The IPA training on the pronunciation of difficult English words for Cantonese speakers

This study investigates the pronunciations of English words that are difficult to read by Cantonese speakers and see how the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) affects the phonemic awareness of those challenging words to pronounce. English has been one of the dominant languages in Hong Kong for many decades; however, most English learners in Hong Kong do not have enough exposure to correct English pronunciation. While English has been considered as an instructional language in classroom, the absence of native English speakers in most learning environments has resulted in incorrect perception of English sounds and pronunciations. In addition, the influence of Cantonese on the English pronunciation has also been reported in the literature. The IPA is widely used in linguistics research areas. Although it has been suggested that the IPA could help ESL and/or second language learners to master the correct forms of pronunciation of English words, hardly any reports have been made on its application as language learning tools or the effects of the IPA training in second language education. Thus, the present study was conducted to see how the training of the IPA would affect the pronunciation of challenging words in English. In the study, 20 university students participated: one group (10 students) with the IPA training and the other group (10 students) without the training. First, they were asked to read English words that are difficult to guess the correct pronunciation by the spellings (e.g., ‘subtle’, ‘margarine’) without the IPA transcriptions. The task was then repeated for the second time with the IPA transcriptions provided. English words were categorized into four basic categories: the words with silent sounds (e.g., almond), the words with ‘g’ or ‘ch’ (e.g., archive), the words with liquids (e.g., reel), and the words with challenging vowels (e.g., suite). Data collection of 20 words (15 target words, 5 control words) with two repetitions by 20 speakers (20 x 2 x 20 = 800) were digitized and acoustically analyzed. Results showed a significant change in the improvements of pronunciation within the group with the IPA training. The IPA transcriptions somehow improved the pronunciations of a few words produced by the group without the training; however, the change was not statistically significant. Findings also show that while the trained group did well on all categories with the IPA transcriptions, the group without training, with the IPA transcriptions, seemed to show improvements in correcting the pronunciations of the words with silent sounds only (e.g., receipt). The details on phonemic awareness and how Cantonese speakers tend to segment challenging words without the IPA will be also discussed in the paper. This experimental study provides a significant foundation for the application of the IPA tools in speech production and language education.