Lindsay Kaye Ohlert

Ling 5501 Error Analysis

August 3, 2009
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Learner Description

The speaker is a college-educated adult Egyptian male who immigrated to the

United States approximately four years ago. His L1 is Masri, the Egyptian variety of

Arabic, and all of his formal education took place in Egypt. Prior to moving to the US,

he studied English as a foreign language in school and corresponded with L1 English

speakers over the internet, but had limited contact with native speakers in person. He

believes that this schooling provided him with a well-developed knowledge of English

grammar. He works in accounting, and uses English as the primary language for both his

work and personal life, as his wife is an American-born English monoglot. His wife

states that he is very determined, and spends a good deal of his leisure time studying

English in order to improve his career prospects.1

Task Description

The purpose of this analysis is to determine what, if any, systematic errors are

present in the phonology and syntax of the speaker, and to propose possible explanations

for these errors. The speaker was recorded completing three linguistic tasks. In the first,

he was presented with six different sets of photographs, each of which was arranged in

sequence to tell a simple story. He was asked to describe each photo and relay the story

told by the pictures. In the second task, he read aloud three informative passages that

contained vocabulary related to the photographs from the first task. The third task was to

read two brief poems that contained vocabulary related to the photographs.

1
Personal interview, July 18, 2009
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Ling 5501 Error Analysis
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Data Analysis

Table 1: Pronunciation when speaking freely

Word/Phrase Standard English Speaker’s pronunciation
pronunciation2
There (repeated) ðɛər *ʒhɛər
animal æn ə məl *a ni mʌl
The (repeated) ði or ðə *ʒhʌ
Third (repeated) θr̩d θr̩d
Together tə gɛð ər *tə gɛʒh ər
Something sʌm θɪŋ *sʌm ʒhɪŋ
Inside ɪn saɪd *ɪn ʒhaɪd
Understand ʌn dər stænd *ʌn dər sænd
Asian eɪ ʃən eɪ ʃən
Behind bɪ haɪnd *beɪ haɪnd
Smashed smæʃt smæʃt
They ðeɪ *ʒheɪ
Squooshed (slang) skwʊʃ skwʊʃ
Sidewalk saɪdˌwɔk saɪd wɔk
(I) think… (repeated) θɪŋk θɪŋk
(I) think… (repeated) θɪŋk *ʒhɪŋk
Throw θroʊ θroʊ
Stuff stʌf stʌf
That ðæt *ʒhæt
With wɪθ *wɪʒh
Chairs tʃɛərz tʃɛərz
Ear ɪər *ɛər

Table 2: Pronunciation when reading aloud

Word/Phrase Standard English Speaker’s pronunciation
pronunciation
Giraffes (repeated) dʒə ræf *greɪfs
Form fɔrm *frɔm
Birth bɜrθ bɜrθ
Offspring ɔf sprɪŋ *ɔp sprɪŋ
Three θri θri
Of ɒv *ɒf
Giraffes (repeated) dʒə ræf *gr̩fs
Calf kæf *kalf
2
Standard English IPA pronunciations taken from Dictionary.com
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Half hæf hæf

Giraffes (repeated) dʒə ræf *gr̩ feɪs
Thirty-five θɜr ti faɪv θɜr ti faɪv
Something sʌm θɪŋ *sʌm sɪŋ
Through θru θru
Clothes kloʊðz *klo ðəz
Thrown θroʊn θroʊn
Cheese tʃiz tʃiz
Curdles ˈkɜr dls *krɜ dls
Other ʌð ər ʌð ər
Intolerance ɪnˈtɒl ər əns *ɪnˈtɒr əl əns
There ðɛər ðɛər
The ði or ðə ðə

The speaker clearly struggles with the interdental fricatives. He frequently

replaces the both the voiced and voiceless interdental fricative with an aspirated voiced

palatal fricative. This error occurs in multiple environments. The only environment in

which he consistently pronounces this phoneme correctly is when it appears word initial

and is followed by [r], such as in “three,” “through” and “thrown.” He also appears to be

occasionally experimenting with using a voiceless alveolar fricative in the place of the

voiceless interdental fricative, as in *[sʌm sɪŋ]. However, he definitely has the capacity to

pronounce the sound in other environments, as when narrating freely, he sometimes

pronounces “think” [θɪŋk] and other times *[ʒhɪŋk], even when the words appear in

identical surrounding contexts. Also, several of the interdental fricative-containing words

that he struggled with when freely narrating he is able to pronounce correctly when

reading aloud.

This error is easy to explain; in Masri phonology there is no interdental fricative,

but there is a voiced palatal fricative. Presumably the speaker is aspirating the voiced

palatal fricative in an attempt to approximate the sound of the interdental fricative using a
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Ling 5501 Error Analysis
August 3, 2009
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sound that is more readily available to him. The interdental fricative-alveolar retroflex

liquid blend may be easier to pronounce due to the [r] having a place of articulation

further forward; alternatively, the speaker may simply have practiced this blend

deliberately at some point in his English development. The fact that he sometimes

pronounces the interdental fricative and sometimes does not suggests that his

interlanguage is in a transitional phase between the approximated pronunciation and the

correct one; I suspect that in the near future he will be consistently using the interdental

fricatives properly.

A related pronunciation issue is that he sometimes pronounces the voiceless

alveolar fricative as an aspirated voiced palatal fricative as well; for example, “inside”

becomes *[ɪn ʒhaɪd]. On the face of it, this doesn’t make much sense, as Masri does have

a voiceless alveolar fricative. The simplest explanation would be that in the speaker’s

attempt to master the interdental fricative, he has overgeneralized his application of [ʒh]

and is using it in inappropriate contexts.

The speaker also appears to be occasionally engaging in consonant deletion in

order to simplify consonant blends; for example, “understand” becomes *[ʌn dər sænd].

This does not appear to be a systematic error, however, as the vast majority of the time,

the speaker pronounces the [st] consonant blend correctly. It may simply be an artifact of

rapid speech, not a second language acquisition-related error.

A few interesting errors arose when the speaker read aloud from a prepared text.

The pronunciation of “of” as *[ɒf] and “clothes” as *[klo ðəz] suggests that the English

orthography was interfering with correct pronunciation, as does the pronunciation of

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“calf” as *[kalf]; note that the speaker pronounces the similar but more commonly used

word “half” correctly. When reading aloud, the speaker also occasionally engaged in

metathesis, such as pronouncing “form” *[frɔm]; given that he did not do this when

speaking freely, I assume this is simply the result of sight reading in a less familiar

alphabet; it may be related to the fact that Arabic is written right to left.

The widely varying attempts at pronouncing “giraffe” are easily explained; when

the speaker did the storytelling exercise, one of the photos featured a monkey and a

giraffe. The speaker did not know the word “giraffe,” describing it as a long-necked,

yellow and brown spotted animal instead of using a specific noun. When he encountered

the word in the read-aloud text, it was apparently entirely new to him, and the

pronunciation of the word is not readily apparent from its spelling.

The speaker mispronounced the vowel sounds of a few words, but only very

occasionally and not systematically, which suggests that where both monophthongs and

dipthongs are concerned, his interlanguage is approaching Standard English.

Interestingly, the speaker does not appear to have any difficulty with the [tʃ]

sound, despite the fact that there is no voiceless palatal affricate in Masri.

All in all, the speaker’s English phonological development is, with very few

exceptions, sufficiently native-like as to be entirely understandable, and all the errors

appear to be correctable.

Table 3: Syntax when speaking freely

Speaker’s phrasing Intended meaning in Standard English
There is a lady, and she wears gloves, and
she tries to plant something…
*She tried to bought some dirt or She tried to buy some dirt [potting soil] or
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Ling 5501 Error Analysis
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something
*I don’t know exactly what she want to
bought
*In this picture, she already done with it
*He tried to be ready to shot the person
He wanted to steal a ring to give it to her
*Is, like, romantic behavior
*I think also was in winter.
There’s a tank that smashed them.
That’s better
*That is seat for garden
something
I don’t know exactly what she wanted to
buy
In this picture she’s already done with it
He tried to be ready to shoot the person
It is, like, romantic behavior
I think it also was in winter.
That is a seat for a garden

There appear to be three primary types of errors in the speaker’s syntax. The first

involves determiners; the second, the use of an infinitive verb following a conjugated

verb; and the third, the combination of the word “is” and pronouns.

At one point, the speaker omits determiners, as in “*that is seat for garden.” This

is not surprising, as Masri does not contain definite or indefinite articles. The fact that

the speaker otherwise uses determiners accurately suggests a good deal of careful study

of this grammatical topic on his part.

The second type of error occurs when the speaker attempts to use the subject +

conjugated verb + infinitive verb sentence construction in the past tense, as in “*He tried

to be ready to shot the person” and “*She tried to bought some dirt.” The confusion here

appears to be that the speaker understands that the particle “to” is necessary, but does not

understand that the second verb should not be put into the past tense. In short, he appears

to be attempting to make the verbs agree with one another, which makes logical sense but

is unfortunately not a correct grammatical construction.

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The third type of error occurs when a sentence should include the subject pronoun

and the word “is.” The speaker sometimes leaves one or the other out, as in “*she

already done” and “*is, like, romantic behavior.” This error seems to occur when “it”

would have no clear reference and/or when “is” is an auxiliary.

The relative paucity of errors suggests that the speaker was correct in his self-

assessment that he has a strong knowledge of English prescriptive grammar. What

syntactical errors are present are not grave enough to interfere with understanding.

Conclusion

Given that the speaker’s L2 acquisition history includes both several years of

formal education in an environment with other language learners and several years of

complete immersion among native speakers, it is difficult to say how the various theories

of second language acquisition apply to this subject. Had a similar analysis been done

shortly before or after his arrival in the United States, more definitive conclusions could

probably be drawn. The only statement which can be made definitively here is that the

speaker appears to have had “the best of both worlds,” a solid academic footing in the L2

as well as extensive conversational practice, and that these advantages are apparent in his

advanced phonemic and syntactic L2 development.

Similarly, as the speaker’s L2 acquisition appears to be ongoing – there is no

evidence of interlanguage fossilization – it is impossible to say whether his late

acquisition of the L2 will ultimately result in an inability to develop native-like abilities.

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It would be interesting to revisit this speaker in a few years to see whether his rapid

phonemic and syntactical development continues apace.

Works Cited

Bergman, Anouschka, Kathleen Currie Hall, and Sharon Miriam Ross. Language Files:

Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 10th ed. Columbus,

OH: Ohio State University, 2007.

Dictionary.com. 2009. Retrieved 3 Aug 2009 from < http://dictionary.reference.com>.

Watson, Janet. The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2007.