Browsing by Author "Elia, Augustino"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The acquisition of Kiswahili alveolar fricatives by Chasu native speakers
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2012) Elia, Augustino
    This study has investigated the acquisition of Kiswahili alveolar fricative sounds by Northern Chasu native speakers. Two specific objectives guided the study. The first objective was to describe how Northern Chasu native speakers produce Kiswahili alveolar fricative sounds. The second objective was to determine whether the failure of attaining native-like phonology of Kiswahili alveolar fricative sounds has any effect on comprehension and meaning interpretation in a communication context.Subjects who were divided into three groups were given two reading tasks and one answering questions task. The reading tasks contained words with both Kiswahili interdental fricative sounds and alveolar fricative sounds. The answering questions task also was structured to ensure the elicitation of responses with Kiswahili alveolar fricative sounds.The findings indicate that generally interdental fricative sounds do not pose problems to Chasu native speakers because the sounds are found in both Chasu and Kiswahili. Markedness is greatly witnessed in the production of Kiswahili alveolar fricatives by Chasu native speakers. However, there are variations in the productions of alveolar fricatives, variations that accrue from differences in levels of education in L2, age of arrival (AOA), amount of input received and interaction, exposure, and the use of L1. The findings also show difficulties in comprehension and meaning interpretation when substitution is made in words which can form minimal pairs and without a context which can help demystify the meaning.The study recommends that future research should concentrate on the possibility of minimizing fossilization. The study recommends also that another study with regard to the sounds of this study should concentrate on the possibility of the influence of acoustic factors in bringing about markedness in the production of the sounds.