• Inaad Mutlib Sayer

  Author

• Sahima Abdul Salam

  Author

This research is concerned with vowel duration in the articulation of native English
speakers of monosyllabic words and in that of Kurdish university students of English. It aims at
identifying the durations of vowels, as a result of word-final voicing, in both articulations and
comparing them to see to what extent Kurdish university students of English are aware of the
influence of voicing context on vowel duration. The Subjects of the study were twenty secondyear
students (ten girls and ten boys) selected randomly to articulate nine minimal pairs of
monosyllabic words chosen from “Better English Pronunciation 2nd edition, by J. D.
O’Connor”, together with their pronunciation audio files. The audio files were used as data of
the native English speaker’s articulation. Both the native English speakers’ articulation and the
students’ articulation were analysed acoustically using PRAAT. The analysis has shown clear
differences in vowel duration between native speakers’ articulation and that of Kurdish
university students of English. Furthermore, the female group of the Kurdish subjects produced
vowels longer than the male group did; however, they did not approach the native vowel
durations. It seems that Kurdish university students of English are unaware of the influence of
word-final voicing on vowel duration since they, on average, deviated much from the native
English articulation. Furthermore, they reversed the influence of voicing context in 47.7% of
their articulation.

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