A Phonological Problems and Errors of Students Pronounciation in Reading English text at English Department of University HKBP Nommensen

Abstract

This study aims to find out the pronunciation problems and mispronunciations made by sixth semester students of group B English Department of HKBP Nommensen University Medan. The researcher used descriptive qualitative method. The data of this study are transcription of students pronunciation recordings in English short story texts. There were 15 students of English Department who were taken rando mly. The data were analyzed based on (Ladefogeds, 2001) theory to find the types of pronunciation errors using phonetic transcription, data collection was done through voice recording and Elsa speak application. The results showed that students made the following muel pronunciation errors [ə, ʊ, Λ, ɔ:]. The total mispronunciation of vowel sounds was 40 errors. The errors consisted of 18 omission errors, 6 addition errors, and 16 information errors. Vowel pronounciation errors made by students can be caused by several factors, such as the influence of the first mother tongue (interference), the influence of the second language learned (overgeneralization) and the influence of developmental errors.