VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************* HONG TH THÊM THE INTERFERENCE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN THE FIRST YEAR
STUDENTS’ ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AT THAI NGUYEN
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

nh hưng ca ting m đ đn pht âm Ting Anh ca sinh viên năm th
nhâ
́
t Trươ
̀
ng Đa
̣
i ho
̣
c Ky
̃
thuâ
̣
t Công nghiê
̣
p Tha
́
i Nguyên

t Trươ
̀
ng Đa
̣
i ho
̣
c Ky
̃
thuâ
̣
t Công nghiê
̣
p Tha
́
i Nguyên
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
SUPERVISOR: H CM TÂM, PhD. Hanoi, 2014
i

their whole-heated participation in the study.
Finally, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved family – my parents,
my husband, my children, whose support and encouragement has always been a
great deal of strength that has helped me a lot to overcome all problems to complete
this thesis. iii

ABSTRACT
The research in this minor thesis was carried out to investigate whether the
mother tongue influences students‟ English pronunciation at Thai Nguyen
University of Technology. It sought the answers to the following questions:
1. What are pronunciation mistakes made by students at Thai Nguyen
University of Technology?
2. Are they caused by mother tongue influences?
The study was conducted with two classes (49J1, 49H) consisting of 100
students in their second term. The data of the study were obtained using 2 research
instruments: class observation and recording. After that the data was analyzed and
the findings of the research revealed that Vietnamese has influences on the first year
students‟ English pronunciation at Thai Nguyen University of Technology. At the
end of the research, the researcher proposed some suggestions to improve students‟
pronunciation.


Part B: Development 4
Chapter 1: Literature review 4
1.1. The interference of the mother tongue in foreign languages 4
1.1.1. Definition of the mother tongue and foreign languages. 4
1.1.2. The interference of the mother tongue in foreign languages 4
1.2. English pronunciation 5
1.2.1 English consonants 5
1.2.2 English vowels 10
1.2.3 Consonants clusters 12
1.3 Vietnamese pronunciation 12
1.3.1. Vietnamese consonants 12
1.3.2 Vietnamese vowels 13
1.4. Review of Previous studies 13
Chapter 2: The study 15
2.1 Methodology 15
vi

2.1.1 Setting of the study 15
2.1.2 Participants 15
2.1.3 Data collection instruments 15
2.1.3.1 Class Observation 15
2.1.3.2 Recording 16
2.1.4 Data collection procedures 16
2.2. Findings and discussion 17
2.2.1. Description on the three most frequent types of mistakes 17
2.2.2. Data analysis and discussion 19
2.2.2.1. Mistakes in omission of sounds 19
2.2.2.2. Mistakes in sound replacement 20
2.2.2.3. Mistakes in consonant clusters 24
Part C: Conclusion 26

make mistakes in other area, whereas learners with bad pronunciation will not be
understood, even if their grammar is perfect.
In fact, pronunciation is becoming increasingly recognized as a crucial area for
language learners (Celce-Murcia et al, 1996).
All learners know the importance of pronunciation. However, they find it difficult
to acquire an accent which is intelligible. One of those difficulties is caused by the
interference of their mother tongue in their language learning because each language has
its own rules and phonetic system which may cause a lot of obstacles to learners in
practising and performing them correctly.
In their book, Avery and Ehrlich (1992) show the reason why speakers of English
are able to recognize Spanish accents, Russian accents, Chinese accents … That is because
the nature of a foreign accent is determined to a large extent by a learner‟s native language.
Like any learners of English, Vietnamese learners are coping with so many
difficulties in pronouncing English because of the mother tongue interference. Vietnamese
and English differ a great deal, but Vietnamese students often transfer sound patterns of
Vietnamese into English, that makes their pronunciation imperfect and unintelligible.
As a teacher of English, I can see mistakes that students at TNUT have made in
producing sounds. Therefore, I would like to conduct this research to point out how
Vietnamese affects students‟ English pronunciation and make some corresponding
improvements. Those are the reasons why I decide to do a research entitled: “The
2

interference of the mother tongue in the first year students‟ English pronunciation at Thai
Nguyen University of Technology.”
2. Objectives of the study
The objectives of this study are stated as follows:
- To discover pronunciation mistakes made by students at Thai Nguyen University of
Technology.
- To investigate whether the causes of the mistakes come from students‟ mother
tongue.

Part C: Conclusion summarizes the major findings with reference to the research
questions mentioned in Part A. This part also includes implications to improve students‟
pronunciation, limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.

4


When we learn a foreign language, we often make mistakes in grammar,
pronunciation, and vocabulary caused by our first language. “The sound system
5

(phonology) and the grammar of the first language impose themselves on the new language
and this leads to a „foreign‟ pronunciation, faulty grammatical patterns and, occasionally,
to the wrong choice of vocabulary.” (Hubbard et al, 1983, p140).
Most linguists would probably agree that the mother tongue can affect learners‟
English in several ways. Pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, discourse structure,
handwriting and all other aspects of language use are likely to some extent to carry a
mother-tongue accent. But the most striking is in the case of pronunciation where the
phonological structure of a speaker‟s first language and the associated articulatory setting
of the lips, tongue, jaw, etc. usually his or her English speech quite strongly (Swan and
Smith, 1987).
In fact, the mother tongue plays an important factor in learning to pronounce
English. In his book, KenWorthy (1987) emphasizes the role of the mother tongue by
indicating the fact that a foreign accent has some of the sound characteristics of the
learner‟s native language.
Avery and Ehrlich (1992) point out that the sound system of the native language
can be seen to influence our students‟ pronunciation of English. According to them,
students‟ pronunciation of English is influenced in at least three ways. First, difficulties
may arise when a learner encounters sounds in English that are not part of the sound
inventory of the learner‟s native language. Secondly, difficulties may arise because the
rules for combining sounds into words are different in the learner‟s native language.
Thirdly, the patterns of stress and intonation, which determine the overall rhythm and
melody of a language, can be transferred from the native language into the second
language.
They also state that the native language not only affects the ability to produce
English sounds but also the ability to hear English sounds.
1.2. English pronunciation