Jurnal Impresi Indonesia (JII)

Vol.1, No. 5, Mei 2022

p-ISSN: 2828-1284 e-ISSN: 2810-062x

website: https://rivierapublishing.id/JII/index.php/jii/index

Doi: 1

THE PHONOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON NON-NATIVE PHONETIC

CHANGE

Maryana Sitinjak 1, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti 2

Universitas Sumatera Utara, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

maryanasitinjak[email protected], rangkuti@usu.ac.id

Abstract

Received:

03-05-2022

Introduction: Studies of cross-language perception

at the segmental level generally find that adults have

great difficulty understanding the contrast of non-

native consonants and/or vowels. Non-original

phonotactics are often generated by type accuracy and

error. Purpose: This article examines the effect of

phonology on non-native phonetic changes. Methods:

This research is a qualitative research with a literature

review study method from the latest research. The

collected data were analyzed by in-depth analysis.

Results: Based on the results of data analysis, it shows

that non-native speakers are not as accurate in the

production of different illegal sequences. These findings

also imply that linguistic experiences with native tones

need not facilitate non-native phonetic changes.

However, non-native phonetics change if there is

habituation and construction in the right way.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that non-native

English still has problems in proper English

articulation. Given the importance of phonetic

accuracy in expressing spoken messages, foreign

speakers must pay close attention to this matter and fix

it by encouraging, involving and involving them every

time to practice.

Accepted:

dd-mm-yyyy

Published:

dd-mm-yyyy

Keywords:

phonology,

phonetic, non-

native

Corresponding Author: Maryana Sitinjak

E-mail: maryan[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

As the people know that English is as international language. It is not astonishing that

English as subject in every level of school grade in around the world. However, mastery in

English grammar are not followed by same intonations and how phonetic are well formed.

This situation is oftentimes difficulties to understood by native speakers. Phonetic change

refers exclusively to a change in speakers’ knowledge of how speech sounds are implemented

in a continuous phonetic space (Thomas & Mielke, 2021). Meanwhile, influence refers to any

kind of effect that speakers’ knowledge of discrete, categorical phonological representations

and processes can have on causing, constraining, or preventing phonetic change as defined in

definition.

Researchers agree that in the production of real words, there are a number of factors

influencing what constitutes a well-formed word of a language. On one hand, there are some

types of sequences that are prohibited outright and are not attested in the lexicon at all.

Particular segments may be completely unattested in certain positions even though the

segment itself is part of the inventory of the language (e.g., /h/ in English: home, but *[moh];

cf. [tuh] ‘rain’ in Zoque. It is commonly assumed that since phonotactic restrictions are

Maryana Sitinjak, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti 
The Phonological Influences On Non-Native Phonetic Change 
Jurnal Impresi Indonesia (JII) Vol. 1, No. 5, Mei 2022    2 
language-particular,  they  are  encoded  in  the  higher-level  phonological  grammar  of  the 
language (Moreton, 2016).  
On the other hand, phonological well-formedness is not a simple, categorical concept. 
That is, a sequence type may be attested but infrequent in the lexicon, which has a number of 
consequences  for  the  processing  of  such  sequences.  That  speakers  are  sensitive  to  the 
frequency of different types of elements in the lexicon has been demonstrated by a growing 
body of research. Frequency effects have been found in both production and perception tasks. 
For example, when asked to repeat non-words, speakers respond more rapidly when the items 
contain  high-probability  phoneme  sequences  (Vitevitch  &  Luce,  2005).  Perception  studies 
have  shown  that  when  presented  with  acoustically  ambiguous  consonants  in  a  sequence, 
listeners are more likely to interpret them as the consonant that would comprise the more 
frequent sequence  
Likewise, in a word recognition task, participants are more likely to recall non-words 
with high probability sequences than with low-probability sequence (Frisch et al., 2000). It 
has also been shown that acquisition of lexical items is facilitated when words have a greater 
phonotactic  probability  (Storkel,  2001).  Finally,  a  number  of  studies  have  shown  that 
participants asked to rate the ‘‘wordlikeness’’ of non-word stimuli generally give higher ratings 
to stimuli containing sequences that are attested more frequently across the lexicon (Bailey & 
Hahn, 2001); (Frisch et al., 2000); (Munson, 2001). 
 It has been suggested that perception of non-native speech s is constrained by both the 
phonological and the phonetic properties of their native language (Ahmed et al., 2020). In 
contrast, we use the term phonetic properties to refer to characteristics of pronunciation that 
are not phonologically distinctive in a language (fine-grained, gradient, within-category, non-
contrastive details of speech). For instance, when American English listeners categorized the 
Zulu aspirated voiceless velar stop [kʰ] and ejective [k ], they perceived both as the voiceless 
stop [kʰ], but the non-native sound [k’] was perceived as having odd or unusual voice qualities 
(non-contrastive gradient difference), because English has a [kʰ] but no ejectives (Best et al., 
2001). 
The  second  language  acquisition  literature  provides  ample  evidence  suggesting  that 
speakers  do  not  produce  all  unattested  sequences  with  equal  accuracy.  For  example,  an 
investigation of the production of English codas by Vietnamese speakers showed that while 
speakers had moderate trouble producing /s/ and /f/ in coda position, they were less accurate 
on /v/ and /l/, followed by /P/ (Hansen, 2004). All of these are phonemes of Vietnamese, 
though they are not allowed in coda position. (Hyman, 2013) found that in producing English 
initial  consonant  clusters  that  are  phonotactically  prohibited  in  their  native  languages, 
Japanese and Korean participants were more accurate on voiceless stop-initial sequences than 
they were on either voiced stop or fricative-initial ones. In a study investigating the role of 
sonority sequencing in the production of phonotactically illegal sequences, (Davidson et al., 
2004) presented English speakers with words containing Polish-legal onset clusters such as 
/kt/, /tf/, /dv/, /zm/, /vn/ etc. Results showed that sonority sequencing alone cannot account 
for  the data.  For  example, clusters  like  /zm/ and  /vn/ differ  only  in place, not  in  sonority 
distance, but speakers’ accuracy in producing these sequences is very different (63% vs. 11%). 
Similar accuracy results were reported for Scottish English speakers producing Russian onset 
clusters who were asked to write down what they heard (Haunz, 2003). 
Therefore this research examines how far the phonological will influences the phonetic 
change for non-native speaker.  
 
RESEARCH METHOD  
This study uses a qualitative research by conducting a descriptive analysis of the latest 
research related to the phonological effect on non-native phonetic changes. Based on (Kim et 
al.,  2017)  descriptive  research  method  is  research  conducted  to  describe,  or  describe  an 
existing phenomenon by using scientific procedures to answer the actual problem.  
 
RESULT AND DISCUSSION   

Maryana Sitinjak, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti

The Phonological Influences On Non-Native Phonetic Change

Jurnal Impresi Indonesia (JII) Vol. 1, No. 5, Mei 2022 3

In order to discuss phonological influences on these phonetic change coherently, the

researcher assume a phonology and phonetics that are modularly separate and qualitatively

different in their representational and computational details. The result of this experiment

demonstrate that performance on non-native phonetic was multiple perception. (Flemming,

2001) approach could be described as “phonology all the way down,” as he proposes that the

phonological grammar computes over and outputs specific formant targets. A very different

kind of “phonology all the way down” approach comes from (Hale & Reiss, 2008). In their

theoretical framework, phonology does not operate over phonetic-like representations, but

they posit that the only domain of knowledge that can meaningfully vary

and change is phonological. In fact, they specifically argue that there is no domain of phonetic

knowledge (representation and computation) at all.

In order that account for the phenomena summarized from in this review, the researcher

simultaneously appeal to coarse-grained and contrastive phonological representations that

define broader natural classes, and to continuous and gradient phonetic targets and

representations.

Figure 1. Diagram of the modular feed-forward system. Each bolded node

represent a domain of knowledge that might be subject to change or cross-

dialectical variation.

Studies also suggest that some non-native speaker such as Mandarin tones are not all

perceived and produced equally well by non-native listeners, and that pattern seems to be

language-independently. Some pairs of Mandarin tones are more easily confused than others,

apparently because of the similarities in their pitch onset and offset values and in their contour

shapes (Zhang & Roberts, 2019). This implies that listeners’ sensitivity to universal, gradient

phonetic information was at work during perception, rather than language specific,

contrastive phonological information. However, it is not known whether the same perceptual

patterns also occur for non-native listeners of other tone languages, since (Kraus, 2015) did

not examine discrimination of these tone pairs in their Cantonese listeners. To the extent that

phonetic similarities of tone contours constrain non-native tone perception, this should apply

to non-native listeners of tone as well as non-tone languages. If the resulting patterns are

found irrespective of listeners’ native languages, this would imply that perception of tone

contrasts is influenced by the tones’ phonetic properties in a language-universal way.

However, if there are discrepancies in performance patterns among different language groups,

this would imply that the use of tonality in listeners’ native phonological systems constrains

perception.

English is a non-tone language, because it uses neither lexical tones nor pitch accents. It

has been characterized as a “stress-accent language” (Glewwe, 2019). Its use of distinctive

pitch at the word level is very restricted. Even for lexical stress, for example, pitch is just one

of several acoustic components (along with loudness, duration, and vowel

realization/reduction) used to indicate stress in English homophonous pairs, such as SUBject

(noun) and subJECT (verb) (Pennington & Ellis, 2000). below is some example of the pitch

pattern of the Mandarin (a: top left) and of the Hong Kong Cantonese (b: top right).

Maryana Sitinjak, Rahmadsyah Rangkuti

The Phonological Influences On Non-Native Phonetic Change

Jurnal Impresi Indonesia (JII) Vol. 1, No. 5, Mei 2022 4

Figure 2. The pitch pattern of the Mandarin (a: top left) and of the Hong Kong

Cantonese (b: top right).

The basic assumption that conditioned phonetic change is driven by phonetic listener

misapprehension runs through almost all contemporary thinking on phonetic change,

especially the “phonetics most of the way up” models discussed above. It is central to the

prediction of Exemplar Theory that frequent words will lead to sound change, given that they

pass through the production–perception feedback loop more often (Wedel, 2007). Listener

misapprehension is involved in all three mechanisms of change in Evolutionary Phonology

(Blevins, 2004). Almost all of the chapters in a collection on phonologization (Yu & Zellou,

2019) either incorporate Ohalian misapprehension into their models of phonologization or at

least claim compatibility of their results with that framework.1 Even the Life Cycle of

Phonological Change (De Lacy, 2007), which takes a very phonological and modular approach

to sound change, incorporates misapprehension of this sort into its Phase I: “when some

physical or physiological phenomenon gives rise to a new cognitively controlled pattern of

phonetic implementation through a coordination failure.”

CONCLUSION

Based on the discussion section and the data analyzed it can be conclude that non-

native speaker the non-native of English language still have problems in appropriate English

articulation. Considering, to the significance of phonetic accuracy in expressing spoken

message, the non-native speaker must pay deep attention to this matters and fix them by

encouraging, engaging and involving them any time to practice.

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