The status of /r/ in the pronunciation of Turkish PhD candidates and its rehabilitation by computer and audacity programs

Abstract

Today, there are two major standard varieties in English pronunciation in the world: British English (BrE, also called Received Pronunciation (RP) and North American English (NAE). British English is the hub of all the varieties of English dialects.  One cannot consider NAE a separate language. Within British English and American English there are also a great variety of accents due the lingua franca effect of English. The Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA) have received more attention than others from phoneticians and phonologists. In GA, which is a rhotic accent – /r/ phoneme, can occur in positions where many of the vowels can be r-colored by way of realization of a following /r/. American-r is a retroflex consonant and in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it is indicated with a hook in the bottom right, such as [ɻ]. The retroflex approximant /ɻ/, which is an allophone of the alveolar approximant /ɹ/, are heard in many dialects of American English, particularly in the Midwestern United States. One of the biggest differences between the British and the American accents is that Americans always pronounce the/r/ phoneme word-initially, word-medially and word-finally. In this paper, general situation of /r/ phoneme and special existence of retroflex-r of NAE will be explored in the pronunciation of 45 PhD candidates, who took an oral exam at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education in the Department of English Language Education on July, 11th, 2012. In this research, the existence of /r/ phoneme will be investigated by using the Error Hunt Approach and a diagnostic test in listening comprehension, and a 50-minute lesson plan will be presented as a remedial rehabilitation refinement by Audio-articulation Model by computer and Audacity Program (1.2.6.)