STUDENTS’ PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION ERROR ANALYSIS: A CASE STUDY IN TUZLA AND BANJA LUKA ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS

Abstract

This paper examines phonemic transcription errors of L2 learners of English, majoring in English language and literature, undergraduate students affiliated with the English Departments in two of the country’s major university cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), as case study and provides a comparison of their performance across several levels. The paper is a result of collaboration between two English Departments in BiH, one based in Tuzla and the other one in Banja Luka. The main focus of the paper is to look into English phonemic transcription errors made by students of English at the Bachelor’s level.The study encompasses a total of 30 students from the English Department in Tuzla, and 40 students in the Banja Luka English Department in the academic year 2022/2023. All students attended the English Phonetics and Phonology courses taught during the first year of study. Students’ English transcription errors were first collected and then analysed and categorised, respectively, focusing on the most important aspects of connected speech. More specifically, the study shows the extent to which the two groups of students, following the same curriculum and syllabus, developed their English phonemic transcription skills, with a particular focus on the use of diacritics for aspirated and unexploded plosives, velarized, dental and syllabic consonants. Additionally, keeping in mind that various phonological phenomena are found in connected speech, the paper focuses on coalescence (the coalescent type of assimilation) as one of the most frequent such phenomena found in everyday usage. In the concluding remarks, the paper discusses the levels to which both groups of students in the two English Departments have succeeded in comprehending basic terms in this field, an understanding of the sound system in English, and to what degree they mastered narrow transcription skills in particular.