L1 Interference or Negative transfer

 

As far as Keralites are concerned English is a second language. Naturally mother tongue has a significant influence on all the other language spoken by a particular person. Obviously people express their closeness with the mother tongue and the listeners can easily trace it out. This is called L1 Interference or negative transfer. As a global language, English is spoken in different parts of the world and there is no purity of either language or pronunciation. Therefore we often come across alternate pronunciations and mispronunciations. However one needs to acquire correct pronunciation.

The key areas of L1 interference in Malayalam/English learners are as follows:-

I.                   Some sounds are certainly silent in English, but the same sound may be actively used in Malayalam. So, there must be a tendency to pronounce all those silent letters. Following are some examples.

 

1-    The sound /d/ is silent in the following words

Badge, bridge, budget, adjourn, adjust etc.

2-    The sound /b/ is silent in the following words

Bomb, comb, crumb etc.

3-    The sound /h/ is silent in the following words

Annihilate, honour, honest

4-    The sound /g/ is silent in the following words

Gnat, poignant, sign,

5-    The sound /t/ is silent in the following words

Whistle, wrestle, mortgage

 

II.                The sounds /p/, /l/, /m/, /n/ and /k/ are wrongly given double articulation by Malayalee speakers when they occur twice in spelling.

For example

Apparatus, apparition, apparently

Brilliant, intelligent, bullet, bully

Commission, summer, committee

Innate, innocent, innovate, innumerable.

 

III.             Pronouncing words without stress shift.

Some words are used both noun or adjective and verb in English. Though they have same spelling but pronunciation changes. Thus, the stress shifts according to the class. Usually nouns are stressed in the first syllable and verbs are in second. But, most Keralites pronounce these words alike.

 

IV.            * Pronouncing ‘-es/s’ and ‘-ed’ morphemes

Most Malayalee speakers pronounce all the plural forms ‘-es/s’ alike. But, English has three distinct forms for it. For example

The word ‘roses’ pronounces as |ˈrəʊzɪz|

The word ‘bags’ pronounces as |ˈbæɡz|

The word ‘looks’ pronounces as  |ˈlʊks|

 

·        The past form – ‘ed’ is always pronounced as /d/ by Malayalees. Where as English has three distinct formats as follows

 

The word ‘rooted’ pronounces as |ˈruːtɪd|

The word ‘rubbed’ pronounces as |rʌbd|

The word ‘looked’ pronounces as |lʊkt|

 

 

V.               Strong articulation of weak function and  class words

There is a tendency to produce weak forms as strongly for Malayali speakers. For example the right pronunciation of the sentence ‘I am coming’ is - /aim ‘kʌmɪŋ /

 

 

VI.            In the case of some Malayalam sounds there is no corresponding sounds in English. As there is no equivalent sound of /æ/ in Malayalam. So the speakers sometimes use /j/ (y) sound- known as “inclusive y”.

For example there is a chance to mispronounce the words like – Cat, Captain and Cap etc.

 

 

VII.         Problem with the sound /z/

Due to the absence of a corresponding Malayalam sound for /z/, tend to replace with it as /s/. so these words may be mispronounced- Zoo, Zebra,  raise (|reɪz|) and phase (|feɪz|).

 

 

VIII.      Wrong pronunciation of some numbers

                following numbers are  often mispronounced

Eleven- |ɪˈlevn|

Twelve - |twelv|

Twenty- |ˈtwentɪ|