Difficulties faced by British and Iraqi undergraduate students of English when pronouncing Arabic true geminates and English fake geminates

Abstract EN

This paper investigates gemination which is a phonetic phenomenon in English and Arabic .It is concerned with true geminates and fake geminates phonetically ,true geminates which are found in Arabic are long segments which contrast with short ones , thus Arabic speakers have a phonemic length contrast since they treat long and short versions of the same sound as distinct categories .

In contrast, fake geminates which are found in Arabic, but in English are called so because they are phonetically long but their length does not serve as a phonetic contrast .The research aims at revealing the difference in the achievement of the Arab and British undergraduate students of English when pronouncing Arabic true geminates and English fake geminates .It also aims to point out the effect of the intrinsic difference that concerns gemination in both languages .

The third aim of this paper is to find out the type of English fake geminate which has more difference in the achievement of the subjects involved in this research .On the light of these aims three hypotheses were set .To carry out this research ,ten Iraqi (Arab ) undergraduate students of English from University of Anbar (4th year students ) were chosen besides ten British undergraduate students of English(4th year students ) from Essex University .The subjects involved in the study have to participate in two tests .In the first ,they have to pronounce twenty Arabic words (single and geminate),whereas in the second test ,they have to pronounce thirty words about the types of English fake geminates ,ten words were selected for each type .The study arrives at certain findings and conclusions .