THE PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH DENTAL FRICATIVE CONSONANT SOUNDS BY SUNDANESE ENGLISH AND NON-ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS

Abstract

This research aims to identify the phonological process of dental fricative consonants /θ/ dan /ð/ and labiodental fricative consonants /f/ dan /v/ pronounced and analyze the causes of errors in pronunciation of both fricative consonants by students of English and non-English Departments in a private university in Bandung, Indonesia. This research employs a qualitative descriptive proposed by Krippendoroff (2004). Data collection techniques are carried out using recording, listening, and note-taking techniques. The theories used are the phonological process as proposed by Cruttenden (2014) and the errors in phonological production by James (2013). The results show that the accuracy of pronunciation is varied. Respondents from the English Department established a better grasp of the correct pronunciation of interdental and labiodental fricatives, while the Non-English Department respondents struggle with accurate pronunciation. . the interdental fricative /θ/ and /ð/is often replaced with the alveolar stop /t/, and the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ is sometimes replaced with the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/. The root causes of errors are a lack of practice and awareness in pronouncing English sounds, and the influence of the student's mother tongue background, Sundanese, contributes to difficulties in accurately articulating certain English phonemes. Furthermore, the phonetic similarity leads to substitute sounds that are more familiar to them. Finally, with the interlinguistic factors, interference occurs resulting in deviations from the target phonemic system.