DefinePK

Abstract

The present study aims to conduct a contrastive phonetic analysis of the consonants of English and Pashto languages by looking into those deviant consonants of English which pose problems to the Pashto speakers during learning English. The acoustic comparative phonetic analysis of the English consonants pronounced by Pashto speakers as compared with those of the RP speakers revealed certain similarities and differences during the production of the English consonants in the English words’ initial, medial and final positions in terms of the manner and place of articulation as revealed by the analysis of speech samples through Praat. The study found that Pashto speakers with English background can pronounce fricativeconsonants likeس/s/,ﺰ/z/, ش/ʃ/,ﮋ/ʒ/,andﻩ/ɦ/native like, though with slight variations in ش/ʃ/,ﮋ/ʒ/and the fricativeconsonantslike ﻒ /ɸ/was pronounced quite different by Pashto speakers than the English fricative /f/. Similarly, the fricativeconsonants like ﺥ/χ/,ښ/X/,ﻍ/ɣ/, ﺹ/sˤ/, ﻆ /zˤ/, ث/θ/, ﺫ/ð/,andﺡ  /ħ/ exist in Pashto but are not found in English but which play a pivotal role in Pashto spoken and written language. The fricative ﻉ /ʕ/was observed to be pronounced as a definite fricative by Pashto speakers as compared to the RP speakers who rather pronounce this sound only when they golttalize certain vowels and consonants. The study recommends that the teachers of English at college level should properly train the Pashto L1 learners of English in the pronunciation of English fricative consonants to acquire correct English pronunciation and expose them to the essential similarities and differences of the consonants of Pashto and English languages during class room situations so that their hurdle of intelligibility may be overcome for successful communication with the native speakers of English.