Content Page

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3

GENDER OF THE SAMPLE ........................................................................................................... 4

Vowel sound pronounced by men.............................................................................................. 6

Vowel sound pronounced by women ........................................................................................ 7

Results according to the term of the students .......................................................................... 8

THE MOST TROUBLESOME ........................................................................................................ 8

The vowel sound / ɔ / ................................................................................................................ 8

ɔ / bought global results......................................................................................................... 8

ɔ / bought produced by men ................................................................................................. 9

ɔ / bought produced by women ............................................................................................ 9

The vowel sound /ɛ / .................................................................................................................. 10

ɛ / said Global results ............................................................................................................. 10

ɛ / said produced by men ...................................................................................................... 10

ɛ / said produced by women ................................................................................................. 10

The vowel sound / a / ................................................................................................................. 11

a / hot Global results .............................................................................................................. 11

a / hot produced by men ........................................................................................................ 11

a / hot produced by women ................................................................................................... 12

The vowel sound / ʌ / ................................................................................................................ 12

ʌ / hut Global results ............................................................................................................ 12

ʌ / hut produced by men ...................................................................................................... 13

ʌ / hut produced by women ................................................................................................. 13

The vowel sound / ou / ............................................................................................................... 14

ou / boat global results ........................................................................................................... 14

ou / boat produced by male students .................................................................................. 14

ou / boat produced by female students ............................................................................... 15

THE EASIEST ONES .................................................................................................................... 16

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................ 18

Introduction

Among the field of Phonology, pronouncing vowels is a difficult task for students of

the English major who speak Spanish as a native language, that is due to the

Spanish language doesn´t have so many vowel sounds as the English language

does.

This project was designed to find out which are the most troublesome produced

vowel sounds, besides there is a comparison between which are the most

troublesome for male and female students and another comparative chart taking

into account the term the students are studying now.

The symbols used in the chart that includes the names of the student and their

terms and ID´s are B for a mispronunciation and G for a well-pronounced vowel

sound. In the graphs the color blue and the word “Good” represent vowels sound

that were pronounced correctly by the students and the color red and the word

“Bad” to represent the mispronunciations.

GENDER OF THE SAMPLE

The survey was made in a sample of 15 students, 6 women and 9 men from

different levels of the English Major at UTEC.

GLOBAL RESULTS

Vowel /ʊ / /u/ / a / / ʌ / / æ / / I / / i / / ɔ / / ou / /ɛ/ / æ / /aɪ/ /aɪ/

Word full fool hot hut hat hit heat bought boat said sad ice island GOOD BAD

2 m Erick Antonio Garcia 31-4174-2010 2 G B B B G G G B B B G G B 6 7

6 m Fredy Garcia 31-1861-2010 4 G G G G G G G B B G B G G 10 2

7 m Luis Alonso Granados 31-2366-2008 4 B B B B B G B B B B B G G 3 10

8 m Josue Hernandez 31-3319-2010 4 B B B B G G G B B B G G G 6 7

9 m Luis Perez 31-4830-2008 5 G G G G G G G B G G G G G 12 1

10 m Oscar Arnulfo Gómez 31-0974-2009 6 B G G G G G G B G G G G G 11 1

11 m Yoaho Santamaria 31-2822-2009 6 G G B B B B B B B G G G G 6 7

12 m Hugo Mendoza 31-3581-2005 9 B B G G G G G B G B B G G 8 5

13 m Walter Magaña 31-2566-1997 10 G G G G G G G G G G B G G 12 1

1 w Elizabeth Ayala 34-3200-2010 1 G B B B B B B G B B B G B 3 10

3 w Elizabeth Acevedo 31-1302-2010 2 B B B B B B B B B B G G G 3 10

4 w Aida Luz Pineda 31-4685-2009 2 G G B B B G G G G B B G B 7 6

5 w Adriana Olivares 31-1060-2010 3 G G B G G G G B B B B G G 8 5

14 w Catalina Reyes 31-2198-2003 10 G G B B G G G B B B B G G 7 6

15 w Evelin Chavez 31-0649-2007 10 G G G G B B B B G B G G G 8 5

WOMEN 6 GOOD 10 9 6 7 9 11 10 3 6 5 7 15 12

MEN 9 BAD 5 6 9 8 6 4 5 11 8 10 8 0 3

No. Student's name ID Number Term

GLOBAL RESULTS

Vowel sound pronounced by men

The vowel sound in which most of the students had a mispronunciation was /ɔ / as

in “bought” and that was due to the Spanish interference for they pronounced /ou/

just as it would sound in Spanish. Another troublesome vowel sound was /ɛ / as in

“said”, most of the students; specially women had trouble pronouncing it and

pronounced it as /eI/ as it would sound in Spanish.

Vowel sound pronounced by women

Results according to the term of the students

Contrary to what we might think, not all 10-term students are “the best” this survey

has shown that some students from lower terms are as good (and in some cases

better) as senior students.

THE MOST TROUBLESOME

The vowel sound / ɔ /

/ ɔ / bought global results

/ ɔ / bought produced by men

/ ɔ / bought produced by women

The vowel sound /ɛ /

/ɛ / said Global results

/ɛ / said produced by men

/ɛ / said produced by women

The vowel sound / a /

/ a / hot Global results

/ a / hot produced by men

17%

83%

GOOD

BAD

/ a / hot produced by women

The vowel sound / ʌ /

/ ʌ / hut Global results

/ ʌ / hut produced by men

/ ʌ / hut produced by women

67%

33%

GOOD

BAD

The vowel sound / ou /

/ ou / boat global results

/ ou / boat produced by male students

67%

33%

GOOD

BAD

/ ou / boat produced by female students

THE EASIEST ONES

The sound /aI/ as in “ice” was the only vowel sound well pronounced by all of the

students, I have to mention that I asked the students to pronounce two words with

the same sound, “ice” and “island”, I chose these two words in order to get them

confused but only trhee of them mispronounced the vowel sound /aI/ in “island”, the

pronounced it /i/, the rest pronounced /aI/ correctly but did not pronounce the word

correctly, they pronounced it as /aIsland/ and not //aIlænd/; only 4 students did it

right.

“Ice”

“Island”

Another easy vowel sound for the students was the minimal pair “hit” vs “heat”,

most of them did it right in pronouncing the short /I/ and the long /i/.

“hit”

“heat”

CONCLUSION

There is a high level of mispronunciation at UTEC due to the students don’t get

awareness of the importance of Phonology, most of them say this subject is not

necessary and they also say that the most important thing is communication, they

don’t have any idea of how important is a good pronunciation to be well-

understood.

Furthermore, a good pronunciation says a lot of the kind of students we are, it can

show if we are good or bad students.