Abstract:
To analyse the pronunciation of double final consonants in English by Thai students, to study the relationship between degrees of difficulty in pronouncing final consonant clusters according to the theory of contrastive studies and correctness in pronunciation, and to compare the ability to pronounce the clusters correctly between male and female students. Six linguistic variables are included in the study. The data are collected by recording the subjects' reading of a 40-item-wordlist. The subjects are 60 Matthayomsuksa V students in the science program of a provincial school: 30 males and 30 females with grade point average of over 3.00. The data are statistically analysed by percentage and the chi-square test (p<0.01). The results show that there are five types of variation: (1) correct pronunciation of both sounds, (2) deletion of one of the two sounds, (3) replacement of one or both sounds, (4) deletion of one sound and replacement of the other, and (5) insertion of an extra sound. It is found that a resonant followed by an obstruent is the linguistic variable which can be most correctly pronounced, and an obstruent followed by an obstruent is the variable that is most often reduced to one sound. Moreover, the subjects pronounce the final clusters as two sounds more than as one sound. When they pronounce them as one sound, they pronounce the first consonant more than the second consonant. With regard to degrees of difficulty in pronouncing correctly, the clusters could be ranked as follows from the easiest to the most difficult: a nasal followed by a stop, a nasal followed by a fricative, a lateral followed by a stop, a nasal followed by an affricate, a stop followed by a fricative, and a fricative followed by a stop. That order does not agree with the hypothesis. The lateral followed by the stop is the third rather than the last. However if this variable is ignored, the ranking of the rest of the variables agrees with the hypothesis. Comparing male and female subjects, the overall result shows that female students pronounce more correctly than male students and the value is statistically significant. It suggests that female uses more prestigious variants than male. When each linguistic variable is examined, results still show that female students pronounce more correctly than male students but the value is not statistically significant in any linguistic variable.