The Cruciality of English Syllable Initial and Final Consonant Clusters for Sudanese EFL Students

Abstract

Abstract

This study analyses the phonological errors that Sudanese EFL students perform in

their pronunciation of English phonotactics of syllable ICCs and FCCs. The researcher

uses quantitative method in order to identify and analyse the participants’ performance

through interpretation and calculation. A two tasks test is used to collect the data (dialogue

reading and word list reading tasks).

The participants of this study are

52 second year

students of the academic year 2015/2016, major

ing

in English language. The first group of

the participants

consists of 26 students 13 male and 13 female and they study at Gedarif

University

,

Faculty of Education

,

English language Department

and the other group

consists of 26 students

also 13 male and 13 female and the

y

study at Al

-

Neelain

University

,

Faculty of Arts

,

English

L

anguage Department. Both groups speak the same

Sudanese colloquial Arabic as their first language and English as a second language. The

findings of this study reveal that Sudanese EFL students insert the vowels

/ɪ/ and /ə/ to

break the sequence of consonan

t clusters. Results also demonstrate that the participants

delete one of the consonant sounds. Moreover, the findings show that the main reason for

the incorrect pronunciation caused by the participants’ MT language (MT interference and

language transfer).

The researcher modestly recommends

students to work hard on the

differences between the phonotactic system of their MT language and the TL.