PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION ERROR ANALYSIS OF UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDENTS IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

This paper investigates phonemic transcription errors of L2 learners of English, using the undergraduate students of the Department of English Language, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, as case study and compares performance across levels and phonemes. Twenty (20) randomly selected respondents from each of the four undergraduate levels - a total of eighty (80) participants, were asked to do a phonemic transcription of a researcher-crafted text of two sentences comprising all the 44 English phonemes and one purposively infused triphthong. The Daniel Jones’s (2011) Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary was used as standard in grading the test. The transcriptions were then closely studied, categorized, and analysed. Findings show that L2 learners and users of English committed errors of Substitution (259, 41%), Addition (87, 13%), Replacement (66, 10%), and Omission of Sounds (33, 05%) out of the 675 transcription errors identified. None (00%) out of the 80 participants was able to transcribe the triphthong sound correctly, amounting to 12% of the total errors; while three specific transcription rules, namely the rule of realizing strong vowel sounds in function words as schwa /ə/ which was abandoned in 150 instances (22% of total errors), mostly in ‘and’ and ‘to’; the rule of not realizing vowels as schwa in content words which they applied indiscriminately; and the rule of double slashes inserted at the beginning and the end of a transcribed sentence which none of them observed. The study also finds 60% of vowel errors and 40% of consonant errors, while out of all 44 phonemes, all respondents got only nine (9) consonant sounds correctly, indicating that respondents face greater difficulty with the English vowel sounds. It is concluded that these errors are due mostly to interference and non-adherence to rules symptomized in incorrect articulation and erroneous transcription. Finally, this study emphasizes the crucial role of error analysis in L2 language learning and development as it provides useful insights into the nature of errors, and points at implications for curriculum improvement, pragmatic methodologies and technology application in language teaching and learning.  Article visualizations: