A Description of Intelligibility in Fossilized English Pronunciation of Mentor Teacher to Native English Speakers

Abstract

This study focuses on describing the intelligibility of fossilized English pronunciation by elementary mentor teachers. The researchers used a corpus composed of English words commonly mispronounced by Filipinos. Using the qualitative descriptive method, the researchers described some fossilized English words (intelligible and unintelligible) pronounced by the three key informants, who are elementary teachers. All gathered data were validated by the respondents, who are native English speakers. It was found that 45 out of 50 words the mentor teachers mispronounced were considered fossilized, as each word was mispronounced at least three times. Though improperly mispronounced, the English words articulated by the mentor teachers are still understandable to Native English speakers. Additionally, the first and last sounds or phonemes of the word helped the native English speaker to understand the word even if mispronounced. Compared to the native pronunciation, the unintelligible and fossilized words have sound differences. These differences are misplacing the stress in multi-syllable words, changing phonemes from their original sound, vowel emphasis problems, and null representation of sound. Future researchers were recommended to broaden this study by adding the number of respondents and key informants from another native English-speaking country.