A STUDY OF PHONETIC VARIATION AMONG SARAIKI ESL LEARNERS

Abstract

Saraiki is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly in the southern regions of Punjab, Pakistan. It has its own distinct linguistic features and is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities with Punjabi. Saraiki is written in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts. This research aims at finding the phonetic variation among Saraiki ESL learners. This study analyses the issues that occur while uttering interdental fricatives and alveolar plosives. The shifting of ‘th’ at start or in the middle or at the end within voiced and voiceless interdentals and shifting of /t/ phoneme and /d/ at start, in the middle or at the end of voiceless and voiced alveolars play a vital role in identifying the issues for the speakers having Saraiki as their native language. They speak different phonemes with a touch of their mother tongue which states that is interlanguage phenomenon. The present research is qualitative in nature where homogeneous sampling has been done on population of Saraiki ESL learners. This study compares the recorded data with RP (Received pronunciation) accent to check whether the Saraiki ESL follow up the same pattern or not. 15 participants having Saraiki as their native language were selected and allowed to utter certain interdental fricatives and alveolar plosives like ‘th’, /t/ and /d/ phonemes. They were chosen on the basis of homogeneous sampling techniques. It was found that they can utter certain phonemes when these sounds come in the start but it becomes problematic when these sounds come in the middle or at the end. They were able to pronounce the phonemes when they were placed at the start of any word no matter they were voiced or voiceless.