EEJ 9 (3) (2019) 334 - 341 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej The Effect of Buginese Language Transfer on Students’ English Pronunciation: A Case Study at SMAN 4 Barru Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Recived 10 February 2019 Accepted 04 July 2019 Published 15 September 2019 __________________ Keywords: Language transfer, Second language acquisition, English pronunciation ____________________ Abstract _________________________________________________________________ Indonesia is a country consists of various cultures and possesses hundreds of native language. Therefore, in the process of l2 acquisition, the impact of L1 on English articulation certainly is seen as a tough obstacle for the Indonesian EFL learners. In SLA, it is known as language transfer. Buginese language as one of the native language existed in South Sulawesi also gave positive and negative transfer towards English pronunciation. It was proven through a qualitative case study employed towards 20 students from XI IPA 2 at SMAN 4 Barru. To obtain the data, several methods were undergone such as questionnaires, students’ recording, interview and observation. The results of the study showed that Buginese language gave major negative transfer towards vowels /ə/ and /æ/, diphthongs /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/ and /əʊ/, consonants /p/, /f/, /ŋ/ and /n/, and also clusters skr/, /spl/ (initial), /sk/, and /bl/. Moreover, this language gave minor negative transfer towards long vowels /i:/, /ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, and /u:/ and vowels /ɒ/, also consonants /ʤ/, /ʒ/, /z/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, /ʧ/, and /ʃ/. It did not give any transfer towards diphthongs /eɪ/ (initial), /aɪ/ (initial and final) and /aʊ/. Besides that, Buginese language also gave minor positive transfer towards; vowels /ʌ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ʊ/ and /ɔ/, diphthongs /ɔɪ/, /eɪ/ (middle and final), and /aɪ/ (middle), and also consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, /h/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /r/, /s/, /t/, /w/ and /y/. Last, the role of the teacher in improving students’ pronunciation was considered lack and need to be improved. © 2019 Universitas Negeri Semarang Correspondence Address: Kampus Pascasarjana Unnes, Jl.Kelud Utara III Semarang 5023, Indonesia Email: lisaharun39@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 335 INTRODUCTION Language is inseparable from human being as it is road for communicating to each other. As we live in the globalization era, the demand for learning foreign language especially English is increasing as it becomes a communication tool among people around the world. To fluently speaking in English, a number of sub-skills are a must for the EFL learners to master involving vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics, pronunciation and others (Fraser, 2000). The most supporting sub- skill according to Fraser is pronunciation, as for the speaker with good pronunciation is still understandable even it contains errors within, and speaker with bad pronunciation leads to misunderstanding in communication. However, like any other aspects of English, certainly there will be many affecting factors that might become obstacles for the learners during learning pronunciation. Kenworthy (1978) divided the factors that affect the pronunciation learning into the native language, age factor, amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity, and motivation. Zhang (2009) on the other hand, proposed that factors affecting pronunciation are categorized into two areas, which are named internal and external factors. Internal factor focuses on L2 learner themselves, and involves biologic factor (i.e. age, ear perception, and aptitude) and individual differences (i.e. personality, attitude, motivation, identity, individual efforts, and goal setting). External factor involves L2 learner’s learning environment, and relates to learner’s native language, exposure, and educational factors. The impact of native language on English articulation is certainly a tough obstacle for the Indonesian EFL learners as Indonesia consists of various cultures and possesses hundreds of native language. In the process of acquiring the second language, the influence of the prior language is called language transfer or cross-linguistic influence. It is in line with Saville-Troikes’ (2006) argument that in acquiring second language there is a general agreement that cross-linguistic influence, or transfer of prior knowledge from L1 to L2 is one of the processes that is involved in Interlanguage development. The language transfer brings positive and negative effect towards second language acquiring. It is described as positive transfer when an L1 structure or role is used in an L2 utterance and that use is appropriate or correct, meanwhile when an L1 structure or role is used in an L2 utterance and that use is inappropriate and considered as error, it is considered as negative transfer. There were several studies that investigated the positive and negative transfer from L1 towards L2. For instance, Dewi (2013) who investigated the influence of Brebes Javanese Dialect comes into conclusion that the dialect gives negative transfer on the vowel sound [ɪ], and diphthong /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/ and /ɪə/. It also gave positive transfer on the consonant sounds final [b], final [d], and final [g], meanwhile it did not give any transfer to the English initial cluster /st/, /spr/, and /str/. Moreover, Mulya (2018) found out that Serawai Melayunese dialect gave strong influence towards sound /aʊ/ and two syllable word stress on final position. In addition, the dialect did not strongly gave negative transfer on the substitutions of long vowel sounds [I’], [ɒ], [ʌ], [ɔ], and [e]. The sounds that did not strongly received positive transfer from the dialect are vowels [ʊ],[ɒ],[ʌ],[ə],[e], consonants [p], [b], [t], [d], [f], [ʃ], [k], [h], [s], [m], [n], Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 336 [l], [r], and diphthong [ɔɪ]. Falahuddin (2019), on the other hand, found out that students with Mid-East Sundanese dialect tended to change sound [æ] with [ʌ], and [e] as well as sounds [əʊ] and [eə] that replaced with sounds [ʌ], and [ɜː] as the negative transfer from L1. The consonants that received negative transfer from L1 could be seen on sound [θ], [ð], [ʧ]. Moreover, L1 also positively affected the cluster sounds [pr], [kw], [bl], and [str]. The realization of language transfer also happened to one of native language in South Sulawesi namely Buginese language. Buginese people are bilingual speakers as they use Indonesian in formal settings and Buginese language in informal context such as daily communication. The strong accent and different phoneme production usually become obstacles for them to learn new language (Nasir, 2016). The same matter also goes to English as second language, thus, a throughout investigation related to which phonemes in segmental features that affected by Buginese language need to be done. Previously, several studies have been conducted to examine sounds that were difficult to be uttered by Buginese speakers for instance, /f/ and /v/, /θ/ and /d/, /s/ and /ž/, vowel /æ/ and diphthongs /iə, uə, əu, eə/. The reasons lead to the obstacles are the different sound system between Bugis and English and also strong/heavy accent from the dialect. (Nurpahmi, 2013; Padilah et.al, 2018) Apparently, the previous study only observed the comparison of both languages towards common speakers. The current study meanwhile attempts to examine both positive and negative transfer that occurred in English segmental features resulting from Buginese language towards students. Moreover, the role from the teacher also needs to be analyzed as they also give contribution in improving students’ English pronunciation. The results of the study are expected to be a beneficial discovery for the teachers and students especially in South Sulawesi. METHOD This is a qualitative case study that using field note to obtain the data needed. The participants of the study were the students of class XI IPA 2 of SMAN 4 Barru. The total number of students in the class was 24 that later being limited to 20 as the requirement of the research were the students who originally come from Barru Regency. Various ways are undergone to get the data for instance; questionnaires that employed to obtain the data about students’ origin and background, students’, recordings to get the data about their pronunciation. The students are required to read an English text, a list of sentence, and target words that represented initial, middle and final position of each sound, interviews to obtain information related to the role of the teacher in helping the students to improve their English pronunciation, and last, observation to get information related to teacher’s contribution in real situation. The data later analyzed according to few stages such as: (1) designing, (2) selecting, (3) recording, (4) transcribing, (5) categorizing, (6) analyzing and interpreting and (7) presenting. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The results of the data lead the study to several arguments. It is divided into five parts and explained as follow. Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 337 English Vowels Affected by Buginese Language The analysis of the entire English vowels sound leads to three final results. First, Buginese language gave minor effects towards /ʌ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ʊ/ and /ɔ/. These sounds are identified as unproblematic for the students to pronounce. The causing factors that bring the easiness are the facilitation from Buginese language and also Bahasa Indonesia as those sounds are exist in both of the language’s sound systems. This situation is known as positive transfer. As stated by Seville-Troike (2006) who argued that in interlanguage development, transfer from prior language is one of the processes happening towards second language acquisition. As there were positive and negative form of transfer, apparently positive transfer is a condition where the structure and rule of L1 suitable to be applied in L2. Second, Buginese language gave minor negative transfer towards vowels /i:/, /ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, and /u:/ and also vowels /ɒ/. From the findings results, it could be stated that the entire words that represent long vowels were substituted into short vowels /ɪ/, /ʌ/, /ɔ/ and /ʊ/, meanwhile, sound /ɒ/ was tended to be pronounced into /ɔ/. The phenomenon was due to the inexistence of both long vowels and /ɒ/ in their first language namely Buginese language. Even though the inexistence of the sound occurred in Buginese language, it could not be said that the first language was the main cause of the negative transfer. Other factors might come from the inexistence of the sound in Bahasa Indonesia and teachers who did not introduce the sound to the students because of lack of time in teaching English. In addition, the major negative transfer from Buginese language could be seen in vowels /ə/ and /æ/. Buginese language recognized both sound /e/ and /ə/ in its sound system, for instance [mʌegʌ] (many) and [mʌkʌtə] (itchy). However, in pronouncing the entire words in during the recording, I realized that the students overused the sound /e/ and substituted it from sound /ə/, such as in the word ‘development’ [dɪˈvɛləpmənt] that pronounced as [dɛfɛlɔfmɛn]. This phenomenon was one of the negative transfer that comes from Buginese language as Buginese people most frequently using sound /e/ in their daily communication. Moreover, the students had difficulties in uttering sound /æ/ in word ‘act’ [ˈækt] and ‘character’ [ˈkærɪktə] and tended to substitute the current sound with /ʌ/. English Diphthongs Affected by Buginese Language Dealing with the data gave me several final results related to the effect of Buginese language. First, it could be seen that Buginese language gave minor positive transfer to diphthongs such as /ɔɪ/, /eɪ/ (middle and final), and /aɪ/ (middle). From the result, it could be concluded that students have no difficulties to produce those sounds and the effects of Buginese language as L1 was one of the factors that facilitated the positive transfer. According to Nurpahmi (2013), Buginese sound system recognized more diphthongs than English. There are /aɪ/, /eɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔe/, /ʊɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /ʊe/, /aɪ/, /ʊa/, /ɪa/ and /ɪʊ/. Apparently in her study, she confirmed that there were four diphthongs that exist both in Buginese language and English, namely /aɪ/, /eɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/ and according to students’ pronunciation result; the familiarity of the sounds makes them easy to pronounce the represented words. Moreover, there were some diphthongs that did not receive any negative transfer from Buginese language Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 338 to the students. It is /eɪ/ (initial), /aɪ/ (initial and final) and /aʊ/. Even though the students were familiar with those sounds, they seem have difficulties in pronouncing the represented words. The examples were ‘agent’ that tend to be pronounced as [ʌgɛn], ‘aisle’ as [ɛisli], ‘sky’ as [skɪ] and others. As stated by Seville- Troike (2006), intralingual errors are the result of incomplete learning of L2 rules or overgeneralization of them and not attributable to cross-linguistic influence. So, the errors made by the students can be categorized as developmental or intralingual errors which due to the limited and incomplete L2 learning that lead to confusion to choose the correct use of sound. Last, Buginese language gave major negative transfer towards diphthong /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/ and /əʊ/. Based on the result in findings section, the students were not familiar with those sounds and tended to substitute it into other easiest sound for them. For example, /ɪə/ tends to become /eɪ/, /e/, or /ɪ/, /eə/ tended to change into /aɪ/, /eɪ/, /e/, /ʌ/, and /i/, /ʊə/ tended to be /ʊ/ and /ɔ/, meanwhile /əʊ/ becomes /ɔʊ/, /ɔʊə/, /ɔ/, /ɪ/, and /e/. This was happened because of the gap differences between students’ L1 and L2, until they chose to use the structure of L1. English Consonants Affected by Buginese Language The final result of the recordings brought several arguments that later divided into how Buginese language affected positively or negatively towards the consonants. First, Buginese language gave minor positive transfer towards consonants such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /h/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /r/, /s/, /t/, /w/ and /y/. As these sounds existed in the speech sounds of Buginese language, therefore, the students were facilitated and did not feel any difficulty in pronouncing the sounds. Apparently, they categorized as receiving minor positive transfer from Buginese language due to many factors that assisted students’ easiness to utter them and not only from Buginese language. Other factor that supported the facilitation was Bahasa Indonesia that the students have learned in school. Second, Buginese language gave minor negative transfer to the consonants sounds such as /ʤ/, /ʒ/, /z/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, /ʧ/, and /ʃ/. I classified that Buginese language only gave minor negative transfer and not major as there were other factors that affecting the transfer for instance, Bahasa Indonesia and spelling interference. For sound /ʤ/, even though it existed in both speech sound of Buginese language and Bahasa Indonesia, they tend to substitute the sound into /g/ in the word ‘religion’ and ‘privilege’ in the middle and final position. Other factor might influence the substitution and one of that was spelling interference. In addition, the influence of Buginese language and Bahasa Indonesia were also noticed in sound /ʧ/ where the students had tendency to pronounce the sound as sound /c/ that existed in both language. It was in line with Ramelan’s argument in Mulya (2019) that Indonesian students tend to substitute sound /ʧ/ with sound /c/ as in word [cantik] (beautiful) which is more alveolar and not rounding. In the middle position for the word ‘eventually’ instead, they changed the sound /ʧ/ into /t/, so it could be said that they tend to utter the word exactly as how it is written. In the other hand, /ð/, /θ/, and /ʃ/ were sounds in English that did not exist in speech sound of both Buginese language and Bahasa Indonesia. Therefore, students tended to pronounce those sounds into the nearest sound in their first language; for instance, Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 339 /ð/ becomes /d/, /θ/ becomes /t/, and /ʃ/ becomes /s/. In addition, students could not pronounce the sound /z/ and /v/ in initial, medial and final position. They had tendency to change sound /v/ with /f/ and /p/ while /z/ is changed into /s/. Third, Buginese language gave major negative transfer to the consonant sound /p/, /f/, /ŋ/ and /n/. In observing students’ pronunciation, I found out that the substitution between sound /p/ and /f/ were done by the students naturally and unintentionally. For instance, in pronouncing ‘politician’ and ‘paper’, some students pronounced it with sound /p/ at the first meeting but later they changed the sound into /f/ until it became ‘folitician’ and ‘fafer’. Moreover, the substitution between /ŋ/ and /n/, or vice versa also happened in students pronunciation. English Consonant Clusters Affected by Buginese Language The Buginese language gave major negative transfer towards clusters such as /skr/, /spl/ (initial), /sk/, and /bl/. It could be seen from the students’ result that in pronouncing word ‘screw’, ‘splash’, ‘skill’ and ‘black’, they tended to add sound /ə/ between the clusters. For example, ‘splash’ becomes [səplæʃ], ‘skill’ becomes [səkɪl], ‘screw’ becomes [səkrɔu], and ‘black’ becomes [bəlek]. Other than that, the word ‘establish’ from the middle position of cluster /bl/ also got affected by Buginese language. The students tend to add sound /ɪ/ between the clusters until the word was pronounced as [ɪsˈtʌbɪlɪs]. Teacher’s Role in Improving Students’ English Pronunciation To collect the data related to this research question, I applied the interview and observation as the instruments. From the interview with the teacher and observation in the classroom, I found several arguments related to pronunciation teaching. First, the teacher argued that she trained and monitored students’ pronunciation every time they read a passage or sentences in the class, but the reality showed that she only gave correction towards students’ pronunciation when they learning new vocabularies or whenever they failed to pronounce correct words and this only happened once or twice throughout the meeting. Harmer in Gilakjani (2016) argued that many teachers are paying attention more to skill such as grammar and vocabulary to help foreign learners in listening and reading until the importance of pronunciation were abandoned. In addition, the allocation of time in 2013 curriculum that still was seen as the consideration made by the teacher to divide the time wisely and preferred to teach other skill rather than pronunciation. Second, the teacher admitted that in the learning process, dictionary was a crucial tool that facilitated the students to acquire not only new vocabularies but also pronunciation. However, in real situation, bringing a dictionary for English subject was not a necessity for the students and was considered more to a formality only. In coping with the situation, the teacher needs to have self-awareness about the importance of teaching pronunciation by at least asking the students to bring dictionary and make them pronouncing the correct words. Last, the native language of both teacher and students also became highlighted issue that need to be concerned by the teacher. Kenworthy (1987) stated that native language was one of the factors that affect learner’s pronunciation along with the age factor, amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity, and motivation. . The native language effect Lisa Binti Harun, Januarius Mujiyanto, Abdurrachman Faridi/ EEJ 9 (3) 2019 334 - 341 340 was undeniable matter that later become special features or characteristics that called accent. However, every native language brought negative transfer to English language learning, therefore, the teacher need to decrease its effects by providing correct and proper pronunciation for the students. CONCLUSION The conclusions of the study bring to several arguments. Buginese language gave minor positive transfer towards sound /ʌ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ʊ/ and /ɔ/ as the sound also exists in Bahasa Indonesia and the positive transfer may affected by both of them. Moreover, it gives minor negative transfer towards long vowels such as /i:/, /ɑ:/, /ɔ:/, and /u:/ and also vowels /ɒ/. The strong influence of the language could be seen in two vowels namely /ə/ and /æ/. Besides that, Buginese language also gave minor positive transfer towards diphthongs /ɔɪ/, /eɪ/ (middle and final), and /aɪ/ (middle) and did not give any effect on sound /eɪ/ (initial), /aɪ/ (initial and final) and /aʊ/. Strong influence of Buginese language could be seen on sounds /ɪə/, /eə/, /ʊə/ and /əʊ/. Towards English consonants, /b/, /d/, /g/, /h/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /r/, /s/, /t/, /w/ and /y/ were sounds that received minor positive transfer from Buginese language. Consonants that received minor negative transfer from the language were /ʤ/, /ʒ/, /z/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, /ʧ/, and /ʃ/. The major negative transfer instead, can be seen in the consonant sounds /p/, /f/, /ŋ/ and /n/. In pronouncing /p/ and /f/, the substitution between the two sounds done naturally and unintentionally. It also happens between /ŋ/ and /n/. Next, from seven consonant clusters that I investigated, the Buginese language gives major negative transfer towards clusters such as /skr/, /spl/ (initial), /sk/, and /bl/. It could be seen from the students’ result that in pronouncing word ‘screw’, ‘splash’, ‘skill’ and ‘black’, they tended to add sound /ə/ between the clusters, while for the word ‘establish’ from the middle position of cluster /bl/ tended to be added sound /ɪ/ between the clusters. 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