ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS OF THE TERTIARY LEVEL STUDENTS IN BANGLADESH: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:In Bangladesh, English has been in use for more than four centuries, first as the language of the early merchants, missionaries and settlers; then as the language of the British colonial power; later as the associate official language in the postcolonial Pakistan period and finally - in the last few decades after the independence of Bangladesh in 1971- as the most important and widely used perceived second language. Even it has been about seventy years since the British left the Indian sub -continent; it continues to play an important role in numerous domains of Bengali life. Numerous newspapers, journals and magazines are published in English in Bangladesh. English also enjoys a very privileged position in the education sector. English-medium education, with higher education, particularly in private sector, is often accessible only through English. As a result, the teaching of English has turned into a profitable business. In job sector, too, English is a determining factor. Therefore, in The National Education Policy 2010, English Education has been given much priority to build strong, confident and international based citizens and nation to compete with modern world.The policy suggests to take appropriate steps from the very early stage of education to ensure English writing and speaking skills with further emphasis in the forthcoming classes as per needs. English is also suggested to be taught as a compulsory subject at the degree level of all colleges and universities. The study also recommends to appoint English teachers to high schools and higher education for ensuring better English education. In the policy, English is also suggested to remain as a medium of instruction in higher education along with Bangla. (National Education Policy 2010).Thus, while the demand of English, on the whole, is soaring, the spoken English with correct pronunciation is the most neglected area in Bangladesh. Let alone secondary and higher secondary students, even tertiary students of Bangladesh have so many unfixed problems in pronunciation. L1 interference is dominantly present in their English pronunciation. Thus, their pronunciation is influenced by different Bangladeshi dialects and standard Bangla as well. As they are not familiar with International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols, they cannot differentiate between Bangla and English phonology. Moreover, they do not get much motivation to improve their English pronunciation by the teachers. Therefore, with the aim of dealing with pronunciation difficulties of Bangladeshi tertiary learners of English, the present study surrounds the following questions:1. What English sounds do the tertiary students of Bangladesh face problems to produce with?2. What kinds of factors are responsible for the difficulties of English pronunciation by the students?3. How much influence do the dialects of Bangla have on English pronunciation of the students?REVIEW OF LITERATURE:Various researchers showed that English pronunciation problem is a common phenomenon in many countries where English is a second or foreign language.In tracing out difficulties faced by Bangladeshi speakers of English, Rahman (1996), in a study, has found that in Bangladesh, English is spoken with an accent related to the mother tongue which pays little attention to sound patterns, stress, rhythm and intonation system of English. Haque et al. (1990, as cited in Rahman, 1996, p.15) shows that a Bengali vowel is not conditioned by length. On the other hand, length distinguishes English vowel sounds /i: i,o: o, u: u/. Bengali speakers do not usually make any distinctions between long and short vowels. For example- they pronounce /ful/ and /fu:l/ in the same way. He again found that the chief difficulty for a Bengali learner is using the weak forms /a/ and /i/ in unstressed syllables. This is not usually observed by a Bengali speaker.Along the same context, Mujaffar (1999) observes that Bangladeshi speakers pronounce the voiced palatal plosive /z/ and the voiced palato alveolar affricate /^/ as allophones of same phoneme. …