A PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF /V/ AND /W/ PRONUNCIATION AMONG PAKISTANI UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN LAHORE
Keywords:
/v/–/w/ Pronunciation, Interlanguage, Pakistani English, Phonological Analysis, Phonological Transfer, Pronunciation Variation, Second Language Phonology, Undergraduate StudentsAbstract
In this paper, the production of the phonemes /v/ and /w/ by Pakistani undergraduate students at Lahore will be investigated via phonological analysis. Specifically, this paper is concerned with analyzing the pronunciation of the said phonemes by Pakistani English speakers, comparing Pakistani English pronunciations with that of Standard English, and explaining the causes of the mispronunciation of the phonemes. A descriptive-mixed method approach is adopted in this study. Specifically, fifty undergraduate students were sampled from different government and privately funded schools in Lahore. Words and phrases in which the targeted phonemes were present were compiled into a list of words that participants had to pronounce. In addition, participants had to respond to some oral tasks to see how the targeted phonemes are produced when speaking spontaneously. Analysis of responses to test pronunciations was done manually. Moreover, acoustic analysis was conducted on selected speech samples using the PRAAT software program. From the results, the study concludes that the phoneme /v/ is pronounced correctly by many participants consistently. On the other hand, the phoneme /w/ is more inconsistent, and there is an increase in the substitution of the phoneme /v/ for /w/ in words like wine, wall, and water. Substitutions observed were common not only during controlled but also spontaneous tasks, suggesting that they reflect a reliable phonological behavior rather than mere errors. The acoustic differences between correct and incorrect responses have been found as well. Pronunciation inconsistencies can thus be accounted for based on the theories of interlanguage, first language transfer, and contrastive phonology, whereby learners use the phonological rules of their L1 when speaking English. The study makes a contribution towards understanding the features of Pakistani English, which is a local variety. Moreover, the study indicates the necessity of focused pronunciation training to enhance learners' ability to discriminate the phonemes under discussion.
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