DESCRIBING URDUIZED VERBALISM OF DENTAL AND PALATO-ALVEOLAR SOUNDS OF ENGLISH BY ESL UNDERGRADS

Abstract

The results of the study, which was carried out with forty students of the Bachelor's Degree in English Semester II, show that the main difficulties that test subjects face consist of making typical dental [θ] or [ð] and alveolar palato [ʒ] sounds according to the type and way of pronouncing them. This may be due to lower practice of phonological standards in speech connection or the presence of some L1 sounds that are closer to such sounds. It was observed that while using English students urduized the English consonants [θ] or [ð] and [ʒ] and pronounced them as Urdu sounds [Thə], [Də] and [Yə]. The study recommends improving the unfortunate structure of articulation execution, which directly affects refined pronunciation. Therefore, higher education institutions should offer more courses that improve English pronunciation, and communicative educators should teach English phonology to students at undergrad level.