The Differences in Phonological Characteristics of Farsi Speakers of English and Native English Speakers

Abstract

Many English-learning students of Iran and Farsi speakers of English abroad have pronunciation problems, which affect their intelligibility when interacting with native English speakers. The present research was carried out to assess the perception of native English speakers toward the impact of pronunciation on the intelligibility of Farsi speakers of English. In total, thirty-three Farsi speakers of English and thirty-three native English speakers participated in the study. The research method was an unstructured twenty-item interview that contained specific phonemes and ten sentences including consonant clusters. In terms of gender, the analysis of the hypothesis showed that there are not any significant differences in terms of morphological features between men and women, as well as the Farsi and native speakers of English. Also, in terms of educational level, there are less significant differences in the morphological features used by individuals with an education level of master’s degree (or above), compared to those with a bachelor’s degree (or below). Finally, in terms of age, the results obtained from the analysis of the hypothesis showed no significant difference in the morphological features used by the Farsi speakers of English and native English speakers.  Results indicated that Farsi speakers of English experienced various degrees of difficulties mainly for expressing the phonemes and consonant clusters that are not present in the sound system and syllable structure of Farsi language. As a result of these findings, the conclusion is drawn that pronunciation does affect the intelligibility of Farsi speakers of English.

Keywords: Phonology, Phoneme, Phonological characteristics, Morphological features, Intelligibility, Consonant clusters