Interference of Phonological Aspects of Emphatic Consonant Sounds from Arabic into English Consonant Sounds for Sudanese University Students of English

Abstract

This study investigates why SUSE substitue the English consonant sounds /t/, /d/, /s/, /z /and /ð/ by the emphatic Arabic sounds /s/, /t/, /d/, and /ð/ in English words. The sample of this study is a group of Sudanese university students majoring in English. The first data collection tool is a test. This test contains a sample of words that contain the problematic sounds; these words have been observed to contain /ʌ/, /ə/ and /ɒ/. The second CAH is used to compare the articulation of the problematic sounds in both languages in addition to the emphatic sounds in Arabic. The most important results are as follows. First, some distinctive features of the English vowel sounds are shared by distinctive features of the emphatic Arabic sounds. Second, because of their absence in Arabic, the English vowels /ʌ/, /ə/ and /ɒ/ regressively and progressively influence the English sounds /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/ and /ð/ and change their quality to the emphatic Arabic sounds) /s/, /t/, /d/, and /ð/).