GOVT.

DEGREE COLLEGE HAVELIAN

Department of English
Subject: Phonetics & Phonology Class: BS Englih-4 Semester: Spring 2021
Facilitator: Rustam (Assistant Professor of English)

Research Project: Group 3

Confusing Vowels while articulating them
(short to long or monothongs to diphthongs)
2009 Alishba , 2017 Eisha , 2021 Hajra , 2035 Zonaisha
Steps:
Phase 1: you have to collect data, analyze it and calculate results. You may do all this in a small-size note book.
Phase 2: You will write a research report using a “Report Writing Format”. This report will have five chapters. I will send you
a blank format for report writing.
Phase 3: You have to design a PowerPoint presentation of 30-minute duration to be delivered on multimedia projector

Background of the Problem

English, being a foreign language in Pakistan, poses many challenges to Pakistani learners. One such problem is that of
'pronunciation'. Pakistani learners and speakers of English confuse short and long vowels while pronouncing certain English
words. Here are few such words: tiny, management, tomb, wool, tortoise, determine, group

Write down the above seven words on a sheet of paper and ask BS students in the college to pronounce them for you. Don’t
tell them what you intend to investigate. Audio record students when they are pronouncing these words. Once the data have
been collected, then listen to the recordings and note down the pronunciation in a table using IPA. Now compare this with
standard or received pronunciation of these words. Calculate the percentage of correct pronunciation.
Words: tiny ˈtaɪni management ˈmænɪdʒmənt tomb tuːm wool wʊl tortoise tɔːtəs determine dɪˈtɜːmɪn group ɡruːp

Population: BS students at GDC Havelian; Sample: 50

Record pronunciation of 8 students from one department (4 male & 4 female). Select two students from each class.
Group leader should divide the work among group members. Keep seeking further guidance from the tutor by whatsapp voice
note, text message or face-to-face interaction on the campus.

Adjective ˈædʒɪktɪv Debris ˈdeɪbriː Pizza ˈpiːtsə Wednesday ˈwenzdeɪ Asthma ˈæsmə Debt det Mortgage ˈmɔːɡɪdʒ

No.of incorrect
pronunciations

pronunciation
S. Name of No.of correct
No Students tiny management tomb wool tortoise determine group
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Find percentage of correct pronunciation.

Disregard of presence of silent letters: Writing and speaking systems are different. This is a universal
phenomenon. In English word “knowledge’, we do not pronounce ‘k’, ‘w’ and ‘d’. These are silent letters
but it is a general observation that Pakistani learners try to pronounce these letters as well which is
against

Received Pronunciation of English. Likewise, Pakistani speakers also commit errors in handling word
word-
endings and schwa. They also tend to impose Urdu norms of speech over English pronunciation.
pronunci

In this project, all these five areas of pronunciation have to be investigated. Unless we have concrete
evidence we cannot say that Pakistani speakers make errors in these areas. If greatnumber of speakers
commits these errors, then we can give a general statement that all Pakistanis commit errors.

Purpose of this study (project) is to find out which pronunciation area out of the five given above is more
challenging for our students? How can we find it?
You have to give a list of words to few stu
students in your family or in the neighborhood or in your college
and ask them to pronounce these words. You have to record this pronunciation with a recording device
(audio or video… it is upto you). Later on , you have to analyze the data.Here
Here is a first set
se of words:

Data Collection
Give the list of these five words to a speaker (any age, any gender) and ask the respondent to pronounce
them one by one. Record the pronunciation in your phone. (You may conduct it with BS students)

Data Analysis
After recording, listen to the recording and write (t
(transcribe) it in the second column. If it matches
rd
Received Pronunciation (given in 3 column), it means Pakistani speaker knows how to place the stress.
If it does not match, it means the speaker does not know anything about stress. You can rate the
pronunciation of the speaker by using this scale:
No neglect of stress (give 5 or 4 marks); Less neglect of stress (3 marks); total neglect of stress ( 2 or 1
point).Judgment is yours. Before giving marks to a speaker, you need to listen to the recording twice or
thrice. Only then can you declare the pronunciation as excellent (5), good (4), satisfactory (3), fair (2) or
poor (01). This is known as data analysis.

As we are checking five areas of pronunciation, so recording of all five areas will be done once. Give the
complete sheet to the speaker (respondent) for pronunciation and record. Don’t give details. Before
recording, you can say: My name is ….. I have a list of 25 words. Please pronounce them. It is a research
project.
Once the respondent has pronounced the first set of five words, as him/her to pronounce the next set.. The
whole recording will take five minutes at the most. After recording, listen to recording of one speaker
carefully and note down the errors in pronunciation. Actual pronunciation is also given in the sheet.
While recording, don’t give any hint or clue to the speaker. Just place the list of words before him/her and
request pronunciation.

Population
It is your choice. You can record pronunciation of adult family members if they are educated or students
of matric, FA/FSc or BS living in your neighborhood or you can do this research with BS students in
your own college or students of girls’ college. I do not want you to travel far for data collection. It should
be done conveniently. Please observe safety precautions (wear a mask, use sanitizer or soap to wash
hands). Note down name, gender, age, qualification etc of the respondent.

Sample Size
Your choice (at least 20 persons)

Sampling Technique
Yours is a convenient sampling.
Do not go too far away from your home. Find few educated family members or students and record
pronunciation. Or just select male and female students from each department of your college and record
their pronunciation.

Instrument/Data Collection Tool

A voice recorder preferably a smart phone (android).
You can audiorecord or videorecord, it is up to you. You can use any media player to listen to the
recording and then transcribe. Your actual instrument is “Content Analysis”. You have to listen to the
pronunciation of each word and transcribe it using IPA symbols.

Your first step is to select population and collect data.

Your second step is to analyse the data as explained above.

Objectives
To find out if Pakistani speakers can place the ‘stress’ on right syllable.
To investigate if Pakistani speakers of English know that some letters are written but not pronounced.
To ascertain how Pakistani speakers pronounce ‘word-endings’?
To investigate how the ‘schwa’ is handled by Pakistani speakers.
To find out if Pakistani speakers apply Urdu norms of speech to their English pronunciation such as
confusing monothongs with diphthongs.

Hypotheses
1.Pakistani speakers do not know stress placement in multisyllabic words.
2.Pakistani speakers of English pronounce all written symbols or letters of alphabet hardly knowing that
few letters are part of spelling but not part of pronunciation.
3. Pakistani learners of English
glish make errors in pronouncing word-endings.
word
4. Pakistani speakers can not pronounce ‘schwa’ correctly.
5. L1 (Urdu) influences pronunciation of English words (L2).
Note: Before collecting data, you discuss the whole project in whatsapp group or Google C Classroom.
This is very important assignment. Write now it’s weight is only 10 marks. But if government decides to
promote you to the next semester on the basis of an assignment, I will use your performance in this
project as a criterian for promotion. Plea
Please
se do not take it light. It is a big assignment. You need to do it
seriously.

After data collection, you will have to write a report. Then, you have to prepare a PowerPoint
presentation.II may ask you to share your findings through Zoom or any other means.
You will be guided on every step. No need to be worried. Just do a little bit work and show it to me for
my opinion. Once I give an OK, move to the next step.
First do self-test.
test. Can you yourself prnounce all words correctly? Try to understand the projec
project. Then, go
for data collection.
Rustam