Investigating the Effect of Mother Tongue on the Iraqi Undergraduates’ Use of English Segmentals and Syllables

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of mother tongue on the Iraqi undergraduates’ use of English segmentals and Syllables. English segmentals and Syllables are two basic topics that are studied under the domains of phonetics and phonology. Those Iraqi undergraduates consist of Iraqi EFL learners (the two terms are used interchangeably in this study). English segmentals and Syllables involve consonants, vowels, diphthongs, consonant clusters and vowel clusters. The problem of the study is that EFL Iraqi students have no capacity to recognize English consonants and syllables. However, the following questions are focused upon in this study:

1) What are the English consonants and vowels which are not recognized by Iraqi undergraduates under the effect of their mother tongue?

2) What are the types of consonant and vowel clusters which are not recognized by Iraqi undergraduates under the effect of their mother tongue?

The aims of the study include investigating the effect of learners’ mother tongue on their recognition of English segmentals and syllables, knowing whether Iraqi learners at the university level face difficulties in the recognition of consonants and vowels, ensuring whether EFL Iraqi students have difficulties in the recognition of consonant clusters and vowel clusters, and determining whether the difficulties faced by Iraqi EFL learners are caused by the learners’ mother tongue.

It is hypothesized that Iraqi EFL undergraduates do not recognize some English consonants, English vowels, diphthongs, some types of consonant clusters and vowel clusters. In addition, it is hypothesized that the incorrect answers of Iraqi learners’ recognition of consonants, simple vowels, diphthongs, consonant clusters and vowel clusters are more than the correct ones.

To achieve its aims and verify its hypotheses, the study adopts a quantitative method of investigation. The study chooses a sample for the present study, designs the test containing items concerned with consonants, vowels, and consonant clusters and vowel clusters. It includes only a recognition question. After applying the test on 100 undergraduate students of fourth stage/Department of English/College of Education for Humanities/University of Thi-Qar, the study arrives at some conclusions, some of which include that most Iraqi EFL learners find difficulty in recognizing some consonants, they appeared to be efficient in recognizing some simple vowels and diphthongs, they have the capacity to distinguish only some consonants but they are unable to recognize other consonant clusters and they appeared to be also inefficient in recognizing all vowel clusters.