The production of RP English vowels by native Omani adults : a quantitative analysis

Abstract EN

The primary aim of this study is to determine if RP English vowels that do not have counterparts in Omani Arabic constitute learning problems to Omani adult learners ( OALs) of English, and to decide if the size of the vowel contributes negatively to vowel production as attempted by these learners.

Other minor objectives are to elicit learners' of English feedback about the main oddities they have faced while studying RP English vowels, and the effectiveness of the teaching techniques used to teach these vowels.

This feedback is obtained via distributing a questionnaire to forty six departmental college students who have already taken a course in phonetics.The subjects who took part in the experiment were sixteen OALs joining a college foundation programme.

Forty tokens were read by the subjects where each RP English vowel is repeated twice.

The results obtained were subjected to mean value and percentage analyses.

As expected, non-existing diphthongs caused the major area of production difficulty, followed by non-existing monophthongs.

In contrast, RP English long vowels registered little difficulty.

The main strategy adopted by these learners to produce these problematic vowels was phonemic substitution.

Diphthongs were replaced by long vowels while monophthongs were replaced by other equivalents.

The important findings revealed by the questionnaire are; (i) the most effective techniques that contribute to the mastery of RP English vowels are constant listening to native speakers, ear training, vowel identification drills, transcription drills, and minimal pair drills, and (ii) RP English vowels should be taught in a sequence, viz, monophthongs, dipthongs, and triphthongs