Recognition of Glottal Stop /ʔ/ as an Allophone of /t/ in English Words by Native Thai Listeners
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Abstract
Some native speakers of English pronounce /t/ in certain words such as written, mountain, and button as the glottal stop /ʔ/. That is to say, the latter sound for some native English speakers serves as a variation of the former sound. This practice seems, we assume, unfamiliar to Thai learners of English, to whom sound variation is not often taught in a formal classroom. Thus, we aim to explore to what extent native Thai listeners can recognize the glottal stop /ʔ/ as a variation; to be more precise in this study as an allophone of the phoneme /t/ in English words. Methodologically, the participants listened to 15 English words, all of which contained an intervocalic glottal stop as the /t/ allophone. They were then asked to write the words they heard together with their meanings in Thai orthography in order for us to examine the level of their recognition of the sound in question as well as their matching of the glottal stop to Thai corresponding sounds. Results have shown a fairly low level of the participants’ ability to recognize the glottal as an allophone of /t/ in English words, and the most frequent correspondence was sound omission. We make a pedagogical suggestion pertaining to the glottal stop /ʔ/ as an allophone of the phoneme /t/ in the final section of the paper.
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บทความทุกบทความเป็นลิขสิทธิ์ของภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์
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