1 ERROR ANALYSIS OF PHONETIC FOSSILIZATION UTTERED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS UNIVERSITY OF PGRI SEMARANG Sukma Nur Ardini1 Maria Yosephin WL Nicolas Lodawik Ouwpoly sukmanurardini27@gmail.com ABSTRACT Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan tipe dan latar belakang fosilisasi fonetik yang diucapkan oleh mahasiswa semester 5 Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris di Universitas PGRI Semarang tahun 2014/2015. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain penelitian deskriptif dengan data kualitatif. Populasi dari penelitian ini adalah para mahasiswa semester 5 yang mengambil mata kuliah English Phonology dengan jumlah mahasiswa 200. Sampel penelitian adalah kelas 5E, kelas yang paling aktif dan dominan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa hanya 15% kata di dalam kuesioner penelitian yang berhasil dilafalkan dengan baik oleh para responden. Itu artinya bahwa fosilisasi fonetik dilakukan lebih dari 75% responden. Tipe kesalahan yang dibuat adalah tipe fosilisasi fonetik baik dalam kategori perseorangan maupun kelompok, sementara itu alasan-alasan mereka melakukan kesalahan adalah; 1) Simbol fonetik yang masih tidak familier bagi mahasiswa semester. 2) Terdapat habituasi dan kebiasaan-kebiasaan yang merujuk pada dua faktor: internal dan eksternal. Faktor internalnya adalah mahasiswa itu sendiri, yang berarti motivasi untuk belajar dan hasrat untuk lebih dalam mempelajari simbol-simbol fonetik. Faktor eksternalnya merujuk pada proses pembelajaran dan sudut pandang dosen. 3) Metode yang digunakan oleh para dosen pengampu mata kuliah English Phonology and Pronounciation. Masalah ini harus diturunkan karena 90% dari mahasiswa menyatakan di dalam wawancara bahwa mereka sangat tertarik dengan subjek ini dan juga menyatakan bahwa para dosen tidak memberikan tekanan, namun faktanya persentase kesalahan dalam pelafalan di atas rata-rata. Berdasarkan pada hasil-haasil ini, peneliti memberika saran sebagai berikut; 1) Permasalahan ini menjadi tugas bagi seluruh dosen bahasa Inggris, tidak hanya dosen yang mengajar mata kuliah English Phonology and Pronunciation. 2) Simbol- simbol fonetik harus diterapkan secara intensif dan integral sehingga para mahasiswa dapat familier dengan simbol-simbol tersebut. 3) Kebutuhan akan penelitian lebih lanjut yang terkait dengan metode-metode yang digunakan oleh para dosen. Kata kunci: fosilisasi fonetik, mahasiswa semester 5, pendidikan bahasa Inggris 1 Penulis adalah pengajar di Universitas PGRI Semarang. 2 INTRODUCTION To be very unfortunate that the researchers still found a lot of phonetic fossilization uttered by students of English Education in University of PGRI Semarang. It is quite in contrast to the daily activities carried out by the students of the English Department in each semester in which the course is taught all in English language component. However, the fact shows that the phenomenon is students are still making pronunciation errors even in simple English words. For example, the word 'wear' pronounced /wir/ should be /weǝr/, the word 'bear' is pronounced /biǝ(r)/, the word 'student' is pronounced /stɅdən/ and more. This shows that the mindset of students still strongly influenced by Indonesian and Javanese language which have the same pronunciation with the writing, e.g. the word 'student'. 'U' in Bahasa Indonesia is pronounced 'Ʌ' as the word 'hut' /hɅt/ or 'butter' /bɅtǝ(r)/. This is still done by the 5th semester students who will take PPL 1 and 2 courses or in the current curriculum is now turned into Magang course. But whatever the name, this course is closely associated with student’s skill. As a prospective English teacher, different from other majors, students of English Education have a heavier task. They "should" be able to communicate in English very well. Therefore, the four major skills must be mastered as listening, reading, writing and speaking. This is the main goal of this research; 1) Obtaining a type of phonetic fossilization errors uttered by 5th semester students majoring in English Education University of PGRI Semarang, and 2) Knowing the background of phonetic fossilization errors made by 5th semester students majoring in English Education University of PGRI Semarang . RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This study used a qualitative descriptive study design to analyze the data. The qualitative data are in the form of utterances (in words) produced by 40 students from class 5E as a sample out of 200 students who are majoring English Education University of PGRI Semarang as the total population. This research was done by doing observation, questionnaires distribution, personal interviews, and documentation. All of the data are processed and developed by the researchers descriptively. 3 PHONETIC FOSSILIZATION An effective learning implies that the learners have to interact with every language aspects (lexicon, grammar, phonology, etc) through different teaching methods. The first who raises the fossilization idea is Selinker. He records that 95 percent of L2 learners are failed to reach the same pronunciation level as the real L1 speakers. Such phenomenon is defined as fossilization by Selinker (1972). Fossilization is a mechanism that grounds every surface of linguistic materials where speakers will tend to keep producing their L1, No matter what is the learner’s age and how long does the speaker studies or speaks by using target language (L2). Selinker adds if usually, individual fossilization consists of two aspects: error appearance and language competence fossilization. Error appearance refers to interlanguage structures that considered as inappropriate that has been estimated to have fixed but still keeps appeared regularly. This often found on low-competence learners. While the second aspect, language competence fossilization, refers to learner’s L2 phonology development, grammatical competence, lexical, and pragmatics. These can be found on L2 learners that has been learning target language for a long time and on a relatively high level. It will be worse if such language mistakes keep repeatedly continually so that it forms a community and a fossilization group will be exist. The Indians community and Singaporean community that speak English is an example of existing fossilization group. Fossilization is a linguistic phenomenon in an individual and realized as a form of deviation from target language. This happens on all levels, from phonologic level through pragmatics level. FINDING AND DISCUSSION Phonetic Fossilization Done by Students (in Words) It found that the error percentage is high when students pronounce the word 'wear, prize, shame, measure, and clown' by the percentage of 100% or it can be said that none of the students pronounce those words correctly. 97,5% of errors generated to the pronunciation of the word 'caught and pale'. Only one student is able to pronounce correctly. 92,5% of students made mistake in pronouncing the word 'page and voice'. The word 'cure' has a percentage of 90%, while the word 'toast and teeth' have a percentage of 87,5%. Furthermore, 85% of students made mistake in pronouncing the word 'chart' and 82,5% for the word 'kite'. 75% of students made a mistake in pronouncing the word 'cease', followed by 65% of the word 'breast', 62.5% for 'beneath', 60% for the word 'curb', 4 57.5% for 'chop', 42.5% for 'beard', 27.5% for the word 'laugh', 25% for 'goose', 22.5% for 'who', 10% for 'harvest', 5% for 'enemy', and 2.5% of students made mistake in pronouncing the word 'back and enough'. There are five words that are pronounced correctly by the 5th semester students; 'hiss, pull, about, other, and sink'. Phonetic Fossilization Done by Students (in Phonetic Transcription) The result shows that 100% of students made mistake in pronouncing word /saikaiǝtrist/, which means that none of the students was correct in pronouncing this word. 95% for the word /jestǝdi/, 87.5% for /kǝnfju:zd/ and /auǝ/, 72.5% for /ʃi:l/, 75% for /steinʤ/, 67.5% for /jǝ/ and /eniϴiȠ/, 62.5% for /tǝ/, 50% for /ǝuvǝr/, 45% for /dɅznt/, 37.5% word /ðaet/, 35% for /ʤǝst/, 30% for /ǝpinjǝn/, 20% for /ka:nt/, 15% for /mætǝ/, and 5% for /iksplein/. From the results of calculations which have been described above, it is known that the type of phonetic fossilization errors made by 5th semester students of English Education University of PGRI Semarang is the type of phonological fossilization for the category of individuals and groups. This refers to the persistence of individual learners in developing L1 and the development of language communities. The data obtained by researchers are also derived from the direct observation for the respondents by observing their speech act or utterance at campus both in the lecture and non-lecture. Observations did show results that support the results of the questionnaire that 50% of 5th semester students made errors in phonetic fossilization of English words. This fact certainly requires attention of all lecturers, especially English Department University of PGRI Semarang. The 5th semester students who should be capable for taking out into schools were not yet able to fully pronounce English words properly. From the observations, it appears that the English language is still not a daily language even though they are students of the English department. Questionnaire that researchers distributed is in the form of a cluster or sequence of words in English with the average difficulty level. Background of the Phonetic Fossilization This problem is becoming one of the important objectives in this research. This is considered important to find out the background of the respondents why they still do the phonetic fossilization. It is required 5 spontaneous and honest answer from respondents, therefore, the interviews were conducted. Based on interviews that have been obtained, the answers are as follows: 1. What do you like from English Phonology course? a. 31 respondents said that they really like English Phonology subject because they are able to know the proper pronunciation as well as the emphases on the sentence pronunciation. b. 4 respondents said that the lecturers did not make students feel depressed in the classroom. c. 5 respondents said that the English Phonology subject was interesting. 2. What do you dislike from English Phonology course? a. 28 respondents said that things were disliked was when asked to write phonetic transcription without opening a dictionary. b. 5 respondents said that what they did not like was if the pronunciation was difficult and wrong. c. 4 respondents said that the material and the explanation were too long and difficult to understand. d. 3 respondents said no / not yet. 3. Mention vowel that you think is hard? Explain why? a. 40 respondents answered the same thing that there are some vowels which are considered difficult; e, ɜː, æ, ə, ʊ, ɔː. b. The respondents said that these symbols were often reversed with similar pronunciation symbols. On the other hand, they are not familiar with these symbols. 4. Mention consonant that you think is hard? Explain why? a. 40 respondents answered the same thing that there are some consonants which are considered difficult; j , s , z , θ , ð , tʃ , ʃ , ʒ. b. The respondents said that they are not accustomed to utter these symbols correctly. Besides that, the respondents also said that they found it difficult when they have to memorize the symbols and use them correctly. 5. Mention diphthong that you think is hard? Explain why? a. 40 respondents answered the same thing that there are some diphthongs which are considered difficult; eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ , əʊ , oʊ , eə , ɒ , ʊə. b. All respondents answered that they are not familiar with the way of writing and the pronunciation of those diphthongs symbols. Then, 6 they are still confused to distinguish vowel, consonant, and diphthongs symbols. 6. How do you think the most effective way to make you read phonetic transcription properly? The response of the respondents is as follows: a. Read phonetic transcription a lot. b. Being familiar with the phonetic transcription. c. Practice writing phonetic transcription a lot. d. Watch and listen audio visual of phonetics matters as well as face to face with the one who is cleverer. e. Watch a lot of English movies. f. Increase vocabulary. g. Read books that are relevant to facilitate students’ knowledge of English Phonology and phonetic transcription. h. Lecturers’ support by giving suggestions and examples of correct pronunciation and writing. Conclusions that can be underlined are: 1) The 5th semester students are not familiar with phonetic symbols. 2) There is no habituation and habits. It refers to two factors; internal and external. The internal factor is from the students itself which means their self-motivation and desire to explore phonetic symbols are low. Interviews showed that 90% of students stated they are very interested in this subject, but frequent occurrence of phonetic fossilization is still remaining. Other evidence refers to the 75% of students do not like to write using phonetic symbols as well as the lack of opportunities in practicing these symbols written or oral. Meanwhile, the external factors refer to the learning process and lecturer of the English Phonology and Pronunciation courses. If 90% of the students stated they are very interested in this subject and the lecturers do not give pressure, it means the background of the frequent occurrence of phonetic fossilization lead to the method used by the lecturer of the English Phonology and Pronunciation courses. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION The conclusions from the researchers are as follows: 1. From the 33 cluster words of orthographic writing and 17 words from the phonetic transcription, only 15% of the words that are pronounced correctly by the 5th semester student of English Education. This means phonetic fossilization is still happening in more than 75% students. 7 2. Type of phonetic fossilization committed by the 5th semester student of English Education University of PGRI Semarng is the type of phonological fossilization for category of individuals and groups. 3. The background why this mistake still remain is; 1) The 5th semester students are not familiar with phonetic symbols. 2) There is no habituation and habits. It refers to two factors; internal and external. The internal factor is from students itself which means the students self-motivation and intention to explore phonetic symbols is low. The external factors refer to the learning process and the lecturers of the English Phonology and Pronunciation courses. 4. There are allegations backgrounds of the frequent occurrence of phonetic fossilization lead to the method used by the lecturers of the English Phonology and Pronunciation courses. Because 90% of the students stated they are very interested in this subject and also the lecturers do not give pressure. But it is inversely related to the fact that the percentage of pronunciation errors are still high. By considering the results of the research, some suggestions are given as follows: 1. Requiring all lecturers to pay attention more to this issue, not only the lecturers of English Phonology and Pronunciation courses so students more aware that pronunciation is very important for them. 2. Pronunciation and phonetic symbols need to be introduced intensively by lecturers in each of semester until they graduate. 3. Further studies are needed refer to the method used by lecturers. BIBLIOGRAPHY Corder, S. D. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krashen, S. D. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Elseiver. http://www.sdkrashen.com/. Nunan, David. 1993. Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ramelan. 1994. English Phonetics. Semarang: IKIP Semarang Press. 8 —. 1992. Introduction to Linguistic Analysis. Semarang: IKIP Semarang Press. Roach, P. 1983. English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Selinker, L. 1972. “Interlanguage.” International Review of Applied Linguistics 10: 209-231. Xueping, Wei. 2008. “Implication of IL Fossilization in Second Language Acquisition.” English Language Teaching 1 (1). Diakses April 19, 2014. Page 1 Page 2 Page 1 Page 2