Investigating the Extent to which the Tebessian Accent Interferes in English Pronunciation The Case of 3rd Year EFL Students at Larbi Tebessi University

Abstract

The present dissertation investigates the extent to which the Tebessian accent crosses its path into English pronunciation, mainly with third-year students of the English Department at Larbi Tebessi University. It attempts to shed some light on the Tebessian accent and its effects on the appropriateness of students' English pronunciation. Two hypotheses underlay this study. First, the extent of the Tebessian accent interference in English pronunciation is high. Second, phonological interference leads EFL students to make phonological errors. A mixed-method approach was used to serve the research aim. A structured questionnaire was also assigned to five oral expression/phonetics teachers in the department of English to seek answers to the first and the second research questions, the responses were analysed quantitatively in order to examine the first hypothesis. Besides, eight participants from the population of the class of third-year incorporating 147 students were randomly selected as the sample of this research. They were audio-recorded, with the aim of inspecting the phonological errors resulting from the interference and to answer the third research question, the students’ utterances were analysed qualitatively following the procedure stated in the Error Analysis hypothesis in order to test the second research hypothesis. Even though, few limitations were present during the process of compiling this research, the obtained results indicate that both research hypotheses are approved. Hence, the extent of interference of the Tebessian accent in third-year students' English pronunciation is indeed high, and the latter has an effect on the production of phonological errors. Finally, several practical implications and recommendation were proposed to overcome language interference obstacles.