An Acoustic Study of the Role of Consistency of Input in Acquisition of English Central Vowels in Pakistan

Abstract

The study is aimed at observing the effect of consistency of input on the acquisition of English central vowels /ə/, /ɜ:/, /ʌ/regarding jaw opening (correlated with F1), tongue fronting (correlated with F2) and Duration of vowels. This is a quasi-experimental research that has a frame of ‘pre-test-post-test control-group’. The researcher took three intact class groups, at middle level from a public girls school, and assigned them to experimental groups and control group. Experimental Group A was consistently exposed to English RP based audios/videos for 60 consecutive days. Experimental Group B was inconsistently exposed to input in alternative days adding up to 30 days. Control group C was not given treatment of any kind. The target central vowels were embedded into / hvd/ syllables in the carrier phrase ‘say --- please’ as a stimuli. Each phrase was recorded five times in pre-test and five times in post-test adding up to twenty seven hundred tokens of English central vowels. FormantPro (Xu, 2013) software was run to obtain average values of F1, F2, and Duration of vowels of each participant. The results of the data show that central vowels of group A, particularly vowel sound /ʌ/, are significantly affected by consistent exposure to RP vowels contrary to the central vowels of group B and group C. This study recommends consistent exposure of input for effective acquisition of English phonology related to administrative and pedagogical practices.