Current research into L2 motivation addresses all aspects of language learning. However, there is a paucity of research into students’ L2 motivations to improve their speaking skills. Specifically, research on pronunciation issues is very rare. This report sheds light on factors that relate to pronunciation issues and their facilitating or hindering effects on L2 motivation. It starts by reviewing research that informs about students’ social-psychological and utilitarian motivations to acquire a second language. Interestingly, these general L2 motivations are mostly affected by factors related to students’ pronunciation skills. The second section discusses the negative factors, which have been found to hinder students’ motivations to learn, and in particular to improve their pronunciation. Based on these research findings, the third section of the report offers recommends pronunciation-teaching strategies to motivate and empower students. This report makes a case for Multi-competence that focuses on increased intelligibility through suprasegmentals and sociopragmatic awareness. / text

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published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study is a descriptive analysis of the occurrence of the sociolinguistic variables of pronunciation associated with all forms of ‘there’ and Non-Standard There-tag (NST-tag) in Bathurst English. Participants were interviewed and the occurrences of ‘there’ were obtained through the use of sociolinguistic interviews with 15 speakers. The incidences of ‘there’ were sorted based on grammatical category and pronunciation and were subsequently analyzed based on age and gender. The results indicate that older speakers use non-standard pronunciations of ‘there’ more than younger speakers and they also use NST-tag more than younger speakers. Younger speakers mostly use standard pronunciations of ‘there’ and use NST-tag very little. This may indicate age and gender grading or a change in progress in that vernacular is giving way to more standard speech in this community.

This dissertation is designed for Japanese singers to aid them in mastering correct American-English singing diction. Many Japanese singers of college age or older have knowledge of English through high school programs. However, they often lack the communicative ability to hear and speak English. This study enables those singers to sing American-English repertoire with more precise diction.Chapter 1 contains introductory materials. Chapter 2 presents a pronunciation guide for American English and Japanese using IPA symbols, which includes the sounds that are common to Japanese and American English, the vowels and consonants found in Japanese only, and the vowels and consonants found in American English only. Chapter 3 contains the analyses and approaches to problems in learning American-English singing diction, including the comparison of speech and singing and the analyses of Japanese word structures. Chapter 4 incorporates the previous chapters and introduces approach and solutions to the successful performance of American-English repertoire. Chapter 5 consists of the IPA transcriptions of selected American-English songs. / School of Music

This thesis has analysed the sound substitutions Carioca students of English make when speaking it. It was the researcher’s purpose to find out what type of mispronunciations occurred and to separate the errors caused by the orthographic representation of sounds from the ones coming from differences between the sound systems of American-English and Brazillian-Portuguese languages.By means of an error analysis the researcher has found out that the main cause of Cariocas’ sound substitutions were due to interference coming from the differences between the sound systems of the students’ native tongue and target language and the way sounds are distributed (71%) as compared to 30% of interference coming from orthographic representations. It was also interesting to note that the interference of orthography decreased in the free speech performance.

This study is a descriptive analysis of the occurrence of the sociolinguistic variables of pronunciation associated with all forms of ‘there’ and Non-Standard There-tag (NST-tag) in Bathurst English. Participants were interviewed and the occurrences of ‘there’ were obtained through the use of sociolinguistic interviews with 15 speakers. The incidences of ‘there’ were sorted based on grammatical category and pronunciation and were subsequently analyzed based on age and gender. The results indicate that older speakers use non-standard pronunciations of ‘there’ more than younger speakers and they also use NST-tag more than younger speakers. Younger speakers mostly use standard pronunciations of ‘there’ and use NST-tag very little. This may indicate age and gender grading or a change in progress in that vernacular is giving way to more standard speech in this community.

The thesis opens with a discussion of what attitudes are, and develops with a review of studies of attitudes towards pronunciation error, attitudes towards foreign accents and perception of foreign-accented speakers. The empirical part of the thesis attempts to identify how native (British) and Finnish listeners of English react to and evaluate typical segmental features of mispronunciation in the English speech of Finnish men and women of various ages. Two experiments using modifications of the matched-guise technique were conducted, one to consider error evaluation and to establish a hierarchy of segmental mispronunciation, the other to examine speaker evaluation, the image of the speaker created by the mispronunciation. Recordings of Finnish-accented English were presented to male and female listeners of various ages, and reactions collected. Statistical analyses of the results were carried out and the following general conclusions were drawn: the English labiodental lenis fricative /v/ when mispronounced in the typical Finnish manner as a labiodental frictionless continuant [u] is not tolerated by native English listeners at all, though it is highly tolerated by Finnish-speaking listeners (and Swedish-speaking Finns) themselves; the degree of mispronunciation in Finnish-accented English seriously affects listeners' estimations of the speaker's age, bad mispronunciation prompting under-estimation of age and good pronunciation over-estimation; both Finnish-speaking listeners and English-speaking listeners have almost identical clear pre-set standards about what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' pronunciation; a Finnish speaker's phonemically 'better' and 'worse' pronunciation affects the image listeners have of the speaker, status/competence traits in particular being up-graded for better pronunciation, solidarity/benevolence traits remaining broadly unaffected, and Englishspeaking listeners generally being more positive towards the Finnish-accented speakers than compatriot Finns.

This study examined Taiwanese ESL learners' perception and production of English interdental fricatives (IFs) with respect to three variables: perception errors, production errors, and three ranges of length of residence (LOR) in the US (LOR < 1 year; LOR= 3-4 years; LOR ; at least 7 years). Through the investigation, several relationships among perception, production errors, and LOR were revealed. In addition, the types and patterns of the pronunciation errors as well as the phonological processes involved in the mispronunciations were investigated. The instrument included both perception and production tasks, as well as a demographic questionnaire. More specifically, the production task contains two syllable positions: word initial and word final; two sources: word list and text. The data were analyzed through auditory and spectrographic devices with an involvement of an inter-rater agreement. The results showed that there was a positive relationship between perception and production errors for each of the three groups. Namely, the more perception errors made by the Taiwanese ESL learners, the more production errors occurred. The correlation increases with each group, i.e., with LOR. The relationship between LOR and perception and production errors were significantly negative as the longer the learners had stayed in the US, the fewer errors in perception and production were made and vice versa. A descriptive analysis revealed that the initial theta and the final eth are the most difficult sounds for the Taiwanese learners to perceive. In addition, both voiceless and voiced IFs were found to be difficult to pronounce in the final position. Regarding the source where the target sounds were located, the results indicated that reading text (rather than a word list) caused more pronunciation errors for most of the learners except the group with LOR at least 7 years, which had a better performance in the production task compared with the other two groups, regardless of which source the target sounds were located. From the overall findings, ESL teachers are encouraged to apply multiple teaching tools and to provide feedback with effective correction techniques to learners in order to adjust and overcome their pronunciation errors.

This study investigated the production of the English voiceless bilabial stop /p/ in three word positions (initial, medial, and final). By a group of 20 male and female ESL Saudi Arabian learners in the United States. The stimulus of this work was a list of 20 English words with an equal number of words for the three word positions initial, medial, and final. By measuring the Voice Onset Time in word initial and the duration of the release of the target phoneme /p/ in word medial and final positions this study identified several types of error in the participants’ utterances, including substitution of /p/ with /b/, approximation, and frication. The position of /p/ in words had a significant effect on the accuracy of pronunciation as the position that yielded the highest level of accuracy was the final position. The other two positions, initial and medial, showed a significantly higher number of production errors than word- final position.