5.

Influences of mother tongue on English pronunciation

During the acquisition of English pronunciation, the influences of mother tongue can be both
negative and positive.

Negative influence
Brown (2008) claims that the transfer between the mother tongue and a foreign language is a
source of pronunciation mistakes in student’s learning performance. Matthew (2005:20) also
shares the same view that the influences of mother tongue on the acquisition of foreign
language’s pronunciation is an essential source of pronunciation errors. English learners use
his previous mother tongue experiences to convert into the second language when it is
implemented despite the fact that there are some visible differences in phonological elements
between two languages. Consequently, mispronunciations appear, and they could face greater
difficulties trying to fix these mispronunciations in the future. Tiono and Yostanto (2008)
give an example of the negative influence of mother tongue on the acquisition of English’s
pronunciation of Indonesian. Some sounds like [p h], [th], [θ], [ð], [iː], [ʊ], [uː], [æ], and [e]
do not appear in Indonesian’s phonology; therefore, students will try to find similar sounds
that exist in Indonesian to pronounce words that contain those sounds, which leads to
pronunciation mistakes.

Positive influence
Although Chaer and Agustina (2010) have the same opinion about the negative influence of
the native language, they assume that the experiences of mother tongue might be a basic
means in order to accomplish learning a foreign language’s pronunciation when it is first
implemented. Between the two languages, some similar patterns in the phonology of mother
tongue can be used to aid the learning of another language’s pronunciation in order to help
beginners achieve perfect pronunciation. Additionally, mother tongue can be used to give
explanation of unfamiliar words or how to pronounce a phoneme correctly for English
learners. Hence, this influence of mother tongue is important for beginners to avoid
mispronunciations and improve their language learning’s performance.
6. Causes of the influences of mother tongue on English pronunciation
According to Salwa Chaira (2015), the influences of mother tongue on English pronunciation
can be caused by these following reasons.

Using similar orthography

For some languages that use the same Latin alphabet with English, learners will
automatically understand that almost all vowels and consonants of both the mother tongue
and English are pronounced similarly. Thus, they will generalize that some English’s vowels
and consonants sound the same with their native language’s.

Similarities and differences in phonological elements

Odlin (1989, as cited in Nunan, 1995) points out that the sounds of targeted language will be
strongly affected by the mother tongue due to the similarities and differences in phonological
elements of both languages. At the beginning stage of learning a new language, learners can
easily pronounce correctly if a word has similar sounds in their native language. In contrast,
pronunciation errors might appear when pronouncing a word with unfamiliar sounds.

Awareness of the differences in English’s sounds

For some languages, English has several phonemes which sound entirely different. Learners’
awareness of the differences helps them in finding the problem and the correct pronunciation
in order to improve their performance, and vice-versa. Thus, awareness of the differences in
English’s sounds is one of the reasons for influences of mother tongue on English
pronunciation.

Imitation of the pronunciation from mentors

When learning a new language, the pronunciation which is used by mentors or teachers is
taught to learners of English. They tend to pronounce English sounds the same way their
mentors do. As a result, if the mentors’ pronunciation is not correct, it will affect the learners
in a negative way. Whereas, mentors’ correct pronunciation helps learners to prevent errors
from happening
References
 Brown, H. D. (2008). Prinsip Pembelajaran dan Pengajaran Bahasa. Jakarta:
Kedutaan Besar Amerika Serikat (Copyrights of Pearson Education, Inc.).
 Mathew, I. (2005). Errors in pronunciation of consonants by learners of English as a
foreign language whose first languages are Indonesian, Gayo and Acehnese. Monash
University Linguistics Papers. 3. 2944.
 Tiono, N., & Yostanto, A. (2008). A Study of English Phonological Errors Produced
by English Department Students. K@ta, 10(1), 79122.
 Chaer, A., & Agustina, L. (2010). Sociolinguistik: Perkenalan Awal. Jakarta: Rineka
Cipta.
 Nunan, D. (1995). Language Teaching Methodology. Hertfordshire: International
Book Distributors Ltd.
 Salwa Chaira (2015) Interference of first language in pronunciation of English
segmental sounds. English Education Journal (EEJ). 6(4). p.469-483.