Title: A Study on the Pronunciation of English Consonant Clusters Based on Error Analysis
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to review the type and pronunciation of English consonant clusters, to analyse the pronunciation of consonant clusters by observing actual teaching practice through 8 videotapes, and to present effective methods in teaching the pronunciation of consonant clusters, i.e, initial consonant clusters, medial consonant clusters, and final consonant clusters. To achieve this goal, the characteristics of consonant clusters in pronunciation are considered. The study is based on an experiment in which subjects were analysed on the pronunciation of consonant clusters. The results showed that English learners make errors in pronouncing consonant clusters due to the difference of syllable structure between Korean and English. For example, Korean students commit errors such as nasalization, lateralization, palatalization, and glottalization. These errors could be caused by the misapplication of typical phonological rules of Korean to English. The errors in consonant clusters considered in this paper are Vowel insertion’ and ‘assimilation’. The [ə] insertion, which Korean speakers put in English consonant clusters according to the Korean syllable structure, makes the differentiation of the word ‘prayed’ from ‘parade’ difficult. Such errors on consonant clusters can be corrected through the formal pronunciation practice. In this study, the effective methods in teaching the pronunciation of consonant clusters will be presented.