Volume II Special Issue IV April 2022

Name of Author : Manpreet Kaur Uppal & Dr. Vani Khurana

Title of the paper : The Teaching of English Phonetics in Rural Colleges

Abstract: Phonetics is described as comprising of two aspects of human speech production-the ways human beings make sounds and perception-the way speech sounds are understood. Language production is the process where the signal is sent by the speaker. Language perception is the process by which a linguistic signal is decoded and understood by the listener. Human languages use many different sounds. Speech sounds are named after the movement of the organs of speech needed to produce them. Phoneticians define speech sounds in two categories Consonants and Vowels. Sounds are produced when we breathe out and this mechanism is referred to as, Pulmonary Egressive Airstream Mechanism. Place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing is used to describe consonants and are the main divisions of the International Phonetic Alphabet consonant chart. Vowels are described by their height, backness, and rounding. As human languages vary so do the sounds in different languages. Some native speakers find it difficult to produce certain sounds in the English language. Likewise in rural colleges, students usually unintentionally transfer the pronunciation of their hometown dialects to English pronunciation and make pronunciation errors when they speak and read aloud, this is called mother tongue interference. This interference can be overcome by listening and practising English speech sounds. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether students at the college level encounter problems in English pronunciation. What type of problems are faced and need to study different approaches to the teaching of phonetics to rural speakers to be implemented.

Keywords : Phonetics, Speech, Production, Sounds, Colleges, Language Interference, New Approach.

DOI :

Page Number : 114-118