| dc.description.abstract | The present research was conducted to investigate how Vietnamese college
students pronounce English three-consonant onset clusters including /spl/, /spr/, /str/, /stj/,
/skr/, /skw/, /skj/. These clusters are aspects of the English language that are governed by
phonological rules, or more precisely, by syllabic structure. The aim of this paper is to
provide the answer to the question whether Vietnamese learners of English are
pronouncing those English clusters in an accurate manner and also to see if Vietnamese
students commit any mistakes that are generally known to have been caused by the
marked differences between Vietnamese and English syllable structures. To this end, 30
intermediate EFL learners were involved in a pronunciation test which was then
recorded, followed by an interview session. The analysis of students’ speaking samples
and their responses to the interview questions showed that some clusters were more
problematic to the learners than others, thereby achieving lower levels of pronunciation
accuracy. Vietnamese effort to pronounce English initial 3-consonant clusters is likely to
be towards omitting, inserting schwa (or its variables) or substituting by sounds that are
closer to those existing in their mother tongue. Inaccuracies when pronouncing these
three-consonant clusters were most often caused by omission, rather than vowel insertion
or modification. | en_US |
