberg and she is twenty-nine. I think her
pronunciation is fairly good, although one can still trace certain influence of German.
- unlike the other speakers, this one had only minor problem with
`Auslautverhärtung'. In the most cases she used the voiced consonants where they
should have been used, with only a few exceptions. E.g. the word job was pronounced
as /dp/ and the plural noun kids as /kts/.
- the voiceless fricative // does not seem to be a big problem for this speaker.
However, in the word something she had replaced it by the plosive /t/ - /smt/, but
when she used the same word again in the same recording, she pronounced it correctly.
- the main problem of this speaker seems to be the // sound of the words like
the, then, these, their, other. It was usually replaced by /d/ - /d, den, di:z, de, d/
respectively.
- the diphthong // was replaced by a long monophthong /:/. Suppose /sp:z/;
both - /b:/.
This speaker studied English the longest ­ two years at the primary school and
further nine years at the grammar school. She also started in the earliest age of all the
six speakers ­ when she was seven. The most frequent possibility for her to listen to
English at that time was when she listened to pop songs. These days, she comes quite
often into contact with foreigners, but they are usually not native speakers. Music and
film are still important for her; she also prefers subtitles to dubbing. She trained her
pronunciation with her teachers, but only one of the four had a good pronunciation
according to her opinion. She had never spent a longer time in any English speaking
country. Her pronunciation is practically important to her only when talking to a native
speaker. She said her pronunciation of English was mostly influenced by the British
native speakers she had been meeting from time to time. She does not like the sound of
American English. There was nothing about the pronunciation of English that she
would have found difficult.
29
2.4 Speaker no. 4
This was the only male speaker involved in the research. He is twenty-two and
he also comes from Vorarlberg. These were his mistakes:
- `Auslautverhärtung' appeared again. For instance in the words lived - /lft/ or
road /t/.
- the consonant // was also problematic to this speaker. In such words as
other, then, the or these he replaced it by /d/ - /d, den, d, di:z/ respectively.
- the initial /h/ sound in the word honestly was pronounced - /hnstl/.
- the word loved was uttered using a wrong vowel, also `Auslautverhärtung'
appeared - /lft/.
- the speaker did not use the // vowel. He said /e/ instead of it: van - /wen/
(here he also used a wrong initial consonant); in the back - /n d bek/; dad - /det/ (+
`Auslautverhärtung'); actually - /ektl/.
- the diphthong // was replaced by a monophthong. Either with the long /:/
as in the word coat /k:t/ or with a short initial // as in the adjective older - /ld/.
The speaker studied English for eight years at grammar school, having started
in the age of twelve. About his beginnings, he says: "My teacher spent many years in
England, so she sounded as a native speaker (at least to me). Also my mother spent
many years in the USA and we had some friends (native speakers), who talked to me
in English." The today's situation he comments like this: "I'm travelling a lot, so I
speak a lot of English. Also in Vienna there are many people I can talk to only in
English, but most of them aren't native speakers." When watching a movie, he prefers
dubbing to the original version. His teachers used to practise pronunciation with him.
He spent some time abroad, but never in an English speaking country. His
pronunciation is important to him no matter who he is talking to. The biggest influence
comes from the English sung music he listens to and from his foreign friends. He
30
claims to be making mistakes in pronouncing the consonants /, /. In the first case of
the two, he was definitely right (see above), but otherwise I found his // to be fairly
good.
2.5 Speaker no. 5
This speaker is the youngest of the six, but I would say her pronunciation
carries the smallest influence of the native tongue, though it is still noticeable. She is
twenty and she is again from Vorarlberg. These are the areas which were problematic
for her:
- she only had a slight problem with `Auslautverhärtung'. In most of the words
the voiced consonants were used correctly where they were supposed to be. She made
mistakes in the word job - /dp/ and faces - /fess/. A funny moment occurred
again, when the speaker started commenting ironically on McDonalďs food, saying,
that "You can really see, that McDonalďs has healthy /fu:t/".
- /d/ was usually used instead of //.
- the diphthong // in their whole time was reduced to a long monophthong
/:/ - /ho:l taim/.
This speaker studied English for eight years at a grammar school. She started
when she was ten years old. In the beginnings, her only possibility to hear spoken
English was from her teachers. But she finds the accent of the majority of them
horrible. They did not even train pronunciation with her. These days, she often uses
English when talking to her foreign friends, but these are no native speakers either.
However, she likes watching movies in the English original without subtitles. Her
pronunciation is important to her, whomever she is talking to. As she says: "I like to
speak proper." She thinks, that she might sound quite unintelligible at times, because
she tends to talk fast. Her accent sounds rather American than British. The reason to
31
that could be found in her previous travelling experience: "I was once in America for
seventeen days when I was thirteen."
2.6 Speaker no. 6
The last subject of the research is a twenty-two years old female from Styria:
- `Auslautverhärtung' was quite strong in her case. Although she did not use
voiceless vowels in all the words where a voiced final consonant should have
appeared, she still did it quite often. Some examples: words - /w:ts/; weird - /wt/,
seemed - /si:mt/, flavours - /flevs/, was - /ws/, friends - /fents/, kids - /kts/, size -
/sas/.
- she often substituted /d/ for //, as again in such words as then, the, these,
this, they, other - /den, d, di:z, ds, de, d/ respectively.
- practically none of the speakers recorded uses the English `dark /l/'. Although
it is not really a mistake, it may sound at least strange to a native speaker. We might
illustrate this phenomenon on this speaker, who uses a very noticeable clear German
/l/. It can be heard for instance in the following words: well, girl, people.
- she had problems pronouncing the voiced affricate /d/. She produced a
sound which is rather close to the voiceless /t/: job - /tp/ (`Auslautverhärtung' cooccurs
here); just ­ /tst/; huge - /hju:t/ (we might consider the last word to be rather
an example of `Auslautverhärtung').
- the vowel // was often replaced by /e/. Act - /ekt/, that - /det/
(mispronunciation of the initial consonant, see above), and - /ent/
(`Auslautverhärtung'), fat - /fet/, van - /wen/ (mispronunciation of the initial /v/).
- the long vowel in the word seem was shortened to /sm/.
32
- although the speaker knows how to pronounce the long central vowel /:/, as
she did for example in the pronoun her, in the verb form were she used the sound /e:/
instead.
- she had difficulties to pronounce the final `vowel+r' sounds correctly in such
words as four, floor, sports, remember, disaster, their. She says /f, fl, spts/
instead of /f:, fl:, sp:ts/, alternatively /f:, fl:, sp:ts/; /memb, dz:st/
instead of /memb dz:st/, alternatively /memb, dz:st/; /de/ instead of
/e/ or /e/.
- the diphthong // in such words as suppose, road, also or so was reduced to
a monopthong: /sp:s/ instead of /spz/, /:t/ instead of /d/, /ls/ instead of
/:ls/ and /s:/ instead of /s/.
- also the diphthong /e/ changed into long /e:/. Eight - /e:t/; same - /se:m/.
Although this last speaker did also study English for eight years as most of the
others, having even started in the age of nine, I would say that her pronunciation was
the most German-influenced of the six. She says that she does not have much chance
to hear any native-spoken English, although she prefers watching movies with
subtitles. She has also never been to any English speaking country. Her teachers
trained pronunciation with her a little bit, but she does not think their pronunciation
was any good. However, this speaker is the only one, for whom the pronunciation is
not much important even when she talks to a native speaker, "as long as everybody
understands me". This indifference might thus be an important factor affecting her
pronunciation.
33
Conclusion
Looking back at the comparison of the two sound systems in the theoretical
part, we can see that there are certain sounds / areas, which turned out to be
problematic for all / most of the subjects in my sample in the practical part. On the
other hand, there were also such areas of pronunciation, which did not seem to cause
troubles to any of the speakers, although these troubles might have been expected.
This, however, does not mean, that these areas are non-problematic for all speakers of
German and vice versa.
It should be taken into account that the results of this research should be
understood rather as an introduction to the problem, and as a mere illustration of some
of the pronunciation-related difficulties and not as a thorough study on the topic, which
could be generalized to the whole population of native speakers of German. Let us thus
better not call it a proper case study, but rather a tentative one. Such a really detailed
study would inevitably need to go far beyond the limits of this work and would require
a much more numerous sample of speakers.
Should I mention the most frequent problems that the speakers were facing in
the research, it was definitely the problem of `Auslautverhärtung' and the substitution
of the alveolar plosive /d/ for the dental fricative //. Difficulties of this kind appeared
in the pronunciation of all the six speakers. Also the diphthong // caused frequent
troubles, being substituted in different ways. Another frequent mistake was the
replacing of the vowel // by /e/. Quite an interesting observation for me is the fact
that the speaker with the least problematic pronunciation is one of only two subjects,
who claimed proper pronunciation to be important for them no matter whether they are
talking to a native or non-native speaker, while the speaker whose pronunciation
showed the highest influence of the German language is the only one who does not
find her pronunciation to be important for her at all, as long as her speech is
intelligible. This can definitely not be taken as a proof of the importance of this
`interesť factor in the process of the acquisition of non-native pronunciation. However,
a more detailed further research on this issue might be very interesting, as well as an
attempt to find out the extent to which the learners' local variant of German is decisive
34
for the quality of their pronunciation of English (e.g. whether the general
pronunciation of English of the native speakers of German coming from Switzerland is
different from the one of those coming from Lower Austria or Northern Germany).
If I were to do another similar study in this field, there would definitely be
some things, which I would like to do differently. At least I would try to find a
recording device that would be more reliable and of higher output quality, than a
pocket mp3 dictaphone, which might be good for recording the content of a spoken
performance, but turned out not to have been the best solution when it came to the
question of the quality of sound.
However, I must say that working on this thesis and doing the research was a
very interesting experience for me. One of the reasons is that I come quite often into
contact with native speakers of German and it is easier for me now to understand their
mistakes in their pronunciation of English. Some subjects of my research had also
asked me to pass them the results of the study when it is finished, so I believe that
finding out what their mistakes were will help them at least a little bit in achieving
better pronunciation.
35
Bibliography
Books:
CELCE-MURCIA, Marianne; BRINTON, Donna M.; GOODWIN, Janet M.. Teaching
Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 435. ISBN 0-521-40694-3.
KELLY, Gerald. How to Teach Pronunciation. London: Longman, 2000. 154. ISBN
0582 42975-7.
KENWORTHY, Joanne. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman group
UK, 1987. 164. ISBN 0-582-74621-3.
KOHLER, Klaus J.. Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen. Berlin: Erich Schmidt
Verlag, 1977. 251. ISBN 3-503-01237-0.
KOVÁŘOVÁ, Alena. Úvod do fonetiky a fonologie němčiny. Brno: Masaryk University
v Brně, 2003. 60. ISBN 80-210-3263-4.
MOULTON, William G.. The Sounds of English and German. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1962. 145.
O'CONNOR, J.D.. Better English Pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994. 150. ISBN 0-521-23152-3.
ROACH, Peter. English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991. 262. ISBN 0-521-40718-4.
URBANOVÁ, Ludmila. A Handbook of English Phonetics and Phonology. Brno:
Masaryk University, 1998. 67. ISBN 80-210-1728-7.
WELLS, J. C.. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited, 2000. 869. ISBN 0-582-36467-1.
36
Web pages:
"English phonology." 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology> (April 14th
2008)
"German phonology." 2008.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Phonetics> (April 14th
2008)
"The International Phonetic Alphabet - Audio Illustrations." 2007.
<http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm> (April 14th
2008)
"The IPA Chart." 2005.
<http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/ipa-pop-up-2.html> (April 14th
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37
Appendices
Appendix no. 1: Text to be read by the research subjects (text)
Appendix no. 2: Pictures to be described by the research subjects (pictures)
Appendix no. 3: Questionnaire form (text)
Appendix no. 4: Recordings of the research subjects (CD-R)
38
Appendix no. 1
Text to be read by the research subjects
My first friend
My first friend? Well, ...I suppose my first best friend was when I was about
eight. It was a girl in our street. She lived up the road in a big white house, ...er... it
was a much bigger house than ours. We went to the same school but we didn't see
much of each other at school `cos we were in different classes. She was a bit older than
me. Oh, ...her name... she was... oh, Sarah. Her dad had a really good job with the
local brewery. We both loved going to the cinema, `specially to see musicals. We'd
learn all the words by heart, and we'd come home and we'd act it all out in the field at
the end of the road. Yuk! I mean it sounds really weird now! But I have to say it
seemed really good fun at the time, ...but then we were always having these huge rows
about nothing. You see, I used to think that she was spoilt rotten. Honestly, she just got
everything she wanted. When an ice-cream van came round she'd get four flavours and
an ice-lolly and she was so mean! She wouldn't share a thing; she'd just burst into
tears and run home to mummy! Actually, when I think of it now, I'm not really sure
why we were friends. Also I remember how I once went on holiday with her and her
auntie and it was a disaster.
39
Appendix no. 2
Pictures to be described by the research subjects
Picture no. 1
Picture no. 2
40
Appendix no. 3
Questionnaire form
1. How long have you been studying English?
2. How old were you when you started learning English?
3. Where could you mostly hear spoken English when you started learning it? Was it
spoken by a native speaker or not?
4. How is it nowadays?
5. When watching a movie, which is originally in English, do you prefer watching it
with subtitles or dubbing?
6. Did you train your pronunciation with the teachers?
7. Do you think your teachers' pronunciation was good?
8. Have you ever been abroad for a longer period to a country where you had to use
English regularly? Was it an English speaking country?
9. Is your English pronunciation important for you when talking to non-native speakers?
10. Is your English pronunciation important for you when talking to native speakers?
11. What do you think has the biggest influence on your English pronunciation
(teachers, movies, music, friends...)
12. What do you find difficult about English pronunciation?
13. Are you aware of some mistakes you make?
41
Appendix no. 4
CD-R with the recordings of the research subjects
42