EFL learners commonly strive to attain near-native English pronunciation. Nevertheless, Arab learners of English may incorrectly produce certain sounds of the English language due to their first language interference. The current study examined Yemeni EFL learners’ production of the English consonants /p/ and /v/. The study employed a quantitative case study design, and its speakers were two Yemeni EFL postgraduate students. At the time of the present study, the participants were postgraduate students at Universiti Utara Malaysia. The subjects were asked to read three lists of isolated words in random order. Each list included the same 36 words, with six words for each target sound in three word positions, to be read three times. The pronunciations were recorded and then evaluated using two methods: (1) rating by four raters; and (2) an acoustic analysis via Praat. The results indicate that the two target sounds are problematic among Yemeni EFL learners. Additionally, the environment greatly influences the production of /p/ and /v/. Two patterns are identified: (1) /p/ is voiced and substituted with /b/; and (2) /v/ is devoiced and substituted with /f/. The findings generally shed some light on the pronunciation difficulties among Arab speakers when producing English consonants and specifically confirm previous findings regarding L2 speech production by Yemeni EFL learners of English.

Authors:
Mohd Hilmi Bin Hamzah, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
Najah Ahmed Bin Hadjah, Seiyun University, Yemen

About the Presenter(s)
Dr MOHD HILMI BIN HAMZAH is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Universiti Utara Malaysia in Malaysia

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