ERROR ANALYSIS OF IGALAPHONE FRENCH AND ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OF FRICATIVE SOUNDS

Abstract

The aim of this research work is to investigate the capacity of learners to orally and visually recognize and pronounce the fricative sounds of French and English correctly.  The researchers focus on students of first year who have Igala cultural background to know their accuracy in identifying and pronouncing some fricative words. Qualitative method was employed in this research work. A descriptive study was conducted with 130 participants focusing on students. Certain oral tests and other research tools were utilized to collect data for the study. The researchers involve themselves to collect data by observing the respondents, recording their pronunciation and analyzing the error on their pronunciation based on theories of error analysis. The oral tests are divided into two categories, the first category is on French fricative and it is meant to test the French students while the second test is strictly to test the English learners on English fricative sounds. In the test, learners are to pronounce given fricative sounds while their performance is being noted. Finally, the study reveals several findings. Most learners do not have much problems pronouncing sounds like /f/, /s/, and /ʃ/, but find the sounds /v/, /θ/, /z/, /ʒ/,/θ/, /z/-/ʒ/, and /ʒ/ very difficult. The sounds the learners find easy to identify and pronounce are those found in the learners L1, while those they find difficult are those absent in the orthography of the learners’ first language (L1).