interference
Problems Relating To Mother Tongue Interference
Hello all, we discussed the concept of mother tongue in our last topics and today we will discussing on what actually causes interference of mother tongue with other languages.
PROBLEMS RELATED TO MONO-THONGS
The English language has twelve monothongs or pure vowels? Five long /i: a:?: ? u:/ and seven short /I e æ ??? u/. The Bengali speaking English as a foreign language (EFL). Learner generally find the long monothongs of the English language, for example, in the word sheep, part, bird, short, cool, and the like, seriously problematic since his/her mother tongue does not have them and he/she is not naturally accustomed to differentiating between short and long monothongs. To emphasize an issue or express different attitudes and emotional effects, Bengali vowels are sometimes lengthened to some degree. Nonetheless, vowel length in the Bengali language is a phonetic aspect, not a phonological one as in the English Language.
The contrastive monothongs, such as /I/ in ‘ship’ versus /i:/ in ‘sheep’, /e/ in ‘men’ versus /æ/ in ‘man’, /?/ in ‘cut’ versus /a:/ in ‘cart’, /?/ in ‘pot’ versus /?/ in ‘port’, /u/ in ‘full’ versus /u:/ in ‘fool’ and /a:/ in ‘bard’ versus /?:/ in ‘bird’ also often cause substantial problems in the learner’s articulation as well as perception of utterances because the difference between them is not that much exercised in the Bengali language. Moreover, the Bengali speaker cannot easily and properly pronounce the mid, central and short monothongs. Schwa /?/, as in the forst syllables of the words ‘ago’, ‘today’ and ‘perhaps’, since this phonemes is absent from his/her first language and receives inadequate or not treatment in teaching.
Problems Related to Diphthongs: The Bengali speaking learner has difficulties in pronouncing as well as perceiving English diphthongs mainly due to his/her mother tongue interference. The English Language has eight diphthongs // ? e ? e/ a/ oi au ? u/, each of which is a combination of two monophthongs one gliding into the other and naturally longer than a pure vowel, whereas the Bengali language possesses eighteen regular diphthongs which are characteristically different from and shorter than the English ones. As a consequence, he/she pronounces only the first part of a diphthong and makes it identical to a monothong. For example, ‘late’ /IeIt/ is pronounced like ‘let’ /let/. Hasan (2000:66).
Problems related to stress and intonation stress and intonation are two essential aspects of the pronounciation of English words and utterances since they perform phonological functions. Stress means prominence in pronunciation normally produced by four factors. ‘loudness’ of voice, ‘length’ of syllables, ‘pitch’ related to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds as well as low/high tone and ‘quality’ of vowels functioning individually or in combination (Roach 2000).
Unlike the Bengali language, the English language has story and weak forms, such as articles (a, an, the), pronouns (he, she, we, you, him, her, them, us), auxiliaries (do, does, am, is, are, have, has, had, can, shall, will), preposition (to, of, from, for, at) and conjunctions (and, but), which are usually unstressed in connected speech. For example, ‘The’ /ði:/ is pronounced /ð?/ before consonant and /ðI/ before vowels in connected speech if it is not stressed for some specific reasons. As the Bengali speaking learner is not accustomed to using such forms in his/her mother tongue, he/she certainly finds them problematic in both production and reception.
PROBLEMS RELATED TO MONO-THONGS
The English language has twelve monothongs or pure vowels? Five long /i: a:?: ? u:/ and seven short /I e æ ??? u/. The Bengali speaking English as a foreign language (EFL). Learner generally find the long monothongs of the English language, for example, in the word sheep, part, bird, short, cool, and the like, seriously problematic since his/her mother tongue does not have them and he/she is not naturally accustomed to differentiating between short and long monothongs. To emphasize an issue or express different attitudes and emotional effects, Bengali vowels are sometimes lengthened to some degree. Nonetheless, vowel length in the Bengali language is a phonetic aspect, not a phonological one as in the English Language.
The contrastive monothongs, such as /I/ in ‘ship’ versus /i:/ in ‘sheep’, /e/ in ‘men’ versus /æ/ in ‘man’, /?/ in ‘cut’ versus /a:/ in ‘cart’, /?/ in ‘pot’ versus /?/ in ‘port’, /u/ in ‘full’ versus /u:/ in ‘fool’ and /a:/ in ‘bard’ versus /?:/ in ‘bird’ also often cause substantial problems in the learner’s articulation as well as perception of utterances because the difference between them is not that much exercised in the Bengali language. Moreover, the Bengali speaker cannot easily and properly pronounce the mid, central and short monothongs. Schwa /?/, as in the forst syllables of the words ‘ago’, ‘today’ and ‘perhaps’, since this phonemes is absent from his/her first language and receives inadequate or not treatment in teaching.
Problems Related to Diphthongs: The Bengali speaking learner has difficulties in pronouncing as well as perceiving English diphthongs mainly due to his/her mother tongue interference. The English Language has eight diphthongs // ? e ? e/ a/ oi au ? u/, each of which is a combination of two monophthongs one gliding into the other and naturally longer than a pure vowel, whereas the Bengali language possesses eighteen regular diphthongs which are characteristically different from and shorter than the English ones. As a consequence, he/she pronounces only the first part of a diphthong and makes it identical to a monothong. For example, ‘late’ /IeIt/ is pronounced like ‘let’ /let/. Hasan (2000:66).
Problems related to stress and intonation stress and intonation are two essential aspects of the pronounciation of English words and utterances since they perform phonological functions. Stress means prominence in pronunciation normally produced by four factors. ‘loudness’ of voice, ‘length’ of syllables, ‘pitch’ related to the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds as well as low/high tone and ‘quality’ of vowels functioning individually or in combination (Roach 2000).
Unlike the Bengali language, the English language has story and weak forms, such as articles (a, an, the), pronouns (he, she, we, you, him, her, them, us), auxiliaries (do, does, am, is, are, have, has, had, can, shall, will), preposition (to, of, from, for, at) and conjunctions (and, but), which are usually unstressed in connected speech. For example, ‘The’ /ði:/ is pronounced /ð?/ before consonant and /ðI/ before vowels in connected speech if it is not stressed for some specific reasons. As the Bengali speaking learner is not accustomed to using such forms in his/her mother tongue, he/she certainly finds them problematic in both production and reception.
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