A PHONETIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH LIQUIDS IN THE SPEECH OF ANNANG SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

This work carried out a phonetic analysis of English liquids in the speech of Annang speakers of English. It investigated those factors that are responsible for Annang mispronunciation of English liquids and proffers some possible solutions. The work adopted Robert Lado's Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis propounded in 1957 as its theoretical framework. This is because this theory is concerned with the systematic study of two languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. As a result, the work used a survey research method and the primary data were collected from eighty (80) senior secondary school students who were randomly selected from four (4) secondary schools in Ukanafun Local Government Area. In each of the schools, twenty (20) students of mixed sex was selected through a stratified random sampling method. The instruments for data collection were a production test, audio recording and observation. The data collected were analysed quantitatively. Based on the analysis of the data, this work finds out that the articulation of English liquids by the students is highly deviant regardless of the fact that the liquid lateral /l/ and the liquid rolled /r/ exist in both English and Annang language. The work concludes that the difficulty experienced by Annang learners of English in articulating liquid sounds result from the fact that in most Annang dialects, liquid sounds are used in free variation whereas it is not the same in English. Thus, the application of the free variation pattern of their indigenous language affects their performance in English. The work suggested that more attention should be paid to these sounds /l, r/ in teaching them to English learners from Annang speaking areas.