Abstract
This article aims to explore the way/s English diphthongs are produced
by the Yousafzai Pashto speakers of Pakistan. Horizontal (regional) and
vertical (social) change of language is a familiar phenomenon implying
that people are linguistically different from one another, case to case. In
addition to region and social class, one’s mother tongue has a significant
role in the production of the sounds of the target language. If there is
conformity between the first and the second/foreign language, it entails a
carryover in the form of a positive transfer of L1 speech habits into the
L2; whereas in a situation otherwise, the transfer is negative. In other
words, similarity between any two languages becomes an asset (facility)
and dissimilarity a liability (hurdle) for a learner. English is taught as a
compulsory subject in Pakistan and, due to the presence of multiple
regional languages, spoken as mother tongues by different people, it
seems that there emerge multiple sub-varieties of the kind of English
spoken in the country. In this study, a total of fifty university graduates
pronounced a wordlist containing the English diphthongs which was
recorded and transcribed to markany deviations. Tocarry outdata
analysis, I have relied mainly on the weak version of CAH (Contrastive
Analysis Hypothesis) reflected in the approach given by Adam Brown
(1989). It is, therefore, principally concerned with identification,
description, and interpretation of the influence of Yousafzai dialect of
Pashto on the diphthongs of English.
Dr.Ayyaz Mahmood. (2017) Negative/Positive Transfer: A Study of the Aberrant Use of English Diphthongs in the Speech Patterns of Pakistani , Mayar , Volume 17-18 , Issue 2.
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