The Production and Perception for English Final Consonant Sounds of Thai Students
Suratthani Rajabhat University, Thailand
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this research were to analyze the production and perception for English final consonant sounds and to analyze the relationship between the production and perception for English final consonant sounds; fricative, affricate, and lateral sounds of Thai students. The samples of this research were 350 Suratthani Rajabhat University’s students. 33 English words with fricative, affricate, and lateral final consonants were the instrumentation for data collection. The samples pronounced and perceived 33 English words. The production results showed that the samples pronounced English final consonants correctly less than 50 percent. The most correctly pronounced is the final consonant /s/ (47.4 percent) and the least correctly pronounced is the final consonant /ð/ (0.7 percent). The perception results showed that the samples perceived English final consonants correctly more than 50 percent. The most correctly perceived is the final consonant /z/ (95.4 percent) and the least correctly perceived is the final consonant /ð/ (53.4 percent). The result of the relationship between the production and perception for English final consonants’ analyze showed that their relationship is an inverse relationship. The most Thai can perceive the English final consonants correctly but a few of them can pronounce the English final consonants correctly. They tend to use the variant of the English final consonants which appear in Thai consonant sound system. It indicated a phenomenon of interference and interlanguage.
KEYWORDS
Pronunciation, Perception, English final consonants, Interference, Interlanguage