Summary
Segments entail consonants and vowels, while suprasegmental aspects are speech properties that follow vowels and consonants but are not confined to specific sounds and frequently extend beyond syllables, sentences, or phrases. Common supra-segmental qualities for a speech synthesis sequence include stress, tone, and length in the syllables or words. Equally, nasalization and harmony are sometimes included in this category. Notably, consonant sounds and vowels or phonetic symbols are segmental features, whereas suprasegmental qualities encompass pitch, rhythms, intonation, stress, and duration. A language’s primary role is to facilitate communication through speaking. This study offers a breakdown of an examination of a student’s transcription’s segmental and suprasegmental aspects of speech, with references to Thai and English phonology.
Segmental and Suprasegmental Features
Applied linguists from many theoretical viewpoints in recent decades have explored the extension of the English language created by non-native speakers. The issue has focused on data demonstrating that the plurality and diversity of English applications have increased the number of intervaried encounters, where pronunciation, as argued, is the primary determinant of international intelligibility (Kalashnikova et al., 2021). Furthermore, it has been established that the difficulty in comprehending grows with the morphological disparity between interlocutors’ first languages. Equally, scientists allude to the distinct way English pronunciation is highly influenced by the phonetics of speakers’ first language (Suntornsawet, 2022). The following is a comprehensive assessment of the typological gap between speakers A and B and the grammatical structure of English and Thai. The languages are examined and synthesized by a survey of relevant literature: the features of Thai-accented English are portrayed, offering a reference for future scholars wishing to investigate Thai-accented English further.
Stress
In phonetics, stress is the intensity provided to syllables of an utterance by extra effort in speaking, reflecting in comparative loudness. The linguists describe stress as the comparative aspect of emphases that may be assigned to specific syllables in a speech. This primary focus in phonetics may be purely linguistic or noticeable to the listener but meaningless. Stress is significant in English because it can be utilized to identify words (Suntornsawet, 2022). In the audio file, Speaker A asks Speaker B how his trip was the previous day; notably, the first syllable of the word yes-ter-day is stressed in his question, showing that much emphasis is put on the word yesterday. Unlike in English morphology, the stress in the Thai language settles on the last syllable, regardless of the number of syllables in a word (Kalashnikova et al., 2021). In speaker B’ response in the audio file, the stress settles on the second syllable of the word a-point-ment. Speaker B’s second response is that the word no is stressed since it shows that the word no compromises the meaning of the statement and is a negative statement.
In general, English is not regarded as the dialect of Thailand in comparison to other Southeast Asian nations. Regarding English philosophy in Thailand, local English educators believe that several issues must be addressed, such as teaching techniques and the quality of English teachers. In Thailand, intonation is the most undervalued unit of English language instruction (Kalashnikova et al., 2021). Many Thai students need help pronouncing English at an understandable level. These problematic segmental traits include vocal articulation as voiceless, consonants, mono–diphthongization, / and / as /s/ and /z/, and /v/ as /f/ (Suntornsawet, 2022). As a result, Thai pupils’ pronunciation is problematic. In the audio file, speaker B answers, “…. I will go and order. Shall I?” The range of sounds created in this response shows that the character /s/ can be difficult to pronounce. Consequently, speaker B’s pronunciation of /s/ in “shall” is problematic.
Pitch
In a speech, pitch refers to a syllable’s degree of lowness or highness detected by a listener’s ears. Consequently, the pitch is influenced by the frequency of oscillations per second generated by the vocal cords. Consequently, the pitch is the primary auditory connection of tone. The basic intonation patterns are rising and falling intonations (Kalashnikova et al., 2021). When utilizing rising intonation, the pitch is gently raised at the end of the statement, whereas when you use falling intonation, the pitch is slightly lowered (Suntornsawet, 2022). Unlike Thai, in linguistics, statements are used with dropping intonation. Ultimately, declarations, wh- inquiries, demands, exclamations, and alternative questions commonly utilize falling intonation.
On the other hand, rising intonation is utilized in enumerations, yes/no inquiries, and offers. In the audio file, Speaker A’s first statement is a wh- statement and typically ends with a falling pitch showing that it is a wh- question (Wright & Baese-Berk, 2022). Equally, he embraces a rising intonation in his second statement, showing that it is a yes/no question. Thai, like Chinese, is a tonal language, but English is not. Speaker B’s problematic response implies that every word has a particular pitch that should be uttered to be effectively comprehended. Thai has five tones: rising, falling, low, default, or high.
In English, voiceless consonants /p, t, k/ are recognizable when distributed at the end of a syllable, but in Thai, ending sounds are imperceptible. In the audio file, Speaker A’s second statement ends with the appointment; the vowel /t/ is at the end, showing that the consonant is audible. Similarly, speaker B’s second response in the audio mile also ends with drink; the /k/ consonant appears at the end of the word, showing that the syllable is audible and not silent like in Thai is audible. Furthermore, an apical pause /t, d/ is retroflexed preceding /r/, as in drive and trout (Kalashnikova et al., 2021). A consonant is nasalized prior to a lateral consonant, as in can and dome, while a stressed vowel is stretched before a pitched fixed frequency in the same syllable, as in hope in the audio file.
References
Kalashnikova, M., Onsuwan, C., & Burnham, D. (2021). Infants’ sensitivity to lexical tone and word stress in their first year: A Thai and English cross-language study. Language Learning and Development, 1-16. Web.
Suntornsawet, J. (2022). A systemic review of Thai-accented English phonology. PASAA: Journal of Language Teaching and Learning in Thailand, 63, 348-370. Web.
Wright, J., & Baese-Berk, M. (2022). The impact of phonotactic features on novel tone discrimination. Journal of Phonetics, 93, 101151. Web.