Phonetic and Phonological Transfer from Northern Vietnamese to English in Consonant Clusters and Voiceless Final Obstruents

Abstract

This article studies phonetic and phonological transfer from Northern Vietnamese to English observed in the production of consonant clusters and voiceless final obstruents. The pronunciation of a corpus of words in English produced by eight Northern Vietnamese participants has been obtained by means of two reading tasks and compared to the productions of two English speakers. The material has been auditorily and acoustically analysed following a descriptive approach and using a mixed methodology. The features that conform to phonetic and phonological transfer from Northern Vietnamese to English have been identified and analysed. Finally, some applications of this study have been proposed to help intelligibility in international contexts and to enhance the teaching of English to Northern Vietnamese students.