PHONEMIC DEVIATIONS REGARDING VOWEL SOUNDS

OF SARAIKI STUDENTS OF

RAHIM YAR KHAN AT INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

GHULAM FAREED
 Abstract

English language has become the International language. It is most frequently used language

for the people for communication as compare to other languages in the world. English

language learners face a lot of problems regarding the pronunciation. The current study aims

at identifying the problems faced by Saraiki students at intermediate level in Rahim Yar

Khan regarding vowel sounds pronunciation. This research is conducted in district Rahim

Yar Khan where majority speak Saraiki as their mother language. Three Government

colleges were selected to collect the data. 5 students have been taken from each college. A

list of 12 words was prepared and students were asked to pronounce those words. Their

pronunciation was recorded in cell phone and collected data has been analyzed against the

standard pronunciation. Later on the data was quantified into percentage. The results of the

study showed that the deviations made by Saraiki students are due to L1 interference, lack of

active classroom activities, inefficiency of teachers, complexity of English spellings,

teaching methodology and other psychological barriers. The /ɜː/, / ɔː/ and /ə/ vowel sounds

are extremely difficult for them to pronounce accurately. In the light of the results of this

study some solutions have been suggested by researcher in order to minimize the deviations.

Government should launch special session to minimize the psychological barriers of

students and to train teachers regarding these activities. Students should be engaged in active

class room activities to overcome the deviations.

1 – INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of this Study:

Communication is done through language and human language has distinct as well as

complex qualities. People in the world communicate with one another by means of different

languages. English is one of the most important languages in the world and enjoying the

status of international language. It is also accepted as lingua franca. It is equally important

for the people in Pakistan as it is used as official language as well as the language of

instruction. Nobody can ignore the importance of English in Pakistan. But people have

different other languages to speak with their regional accent. According to Haycraft (1878)

that there are different local languages spoken by people in different countries. There are

many local languages in Pakistan and Saraiki is one of these languages. Saraiki is the mother

language of people living in south Punjab and few other areas in Pakistan Shakle (1976). All

languages have different phonological system. According to Jones (1979) that every spoken

sound carries one or two segmentation that are called consonants and vowel sounds. This

research has focused on the deviations made by Saraiki students regarding the monopthongs

vowel sounds in district Rahim Yar Khan at intermediate level. The sounds which create no

obstruction to the flow of air when they are produced (Peter Roach 1997). The researcher

was concerned with the problems in pronunciation of monopthongs vowel sounds faced by

the Saraiki students in Rahim Yar Khan at intermediate level.

The problems related to pronunciation in Pakistan frequently appeared due to

misleading concepts regarding pronunciation of English vowel sounds. In educational

institutions in Pakistan the major focus is often given to exams more than basic skills.

Moreover, speaking and pronunciation are entirely ignored because they are considered as

neglected skills. As a result of this the students in Pakistan particularly in underdeveloped

seems confusing and shows alarming situation regarding the teaching methodology and

efficiency of teachers in these areas. This research has found out more reasons behind the

failure of pronunciation in Saraiki students in Rahim Yar Khan. The improvement in

teaching of English subject will be possible with the help of results presented by this

research.

1.2Statement of the Problem:

Pronunciation has been a major problem for English learners particularly in

underdeveloped areas such as Rahim Yar Khan. There may be a lot of Phonemic Deviations

regarding vowel sounds by the students of Rahim Yar khan at intermediate level. This

research will focus on the phonemic deviations regarding vowel sounds found among

Saraiki students of Rahim Yar Khan at intermediate level. It will construe the factors behind

these deviations.

1.3 Objectives of the study:

The followings are the objectives of this research:

● To analyze phonemic Deviation of Saraiki students regarding the vowel sound.

● To find out the reasons behind these deviations.

1.4 Research Questions:

The followings are the questions of this study:

● Which vowels sounds are difficult for Saraiki students to pronounce accurately?

● What are the factors behind the phonemic Deviation in Saraiki students?

1.5 Significance of the study:

This research is helpful both for future researchers as well as for the teachers of

concerned areas. Current research has found out the reasons behind the phonemic deviations

of Saraiki students in Rahim Yar Khan. This research has found out that Findings and the

solutions regarding the deviation of vowel sounds suggested by this research are necessary

to minimize the problems of pronunciation in the underdeveloped areas particularly in

Rahim Yar Khan. Psychological barriers to the spoken skills of English will be eliminated in

the light of suggestions given by the current research. The current research will help out the

future researchers to bring forth the more complex problems regarding the similar skills.

2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

English is not the language that is spoken only in England and many other countries

but it is spoken all over the world (Kachru 1990). English has established its status as
Lingua franca in the world in the field of politics, entertainment, education and technology

(Brumfit 1982; Crystal 1997).

English made its root strong in sub-continent by ruling here with their culture,

administrative, education system and tradition. So now, it’s mandatory for us to learn

English to be able to speak fluently so that we as nation can compete in international

scenario.

Pakistan is a multilingual country where Urdu is spoken as national language while

Punjabi, Saraiki, Pashto, Balochi and Sindhi etc. are other cultural languages have

geographical and regional importance.

English language learners in Pakistan face many obstacles in the way of speaking.

They often fail to produce the accurate sounds due to the interference of phonological

system of their mother tongue and certain other problems. Saraiki learners, particularly

belonging to the remote areas are the victims of mispronunciation or phonemic deviations of

English sound due to certain factors. They often seem struggling while producing the vowels

sounds.

The vowel is one of the units of two classes of speech sounds. The word vowel is

originated from the Latin word “vocails” which means vocal (relating to the voice). Vowels

are those sounds that are produced with no obstruction to the air flow from lyrnx to the oral

cavity. All the vowels sounds are usually voiced. They are produced with an open vocal

tract. Vocal cords are vibrated but there is no audible friction while the production of vowels

sounds.
 Vowels are those speech sounds produced so there is no restriction to the air stream.

Like all other languages, English has also a number of vowel sounds almost according to

the standard cardinal vowel diagram system.

It is quite different for most of the learners of English to produce all sounds

appropriately. Even the learners can read write and understand English but few can speech

or pronounce properly. According to the research by Hug (1990 – P164) that most people

from Bangladesh show satisfactory performance regarding reading , writing and

understanding .But still only few could produce the sound perfectly . He argued that this is

only because of absence of some English phonemes in Bangladeshi phonemes. So similar

kind of problem can be traced but in Saraiki students as some deviations occurs because they

cannot, find the exact phonemes for target words in their mother tongue.

3 – METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Paradigm:

The type of research work will be mixed method in its nature.

3.2 Sample:
30 students from 3 colleges of Rahim Yar Khan.10 students from Govt. Degree College

Sadiqabad.10 from Govt. College of Commerce Sadiqabad and 10 from Khawaja Fareed

College Rahim Yar Khan.

3.3 Method of research:

A list of 12 words containing vowels (monopthongs) sounds has been prepared and 15

students of intermediate classes of district Rahim Yar Khan were asked to produce those

words. Their pronunciation has been recorded in cell phone. And collected data has been

analyzed against the standard pronunciation of given words and quantified into percentage.

3.6 Mode of Data Collection:

Three colleges of Rahim Yar Khan were selected for data collection.5 students from

Khawaja Fareed College R.Y.K, 5 students from Govt. Degree College Sadiqabad, and 5

students from Govt. Commerce College Sadiqabad. All of the students were asked to

pronounce the 12 words of vowel (monopthongs) phonemes and their pronunciation has

been recorded in cell phone. Their pronunciation was analyzed against the standard

pronunciation.

Table of words:

No. Words Transcription

1 Mountain maʊntɪn

2 Sweat swet

3 Natural næʧrəl
 4 Dozen dʌzn

5 Bosom bʊzəm

6 Donkey dɒŋki

7 Agree əˈgriː

8 Creature ˈkriːʧə

9 Spark spɑːk

10 Normal nɔːməl

11 Ruin rʊɪn

12 Firm fɜːm

3.7 Delimitation of study:

The study is limited to:

1. The study is limited to Government sectors’ colleges. 15 students from three

different colleges of Rahim Yar Khan including Khawaja Fareed college Rahim Yar

Khan, Govt. Degree college Sadiqabad and Govt. Commerce College Sadiqabad are

taken.

2. Difficulties in the production of vowel sounds (monopthongs) of English are under

discussion.

4 - DATA ANALYSIS

Sr. Words Standard Deviations Percentage

Deviations

1 Mountain 4 11 73.4%

2 Sweat 2 13 86.7%

3 Natural 12 3 20%

4 Dozen 2 13 86.7%

5 Bosom -- 15 100%

6 Donkey 12 3 20%

7 Agree -- 15 100%

8 Creature 2 13 86.7%

9 Spark 2 13 86.7%

10 Normal 3 12 80%

11 Ruin -- 15 100%

12 Firm 4 11 73.4%

4.1 Data interpretation:

English vowels create some trouble for foreign learners. Saraiki students also face some

kind of problems while producing the different words.

/ ɪ / vowel is one of those difficult sounds for Saraiki students to produce. Majority of the

students pronounced the word “Mountain” /maʊntɪn/ as /maʊntæn/. They replaced the / ɪ /

sound with/æ/, and / e / sounds. They often used \e:\ Saraiki vowel sound instead of / ɪ /

sound in the given word. Interference from the mother tongue causes deviations in these

kinds of sounds.
/ e / sound seems to be very complex for Saraiki students. 13 out of 15 students occurred

deviations while producing this sound. They used \i:\ sound instead of \e\ in the production

of word “Sweat”. They pronounced the words “Sweat” as /swi:t/.They are deceived by the

apparent complexity of English spellings.

/ æ / sound appears to be easy for students as contrary to other sounds. All the students

successfully produced the sound without any hesitation. Saraiki students came up with the

correct pronunciation of this sound because this sound is frequently found in Saraiki

phonemic inventory.

/ʌ/ sound appeared to have various difficulties for learners in the way of production. 13

among 15 students deviated the /ʌ/ sound by pronouncing it as / ɒ / and / ʊ /. They

pronounced the word “dozen” as /dʌzn/and /dʊzn/.These kinds of deviations are appeared

due to the lack of guideness and self-reading.

/ɒ/ is a less problematic sound for Saraiki students in district Rahim Yar Khan. 3 among 15

students appeared to be mispronouncing the sound. They replaced the /ɒ/ sound with /ʌ/ by

pronouncing the word “donkey” as /dʌŋki/ instead of /dɒŋki/. However, remaining 13

students produced the given word correctly.

/e/ Schwa sound proved to be most troublesome sound for Saraiki students. The

performance regarding Schwa sound is zero. None of the 15 students could produce the

standard form. They pronounced the word “Agree” as /ægriː/ and /egriː/. They used /e/ and

/æ/ sounds instead of /ə/. This deviation caused by the interference of L1 and the lack of

teaching efficiency.

/ʊ/ sound created lots of confusions for learners. Students of the concerned area considered

that ‘oo’ spellings are pronounced as long vowel /u:/ and single ‘o’ as /ɒ/ which is not true.
This sound is replaced by /ɒ/ sound by students. They pronounced the word ‘Bosom’ as

/bɒzəm/ instead of /bʊzəm/. Students neither are inhabit of self-reading nor are they guided

by teachers regarding these kind of complex variations.

/i:/ long vowel can be pronounced very easily in simple forms but causes problems for

students in complex words.13 among 15 students failed to produce the correct form. They

mispronounced the word ‘creature’ as /krieʧər/ and /kriːæʧər/. They are deceived by the

apparent complexity of spellings and tried to pronounce the word according to the spelling

which ultimately leads to deviations.

/a: / In British English \r\ sound is not to be pronounced when appearing after vowels

sounds. But Saraiki students produced the /r/ sound clearly in this vowel sound. They

produced the word ‘spark’ as /spɑːrk/. They are not familiar with the fact that \r\ sound is

silent in this vowel sound but they pronounced \r\ sound very clearly. Same is the case with

/ɔː/ long vowel. This vowel sound is also deviated. They produced the word ‘Normal’ as

/na:rməl/ or nɒrməl instead of /nɔːməl/. In this vowel too, the \r\ sound is prominently

produced by the students which is not correct according to the standard pronunciation.

/u:/ sound can be pronounced correctly in simple forms but students failed to produce this

vowel sound appropriately in complex spellings. Only 2 students could produce relatively

correct sound. While others pronounced as /rʊi:n/, /rʌn/ and /rʊn/ etc.

/ɜː/ is another problematic vowel for Saraiki learners in which they failed to produce the

exact pronunciation of sound. Only 4 learners among 14 could produce the correct sound.

While other seems to be the victims of complexity of \r\ sound in english phoneme. They

were asked to pronounce the word ‘firm’ which produced by them as /fʌrm/ or /fɪrm/ instead

of /fɜːm/. Here, L1 influence could be seen as complexity.

This study finds that Saraiki students of intermediate classes (R.Y.K) face a lot of problems

regarding the production of vowel (monopthongs) sounds. Following are the major reasons

behind these deviations.

1. Psychological barriers:

Most of the students at intermediate level in the concerned areas are

victims of the psychological barriers. They are predetermined that the learning of

English, to a great extent, is impossible. So, these predetermined thoughts lead them to

adopt a very monotonous approach towards the learning of English. They lack passion

and interest in spoken activities and limited to the passing marks in examination.

2. Lack of class activities:

Most prominent reason that causes these deviations is lack of class activities

such as class reading, discussion of various problematic words etc. reading is the basic

practice required to be familiar with the English phonemes and pronunciation. And

unfortunately, the reading is entirely ignored on the part of students. Teachers

themselves read the text, give the meanings of few words, translate the given text and

ask the students to memorize the translation of few important passages and question.
 Thus students are limited to typical activities and ultimately pronunciation is entirely

ignored.

3. Complexity of English spellings:

According to Saif ul Haq (2000) that the spellings of English words cannot be

considered as guaranteed proofs to their pronunciation. There are no authentic rules and

regulations regarding the pronunciation of English words. There are many words in

English containing different meanings but they are pronounced in the same way, such as

“See/Sea”, “Floor/Flour”, “Except/Accept” etc. This troubling fact leads the students to

wrong pronunciation. Students in R.Y.K are not well guided to tackle these problems.

They often try to produce the words by judging its letters constituting the words. For

example, most of the Saraiki students produced the word “Creature” as /kriːæʧər/,

/kriːeʧər/ etc. these deviations occurred due to written language complexity.

4. L1 Influence:

L1 or mother tongue of learners interfere the production of words. Learners

replace the Target language sounds with the similar or closely related sounds of his/her

mother tongue. According to the Contrastive analysis of Robert Lado (1957), those

sounds which are closely Related to the mother tongue are easy to produce for learner of

L2. While those which are different rather difficult to produce and ultimately, learner
replace them with the sounds available in mother tongue. When we compare Saraiki and

English vowels sounds, there can be seen a visible difference

between them. For example, English sound /ɜː/ and /ɔː/ cannot be found in Saraiki

phonemic inventory. So, these kinds of contradictions cause deviations. That’s why,

when Saraiki students were asked to produce the word “Firm” they came up with the

/fɪrm/, fʌrm or /ferm/ etc.They replaced the /ɜː/ sound with /ɪ/, and/ʌ/.

5. Lack of Teacher’s Efficiency:

There are various exercises given in the text book of English of Intermediate classes

regarding the pronunciation. There should be a reasonable time given for the practice of

these exercises in order to improve the pronunciation. But dilemma of the situation is

that teachers themselves are not competent of phonetics and phonology though the

certain training activities are organized in order to overcome these problems. Speaking

and pronunciation activities are put aside in the concerned area.

6. Teaching Methodology:

Teaching methodologies are only adopted which can serve for the exams purposes.

Teacher emphasis on passive activities rather than the active activities in the class. Some

specific and typical portion out of whole syllabus is selected while rest of the content

including exercises related with pronunciation is ignored. If some teachers tend to tackle

with the pronunciation problems, still their presentation material don’t help the students

to seek the desired purpose. Students are assessed and evaluated on their performance in
 written material which can never account for the improvement in production of complex

sounds.

5 - Conclusion:

5.1 Findings:

The research and survey results have proven the hypothesis that Saraiki students at

intermediate level in Rahim Yar Khan face a lot of problems in the production of English

vowel sounds (Monopthongs) particularly in production of English vowels /ɜː/, / ɔː/ and /ə/

etc. sounds due to certain reasons, like influence of L1, lack of guideness, complexity of

English spellings and teacher’s inefficiency regarding Phonetics and Phonology.

There appeared certain reasons responsible for these deviations done by Saraiki

students. But the most influencing factor is the interference from the learner’s mother

tongue. Mother tongue interrupts the production of sounds of target language. According to

the “Contrastive Analysis” by Robert Lado (1957), while producing the target language

sounds or words, learners replace the target sounds with their mother tongue phonemes if

they find contradictions between target and mother language phonemes. Most of the Saraiki
students observed, replaced the /ɪ/, /ɜː/,/ɔː/ sounds with / ʌ /, / æ / and / e /. These deviations

justified the Robert Lado’s claim regarding the under discussed matter.

Saraiki students came up with certain deviations related with vowel sounds which can

systematically be tackled and improved. Students should be engaged in active class room

activities regarding reading of the text and pronunciation of complex words. They should be

motivated to eliminate the stereotypical behavior towards English language. Teaching

Methodology can be improved by organizing some training session for teachers regarding

Phonetics and Phonology by concerned authorities. Students themselves should strive to

develop the habit of self-reading practice as well as the use of standard online dictionaries to

overcome this problem. Teachers should emphasis equally on pronunciation along with

other skills of language. Online dictionaries should be consulted not just for meanings but

for standard pronunciation as well. Teachers should be asked to devote a reasonable amount

of time for the discussion of pronunciation problems in which particularly various vowels

sounds can be brought under discussion. Students in concerned area are really much afraid

of English subject by the stereotypical and illiterate remarks of people. Some kinds of

motivational sessions are mandatory to be conducted in order to eliminate the pre-existing

thoughts in student’s minds.

5.2 Recommendations for Future Researches:

 There should be active class activities to engage students in maximum

phonological practice.

 Audio video aids should be used in the class for better understanding of the

learners.
  A reasonable amount of time should be given to pronunciation practice and the

discussion of complexity of spellings.

 There should be special training sessions for the teachers regarding P&P.

 Student’s stereotypical approach towards English language should be eliminated

through motivational lectures.

 Students should be engaged in self-reading habit. They should also be taught how

to use dictionary.

 Government should launch motivational programs through media and other

resources in order to eliminate the psychological barriers in the students.

5.3 Concluding Remarks:

To cut the long story into short, Saraiki students at intermediate level are victims of

phonemic deviations regarding vowel sounds. The /ɜː/, / ɔː/ and /ə/ vowel sounds are

extremely difficult for them to pronounce accurately. There are certain reasons behind their

phonemic deviations but the most influencing are the interference of L1, the complexity of

written language of English and the lack of effective teaching methodology.