Error analysis of the pronunciation of English consonants

Abstract

We provide here a brief summary of the most significant errors of Faroese speakers in the production of English consonants, and advice on how these can be remedied. The analysis is based on audio recordings of six informants from Eysturoy in the north of the Faroes. Altogether, a total of 3,547 occurrences of sounds were analysed. Results show that Faroese speakers have problems with certain phonemic contrasts which are very similar to those facing many other non-native speakers of English. However, they also exhibit errors which are less usual worldwide (e.g. pre-aspiration of fortis stops). There are at the moment no textbooks for Faroese learners of English, nor any descriptions of their pronunciation difficulties; this paper is a first attempt at filling that gap.

Keywords

• Faroese learners of English
• pronunciation problems
• consonant articulations
• pre-aspiration
• error analysis
• empirical study