HOW ENGLISH FRICATIVES /s/ AND /ʃ/ ARE PRODUCED BY IUH ENGLISH MAJORS

Abstract

Mispronunciation in learning a language which is not one’s mother tongue is inevitable. For this reason, a significant part of formal instruction in pronunciation is identifying, explaining and rectifying common mistakes. As a contribution to the accomplishment of those purposes, the paper aims to explore the improper articulation concerning English fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/, the consonants which seem to be simple but as a matter of fact pose quite a challenge to English majors. Specifically, the focal point of the paper is to examine the patterns of IUH English majors’ mispronunciation with respect to (1) the positions, including initial, middle and final, of the fricatives in a word, (2) the English words containing both of the fricatives and those with a consonant cluster including /s/ and (3) the phonic principles behind the spellings phonemically identified as /s/, as well as those articulated as /ʃ/. Based on the findings concerning these occurences, recommendations for the teaching and learning of these two fricative sounds will be put forward.