AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH VOWELS OF THE SECOND SEMESTER OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PURWOREJO IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013

Abstract

This aim of this research is to analysis of students’ errors in pronouncing English vowels of the second semester of muhammadiyah university of Purworejo in the academic year of 2012/2013. The type of this research is descriptive qualitative research. The instrument used by a test, used 30 words, recorder, which were used to record the students’ pronunciation.  In analyzing the data, error analysis was used in which there were four steps: transcribing the students’ pronunciation into the phonetic transcriptions, grouping the students’ errors in pronouncing English vowels into separate divisions, employing the percentage descriptive analysis to count all error and interpreting the result of the data analysis. The result of the analysis shows that students are considered “good” in pronouncing English vowels. The total percentage of various errors in pronouncing English vowels is 25.67%. There are five types of dominant errors. There are vowel [i:] 5.31%, [æ] 6.22%, [a:] 6.67%, [ɔ:] 6.67%, and [Λ] 0.76%. The factors from this problem are by the interference errors namely interlingual errors and intralingual errors. The writer suggests the students; they should be given a lot of drills and practices relating to the pronunciation so that they can acquire the habit of using the correct pronunciation.

Keywords: Error, pronunciation, English vowel.