Jordanian University Students’ Awareness of the Different Phonetic Alternates of the English Plural Morpheme

Abstract

This research paper investigates the extent to which Jordanian university students majoring in English are aware of the different phonetic forms or alternates of the English plural morpheme. The paper analyzes the results taken from 50 fourth-year female university students and 50 first-year female university students at Princess Alia University College at Al-Balqa Applied University in Amman. They were presented with randomized lists of 30 monosyllabic nonsense nouns selected to test their awareness of the various phonetic formsof the plural morpheme in English. The results showed that the fourth-year students outperformed the first-year students in producing the various phonetic productions of the plural morpheme. The groups used the same repair strategies. Analogy from the mother tongue was detected in the responses of both groups.