CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In this
chapter, the researcher
discusses about background
of the study, research
problems, objectives of the study,
significance of the study,
scope and limitation, and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study In
human life, people
cannot avoid using
language as a
tool to communicate with others. We, as human being,
alwaysuse language to share in social
community. In communication, we use languageto convey messages from the
speaker to the
hearer. Language itself
is made of
sounds, and the
study of sounds we call it as phonology. In phonology,
we study about kinds of sounds and how the
sounds are related
to the words,
the words to the sentences
and the sentences to each other (Boey, 1975: 32).
Phonology is the study of sounds and speech
patterns in language (Boey, 1975: 32).
The root ‘phone’ in phonology relates to sounds and originates from the
Greek word phonema which
means sound. Phonology
seeks to discern
the sounds made
in all human
languages. The identification of
universal and nonuniversal qualities of sounds is a crucial
component in phonology as all languages use syllables
and forms of
vowels and consonants.
This study of
sounds has a significant
effect because sounds in language determine the meaning of the related language. If the sound does not address, there
willbe a misunderstanding between the
speaker and the hearer.
Phonology
is essentially the
description of the
systems and patterns
of speech sounds in a language.
It means that when we say that the ‘t’
sounds in the pronounciation of satin
and eight are the same, we are actually saying that in
the phonology of English they
would be represented
in the same way
(Yule, 1985: 45).
Every person in
the world at
least has and speaks one
mother language.
When a native speaks another
language, it is potential to produce different sounds that result different pronunciation. This fact
may cause misunderstanding for the hearer if the speaker is non native speaker
and thesounds he or she produces does not
address the true one. It is caused by the difference in intonation, stress,
pitch, or juncture. That is why study of
sounds in language is very important because it has a big role in language production.
Indonesian students, as foreign language
learners,have great problems in pronouncing English
words, so sometimes
they produce English words
by their own
characteristic. This evidence
is logic because
they are used
to speaking in Indonesian language
as mother language.
Most Indonesian students
face difference in English
utterances because they get English by learning while they face
no difference in
Indonesian language because
they get it
by acquiring.
However, this
problem is not
an absolute problem
because some Indonesian words
have similar pronunciation
to English words.
This ability can
help Indonesian students
to minimize difference
in pronouncing English
words that causes misunderstanding for the hearer
sometimes.
Cech (1983:
36) states that
suprasegmental features can be
defined as features of speech which are extend over
several segments. These suprasegmental features includes
stress, pitch, intonation, and
accent. These suprasegmental features
will be the
focus on this
research. The researcher
considers that suprasegmental
features concern with
production of sounds.
Suprasegmental features includes
pitch, stress, intonation, and accent. But here, the researcher will only
focus on two
suprasegmental features, which
are intonation and
stress.
English learner
may produce the
foreign sound correctly,
but if the suprasegmental
features of the mother tongue transferred to the foreign language, the
native speaker will
stamp their speech
as “foreign” (Fromkin,
1997:216).
What Fromkin stated is suitable
for the student of English as a foreign language.
If the
students’ mother tongue
is Indonesian, they
will have speech
as a native because Bahasa Indonesia is their mother
tongue. But, it will be different when they
speak English because English is not their mother language. Therefore, when they
speak English, they
will speak as a foreigner
not as native and
when they speak as foreigner
they will produce different
suprasegmental features from the native
produces.
This
research is conducted
toward the fourth
year students of English Letters
and Language Department
of Humanities and
Culture Faculty of , which
have been studying English in university level for 8 semesters and one native speaker. Theoretically, the English
students have good skills in English because
they have passed various English courses. From this phenomenon, we can consider that the fourth year students of
English Letters and Language Department have
good ability in pronouncing English words. On the other hand, this evidence is
not a guarantee
that the student
can speak English
as well as
native speaker done
especially in stress
and intonation. They
may produce English
speech in different features including intonation,
stress, and even accent although they speak in the same sentence.
Here, the
researcher is interested
in researching the
speech produced by the fourth
year students of
English Letter and
Language Department of Humanities
and Culture Faculty of because it is important to find out the characteristic of their speech. After
researching this object, the researcher tries to
measure how far
their ability in
pronouncing English sounds.
By measuring their
ability in pronouncing
English words, the
researcher will find
their characteristic in
pronouncing English sound.
In doing so,
the teachers can
give more attention
to the students’
speech to minimize
misunderstanding for the hearer
because of these differences.
By knowing
the stress, intonation,
and pitch of the
speaker, we can recognize
what their mother tongue is. As Liddicoatin Davies said that the core of language is sound (Davies, 2004: 27). This is
the main reason why this research is conducted by the researcher.
According to
Sudarmanto (2007: 4),
there are only
3% studies about phonology
conducted in . From this evidence, the
researcher tries to find a
new phenomenon that
is seldom to
be investigated by
students of . By conducting this research, the
researcherwants to give a contribution to
the field of study.
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