CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Study
If learners want to learn to speak, they should first learn to understand the
spoken language they hear. If learners want to communicate with native speakers,
they should first learn to understand in real language situations to comprehend the
main pint of what native speakers are telling. Therefore, listening is very
important to which teachers and learners should pay enough attention to obtain
communication aims. Listening is very important in language learning because it
provides input for learners and it has also an important role in the development of
learners’ language knowledge (Rost, 1994)
When you listen to someone speaking you generally focus on
understanding their meaning. One famous (in linguistics) way of saying this is
that "we speak in order to be heard, in order to be understood" (Jakobson, Fant &
Halle, 1952). Our drive, as listeners, to understand the talker leads us to focus on
getting the words being said, and not so much on exactly how they are
pronounced. But sometimes a pronunciation will jump out at you - somebody says
a familiar word in an unfamiliar way and you just have to ask - "is that how you
say that?" When we listen to the phonetics of speech - to how the words sound
and not just what they mean - we as listeners are engaged in speech perception.
In speech perception, listeners focus attention on the sounds of speech and
notice phonetic details about pronunciation that are often not noticed at all in
normal speech communication. For example, listeners will often not hear, or not
seem to hear, a speech error or deliberate mispronunciation in ordinary
conversation, but will notice those same errors when instructed to listen for
mispronunciations (see Cole, 1973). speech perception is shaped by general
properties of the auditory system that determine what can and cannot be heard,
what cues will be recoverable in particular segmental contexts, and how adjacent
sounds will influence each other.
Vowels are usually the parts of the speech signal containing local maximal
amplitudes and periodicity caused by the vibration of the vocal folds. With these
two cues, vowels can be reasonably well distinguished from consonants. The
vocal fold vibration gives rise to a periodic source signal with a large number of
harmonics. This source signal is then filtered by the vocal tract. . The vocal tract
amplifies some of the harmonics due to its resonance characteristics. Regions with
amplified harmonics are called formants. The frequencies of these formants
depend on the exact shape of the vocal tract, that is, on tongue position and shape,
the position of the jaws, etc.. Accordingly, vowels can be distinguished from one
another by their steady state formant frequencies.
The vowel system of a particular language is often presented in a
twodimensional vowel space with first-formant frequency on the ordinate and the
second-formant frequency on the abscissa. This representation gives rise to a
vowel triangle with the vowels [u] as in shoe, [i] as in she, and [a] as in shah as
corners. Other vowels can be associated with different positions in this vowel
triangle. Accordingly, listeners can identify vowels by computing the position in
formant space (Nearey, 1989). First, some languages also use diphthongal vowels,
which are characterized by a formant movement throughout the vowel (as the
vowel in shy). These diphthongs are usually contrasted to steady-state
monophthongs, though categorization of vowels as either diphthongal or
monophthong is in fact often difficult. Second, cues to vowel identity are also
provided by duration – even in languages that do not distinguish long from short
vowels – and by dynamic properties of consonant (C)-vowel (V) and VC
transitions.
Vowel is the important part in speech perception to help someone
distinguish one word to another word in order to find the meaning. The lacks of
vowel are often happen and would be impact and failed the perception of speech
of someone. And it would be failed the communication process from one to
another.
1.2 The Problem of The Study
In line with the background of the study, the problem of this research is
formulated as follows :
1. What are the listener needs in order to get the good listening?
2. What are the listener needs in order to get a good vowel in speech
perception?
1.3 The Obejctive of The Study
The study has some objectives that cope the listeners needs. Those
objectives are:
1. To describe the listener needs in order to get the good listening
2. To describe the listener needs in order to get a good vowel in speech
perception.
1.4 The Significance of The Study
The study is expected to have a significant contribution theoretically and
practically for:
1. The listener
By learning through the description of the listener needs, so that the
listener can hava a good skill in listening and have a good skill in
vowel in speech perception. This would make the listeners success in
communication process.
2. Other Researcher
The results of this research can be used as a reference for other
researchers to conduct a similar study but in different focus discussion.
1.5 The Scope of The Study
Based on the background of the study, the problem of the study, the
objective of the study, and the significance of the study mentioned above, the
scope of the study are :
1. The important of Listening to understand the language and to succes
the communication process
2. The lacks of the vowel can be failed the communication process as we
know that the vowel is the important part in speech perception
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Vowels are produced with the vocal tract open. For that reason, they are
said to be articulated with an open articulation, in opposition to consonants. We
know that in the production of a sound, several elements participate vabiration and
resonance. Not much has been known about the influence of phonetic and
phonological competence to the process of speech perception.
It’s function can be describe as syllabic, they take form of the nucleus of
syllable. each word must consist of minimal on vowel.
According to Jones, vowels are some of the continuous voiced sound
produced without obstruction in the mouth unaccompanied by any frictional
noise. Jones (1958:15) in his book “The Pronunciation of English” classifies the
vowels into 5 based on the position of the tongue:
(1). Front vowels, in the production of which the ‘front’ of the tongue is raised in
the direction of the hard palate. For example, /i:/ in /fi:d/ feed.
(2). Back vowels, in the production of which the ‘back’ of the tongue is raised in
the direction of the soft palate. For example, /u:/ in /fu:d/ food.
(3). Central vowels, when the position of the tongue is in the middle or in the
intermediate of front and back. For example, /з:/ in /bз:d/ bird.
(4). Close vowels, when the tongue is held as high as possible consistently with
not producing a frictional noise. For example, /i:/ in /fi:d/ feed and /u:/ in
/fu:d/ food.
(5). Open vowels, when the tongue is held as low as possible as in /a:/ in /fa ðə /
father.
According to Jones (1958:57), the force of the breath with which a
syllable is pronounced is called stress. Stress varies from syllable to syllable.
Syllable which are pronounced with greater stress than the neighbor syllables are
said to be stressed. It is in fact generally sufficient to distinguish two degrees
only-stressed and unstressed. Stress syllables are marked when necessary by
‘placed immediately before them, thus father, 'f_:_ə, arrive, ə'raiv, opportunity,
_pə'tju:niti, what shall we do? '(h)w_t_əlwi:'du.
The same words and sentences are not always stressed in the same way.
Variations are sometimes necessary for making the meaning clear, and they are
eventually needed due to rhythmical considerations.
CHAPTER IV
DATA & DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Data
Here is a list of similar pronunciations of vowel.
No. Vowel Speaker Listener
1 (snak) Snack / Snake (sneɪk) “I like snack” Snack
2 (kəʊtʃ) Coach / Couch (kaʊtʃ) “There is a couch” Coach
3 (dɪ’zə:t) Dessert / Desert (‘dɛzət) “We love dessert” Dessert
4 (dɔ:n) Dawn / Down (daʊn) “Dusk ‘till dawn” -
5 (bɛ:) Bear / Beer (bɪə) “Beer is not good” Beer
4.2 Data Analysis
No. Vowel Listener Vowel Lacks
She has enough
1 (snak) Snack / Snake (sneɪk) knowledge about None
the pronunciation
She got this one
wrong, and it
2 (kəʊtʃ) Coach / Couch (kaʊtʃ) shows that she has Detected
lack for this
pronunciation
She has enough
3 (dɪ’zə:t) Dessert / Desert (‘dɛzət) knowledge about None
the pronunciation
She cannot identify
4 (dɔ:n) Dawn / Down (daʊn) Detected
the spoken word
5 (bɛ:) Bear / Beer (bɪə) She has enough None
knowledge about
the pronunciation
From this analysis, it shows that the listener has some lacks in vowel.
Especially for the pronunciation of coach, couch, dawn, and down, those are əʊ;
aʊ; and ɔ: which is for couch and down has the same vowel press. The
researchers can interface the pattern of the pronunciation. It reveals that those
pronunciations have similarities, between couch and down and coach and dawn.
According to Sutrisno (2018), listening to an utterance is essentially a
matter of data processing and interpretation of acoustic signals carried out by the
listener once he receives the information in a communication event. He also
explained that the process is not that simple. When the acoustic signals are
received in the sensory register, they are not automatically processed in the brain.
CHAPTER IV
DATA & DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Data
Here is a list of similar pronunciations of vowel.
No. Vowel Speaker Listener
1 (snak) Snack / Snake (sneɪk) “I like snack” Snack
2 (kəʊtʃ) Coach / Couch (kaʊtʃ) “There is a couch” Coach
3 (dɪ’zə:t) Dessert / Desert (‘dɛzət) “We love dessert” Dessert
4 (dɔ:n) Dawn / Down (daʊn) “Dusk ‘till dawn” -
5 (bɛ:) Bear / Beer (bɪə) “Beer is not good” Beer
4.2 Data Analysis
No. Vowel Listener Vowel Lacks
She has enough
1 (snak) Snack / Snake (sneɪk) knowledge about None
the pronunciation
She got this one
wrong, and it
2 (kəʊtʃ) Coach / Couch (kaʊtʃ) shows that she has Detected
lack for this
pronunciation
She has enough
3 (dɪ’zə:t) Dessert / Desert (‘dɛzət) knowledge about None
the pronunciation
She cannot identify
4 (dɔ:n) Dawn / Down (daʊn) Detected
the spoken word
She has enough
5 (bɛ:) Bear / Beer (bɪə) knowledge about None
the pronunciation
From this analysis, it shows that the listener has some lacks in vowel.
Especially for the pronunciation of coach, couch, dawn, and down, those are əʊ;
aʊ; and ɔ: which is for couch and down has the same vowel press. The
researchers can interface the pattern of the pronunciation. It reveals that those
pronunciations have similarities, between couch and down and coach and dawn.
According to Sutrisno (2018), listening to an utterance is essentially a
matter of data processing and interpretation of acoustic signals carried out by the
listener once he receives the information in a communication event. He also
explained that the process is not that simple. When the acoustic signals are
received in the sensory register, they are not automatically processed in the brain.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION & SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion
After doing the research, the researchers can conclude that the vowel lacks
can determine the process of communication. It is sure that one single vowel can
bring so much meaning in the sentence. From those examples of sentences, the
speakers tend to hope that listerner had the same mental meaning in the
conversation. Some of the problems appear from the production of pronunciation
whether it is done by the speaker or the listener. But in this case, the researchers
are only observing the listener and it is revealing that vowel lacks bring a deep
function in the communication process.
5.2 Suggestion
The researchers suggest that the speaker could give such a good stressing
in a particular word with a tricky pronunciation. This will deliver a good
understanding between the speaker and listener. For the listener could ask for
another redo of spoken word to the speaker, this will make a misconception
disappearing or decreasing.
