Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation, phonological processes, and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue into their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language. Grammar differences (for example the lack or surplus of tense, number, gender etc.) in different languages often lead to grammatical mistakes that are telltale signs of their native language. Sometimes non-verbal body language, facial expressions, or other cues also give away the origin of the speaker. Another factor is how the English language is taught as a second language. In such cases, the accent of the teachers will affect the accent of the students. In some places that were formerly under British rule, such as India, Hong Kong and Malaysia, the English language remains a mandatory subject in most schools. Students study the English language at schools while using their native language in daily life. Thus, there may be distinctive features of pronunciation in those speakers. A reverse version of this article is to be found at: Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages Non-native accents by region in alphabetical order:
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German
- Speakers may not velarize /l/ in coda positions as native speakers do.[1]
- See also: German phonology
Hungarian
- The dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ may be replaced by [s̻] and [d̪][2]
- See also: Hungarian phonology
India
See Indian English.
Italian
A study on Italian children's pronunciation of English revealed the following characteristics:[3]
- Tendency to pronounce the English high lax vowels /ɪ/ /ʊ/ as [i] [u] (ex: "fill" and "feel", "put" "poot" are homophones), since Italian doesn't have these vowels.
- Tendency to pronounce /ŋ/ as [ŋg] ("singer" rhymes with "finger") or as [n] (combined with the above tendency makes the words "king" and "keen" homophones) because Italian [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops.
- Tendency to pronounce word-initial /sm/ as [zm], e.g. small [zmɔl].
- Tendency to pronounce [ʌ] as [a] so that "mother" is pronounced [ˈmadər] or [ˈmaðər].
- Italian does not have dental fricatives:
- Voiceless /θ/ may be replaced with a dental [t̪] or with a [f].
- Voiced /ð/ may become a dental [d̪].
- Since /t/ and /d/ are typically pronounced as dental stops anyway, words like "there" and "dare" can become homophones.
- /æ/ pronounced as [ɛ], so that bag sounds like beg [bɛg].
- Tendency to pronounce [p t k] as unaspirated stops.
- Schwa [ə] does not exist in Italian; speakers tend to give the written vowel its full pronunciation, e.g. lemon [ˈlɛmɒn], television [tɛleˈviʒɒn], parrot [ˈpærot], intelligent [inˈtɛlidʒɛnt], water [ˈwɔtɛr], sugar [ˈʃugar].
- Italian speakers may pronounce consonant-final English words with a strong vocalic offset, especially in isolated words, e.g. dog [dɒgᵊ]. This has led to the stereotype of Italians adding [ə] to the ends of English words.
- Tendency to pronounce r as a trill [r] rather than the English approximant /ɹ/, e.g. parrot [ˈpærot].
In addition, Italians learning English have a tendency to pronounce words as they are spelled, so that walk is [wɒlk], guide is [gwid], and boiled is [ˈbɔɪlɛd]. This is also true for loanwords borrowed from english as water (that in italian means toilet ceramic bowl) that is pronounce as [vatɛr] instead of [ˈwɔːtə]. Related to this is the fact that many Italians pronounce the letter r wherever it is spelled (e.g. star [star]), resulting in a rhotic accent, even when the dialect of English they are learning is nonrhotic. Consonants written double may be pronounced as geminates, e.g. Italians pronounce apple with a longer [p] sound than English speakers do.
- See also: Italian phonology
Mandarin (Chinese)
Some problems Chinese speakers may have when learning to pronounce English include the following:[4]
- [v] and [w] are often confused since /v/ appears only as an allophone of [w] in certain dialects of Mandarin.
- Confusion of [l] and [r]. Mandarin Chinese has no final [l] sound or initial [r] sound, though there is a voiced retroflex fricative (written in Pinyin as r) that sounds similar to [r]. Most Chinese speakers speak a non-rhotic or partly non-rhotic accent.
See also: Chinglish
Russian
- There is no /w/ in Russian; speakers typically substitute [v] and will have trouble perceiving the difference between the two. [5]
- Russian does not have the dental fricatives [θ] and [ð], so they may be replaced with alveolar fricatives or dental stops.
- Alveolar consonants /s/ /d/ /t/ /n/ may be pronounced as dental.
- Russian /r/ is an alveolar trill. This may carry over into English. Speakers able to pronounce English /ɹ/ typically velarize it so it comes out as [ɹˠ]. /l/ may also be a velarized [ɫ]
- Russian has only five or six vowels phonemes and speakers may have trouble with vowels not in their native inventories.
- /ɛ/ and /æ/ are pronounced as the former. E.g. “man” and “men” are pronounced [mɛn].
- The diphthongs /aɪ/, /eɪ/, and /ɔɪ/ sound with the consonant [j] sound instead of the short /ɪ/. E.g. “high” sounds like [haj], rather than [haɪ].
- See also: Russian phonology
Spanish
- Speakers tend to pronounce /ð/ as a voiced dental stop unless it is intervocalic and /d/ as [ð] when it is intervocalic.[6]
- See also: Spanglish and Spanish phonology
See also
References
- ^ Jeffers & Lehiste 1979:140
- ^ Nádasdy 2006
- ^ Martin Russell, Analysis of Italian children’s English pronunciation. Accessed 2007-07-12.
- ^ Ted Power, Chinese language backgrounds. Accessed 2007-07-19.
- ^ Thompson 1991
- ^ Jeffers & Lehiste 1979:139
Bibliography
- Jeffers, Robert J. and Lehiste, Ilse (1979). Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics. MIT press. ISBN 0262600110.
- Nádasdy, Ádám (2006). Background to English Pronunciation. Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó. ISBN 9631957918.
- Thompson, Irene (1991). "Foreign Accents Revisited: The English Pronunciation of Russian Immigrants". Language Learning 41 (2): 177–204.. doi:10.1111/j.1467-1770.1991.tb00683.x. ISSN 0023-8333.
External links
- A site collecting recordings of people from different areas reading the same paragraph (most recordings also have an IPA transcription)
- International Dialects of English Archive
- Articles, Determiners, and Quantifiers
