DEPARTMENT OF English

Executive Summary

                   This project is an attempt to do a contrastive analysis of two languages- English and Awadhi. There are several books on the phonology of English. Many researchers have published papers comparing the phonology of English with that of other languages. But a contrastive study of English and Awadhi has not become a subject of research yet. Awadhi, being a dialect of Hindi, is a language which is hardly known by people, even in our country. Till now, no research has been done in this language. There is ample scope of research in the field of phonological contrastive analysis of English and Awadhi, which can prove fruitful in the process of second language acquisition.

Chapter one gives an introduction to the area of contrastive analysis in phonology. A detailed explanation to the concept of contrastive analysis, along with its need in our country, its interdisciplinary relevance, its international as well as national status, its significance in the present scenario etc are provided. The major objectives of the study, methodology followed, hypotheses formulated, method of data collection, place selected for field work etc are also mentioned in the introductory chapter.

Chapter two provides a theoretical background to the study. As part of this, the review of the related literature has been given. The most productive area of research in phonology in our country is the phonological descriptions of Indian languages. The descriptions, in general, follow the usual divide between segmental and ‘suprasegmental’ phenomena. However, a bibliographical collection of studies on a language is likely to yield a body of publications with a fairly wide coverage.

Chapter three is the core chapter in which a contrastive analysis of English and Awadhi is provided at the level of phonology.  The major differences between the vowel systems, consonant systems, allophones, consonant clusters, syllabic structure etc of the two languages are provided.

Chapter four, entitled “English versus Awadhi”, gives a comprehensive description of the major differences in the structure, alphabet system, grammar, vocabulary, etc of the two languages, viz. English and Awadhi. Chapter five is the concluding chapter, which summarises the major findings of the study. In comparison with English, Awadhi has approximately half as many vowels and twice as many consonants. This leads to several problems of pronunciation. One difficulty is distinguishing phonemes in words such as said / sad; par / paw; vet / wet, etc. Words containing the letters th (this, thing, months) will cause Awadhi learners the same kind of problems that they cause most other learners of English. The phoneme /s/ as exemplified by the s in pleasure is missing in Awadhi and so pronunciation of such words is difficult. Consonants clusters at the beginning or end of words are more common in English than Awadhi. This leads to errors in the pronunciation of words such as straight (istraight), fly (faly), film (filam).

Compared to English, Awadhi has weak but predictable word stress. Learners therefore have considerable difficulty with the irregular stress patterns of words such as photograph / photographer. Awadhi learners are disinclined to 'swallow' unstressed syllables such as the first syllables in the words tomorrow, intelligent, remember, etc., and will often try to clearly articulate short, common words that are usually weakly stressed in English: has, and, was, to, etc.

English, of course, is prevalent in India, and for this reason Awadhi learners may well be extremely fluent. Nevertheless, native-English speakers often have difficulties understanding them because of the combination of the pronunciation problems listed above and the use of Awadhi intonation patterns. (In Awadhi emphasis is accomplished by higher pitch rather than by the heavier articulation that typifies English.) The result of this is the sing-song effect that English spoken by Awadhi learners often has on native-English speakers.