Instrumental analysis of loss of assimilation of English nasal stops in adult Saudi EFL learners’ speech

Abstract

Assimilation of consonant sounds within words and at word boundaries is a common phenomenon in English. However, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners may fail to observe the rule which makes their English sound sub-standard. This paper investigates whether adult Saudi EFL learners follow assimilation rules in English. Selected words and phrases spoken by a group of participants, where assimilated nasal sounds were used, were recorded using Praat software. Drawing spectrograms of the sound signals, time taken by participants to pronounce the assimilated sound segments was calculated. The time taken by native speakers of English to pronounce the same sound segments was also checked. The mean values of time taken by participants and native speakers to pronounce each assimilated sound segment were compared, with the assumption that if the participants took more time to pronounce the sound segments, they missed assimilation. The findings revealed that although in comparison to native speakers, Saudi EFL learners clocked slightly higher time duration, for most sounds the difference in time was not significant from the statistical point of view. The conclusion is that Saudi English learners are making efforts to be as close to native speakers as possible in using assimilated nasal sounds in English.