An Approach to English Phonology

Abstract

This study aims at clarifying various concepts in the linguistic field of English phonology. The researcher has adopted the descriptive research methodology. The study has emerged upon the observations of the researcher in teaching English pronunciation and phonology classes at the tertiary level. A very big number of students lack the correct information about some fundamental concepts in the domain of English phonology. Thus, this study has been conducted as an attempt to illuminate some vague and obscure concepts that cause a real learning problem to students who study English phonology in particular and those who study English language in general. Students are not aware of basic English phonological concepts such as homophones, homographs, homonyms, etc. In addition, students lack knowledge of the structure of the syllable, syllabification process, counting syllables in words, etc. Moreover, most English language learners are not familiar with stress patterns, stress shift, unstressed syllables, etc. In a nutshell, this study has been carried out due to several noticeable learning weaknesses that students encounter in their learning process, so it attempts to resolve some of these problematic difficulties and ease the way to assimilate some essential English phonology concepts.