CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND BOSNIAN CONSONANT

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND BOSNIAN CONSONANT

JOLDIC, Dzenita
PERKIC, Lidija

Learning a foreign language has always been rather demanding job. Learning our mother tongue, we have already acquired certain patterns of behavior that language units exhibit and when learning a new language we first notice the differences in these patterns. We become particularly aware of the differences between the patterns of our mother and second language because we memorize new language by contrasting it to the first one. However, when it comes to similarities between the languages, we do not tend to be so careful. We usually take them for granted and imply that if two language units exhibit similarity they also exhibit equality. This false similarity then misleads us into false equality. We tend to believe that words that are pronounced similarly have the same meaning, which is not always the case. The same implies to phonemes. We are well aware of the English phonemes that do not exist in our own language and believe that those existing in both languages are equal. However, there are phonemes which exist in both languages but are pronounced in a different way and are therefore totally different. This paper addresses this teaching and learning challenge raising awareness of the consonants which exist in both languages but are pronounced in a different way. Methodology used in the paper is providing of the necessary theoretical background and the contrastive analysis of the consonants according to the place and manner of their articulation. The analysis has shown that half of the existing consonants are present in both languages but only half of them are equivalents. As such this paper highlights potential problems in pronunciation and raises learners' awareness. Keywords: English consonants, Bosnian consonants,contrastive analysis, place of articulation, manner of articulation.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2014

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