The effect of regional Bengali dialect on English pronunciation of Bangladeshi second language learners : a reflection

Abedin-Abstract: The paper discusses the inter-relationship between dialectic accents of Bangladeshi ESL learners and Standard English pronunciation. English pronunciation has always been an area ofconfusion for our English language learners and even sometimes for the teachers. This study is also an endeavor to find out whether we should encourage the standard pronunciation or we should go for only comprehensibility. This paper also deals with the argument of the impact of Bangladeshi learners' accent on English Received Pronunciation (RP). It is also an endeavor to find out whether the regional dialects leave any impact on the learning of correct English pronunciation or not. Specific suggestions have been given to overcome the accent problem on the basis of questionnaire survey and speech analysis of sample groups.

Bangla language of different regions. The influence of the dialects on Bangladeshi learners' pronunciation of English is very prominent. As pronunciation is a very vital matter in communication, legible pronunciation is sought for conveying message. Bangladeshi learners frequently face the problem in the pronunciation of English accent and understanding the speech of the English native speakers. Sometimes the utterance becomes so distinctive that it is possible to identify the speech community by analyzing the speech utterance of any individual. In the study we have worked on the regional English pronunciation of Bengali L2 learners and we have tried to find a way out to overcome the problems.

Study purpose
The aim of the study is to identify the differences in pronunciation of English language among the learners coming from different regions of Bangladesh. This is also an endeavor to locate or to focus on the impact of these different varieties of wrong pronunciation on standard English pronunciation. The study has also attempted to highlight the possible solution to the accent drawback of Bangladeshi learners.

Bangla Language and Its Status
Bangla is now the first language (Ll) spoken in Bangladesh and is the second most spoken language in India (Kadeer 2)With its more than 250 million speakers, Bangla ranks 4h among all the languages of the world (Kadeer 2).

Katzner states:
Bangla is one of the Indic languages, a part of the Indo-European family. It is most closely Assamese and Oriya, parlicularly the former. The Alphabet is based on, but is distinctly different from, the Devanagari of Sanskrit. (187) The dialect spoken at Nadya in India is considered as the standard Bangla language (Kadeer2).

Literature review 4.L Bnglish as the global language
In this arena of globalization, English is no more a unique possession of the British or the American rather it has achieved the status of an international language (lingua franca). As English has been spread worldwide, the world is continuously witnessing different varieties of English language. With the increasing number of English speakers around the world, English language is constantly being burdened with baffling veriety of English pronunciation with strong influence of regional accent. In this regard Shahidullah et al has noted: World English has now moved away from the control of its native speakers. There is a joke that global English is neither British nor American, rather it is bad English. However, the question of bad English is irrelevant now. Today's slogan is mutual intelligibility among users of the language. (275)(276) 4.2 Standard English and Received Pronunciation (RP) According to Yule in Standard English the sounds, words and sentence are concerned and this variety of English is used in newspaper, books and mass media (180). He further adds that the second language learners of English use this variety to learn English and it is clearly allied with mass education (180). It is observed that Perera's view of Standard English is a bit different from that of Yule because Yule includes the notion of sound in Standard English directly but Perera does not. Perera says: Standard English refers to the structure of the language, i.e. its grarnmar and vocabulary, not to its pronunciation. Standard English may be spoken in an accent that does not reveal the speaker's geographical origin-in English such an accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP). (80) The effect ofregional Bengali dialect on English pronunciation ofBangiadeshi second lang 275 However, both Perera and Yule are unanimous at one point i.e. Standard English is used by educated people. But Yule raises a controversy regarding the matter and contradicts as to why we should consider the Standard American English and Standard British English as the models of Standard English (227).
Gimson opines that the term (Standard English) suggests that it is the outcome of social judgment rather than of an official decision as to what is 'correct' or 'wrong' (83). He further says that RP is no longer the exclusive property of a particular section.

The Emergence of Standard Pronunciation
The wrong accent of English may act as a bar to have certain position and profession. In other words people may fall victim to several odd situations for incorrect pronunciation. In this regard Gimson says: The English are to-day particularly sensitive to variations in pronunciation of their language. The 'wrong accent' may still be an impediment to social intercourse or to advancement or entry in certain professions. (83) Concentrating on RP or Standard pronunciation he adds that pronunciation is a sign of position in society and it arises class distinction because people in authority attached a prestige value to English pronunciation by dropping some of the characteristics of London speech. Mittins et al, Perara and Yule also agree with the point that RP has attachment with standard on educational ground.
Gimson mentions two points as the grounds for the emergence of Standard English or RP: firstly sounds of a language change from time to time and secondly, when communication between two speech communities is limited there is a different development of pronunciation of the same language in different regions, and therefore English has its regional pronunciation in different regions basically for geographical reasons (84).
In Bangladesh Gimson's notion is valid as regards the use of the English language. As Bangla is pronounced in different speech communities, based on geographical boundary, (Chittagong region, Sylhet region, Barisal region, Dinajpur region, Noakhali regions, etc), English in our countly is pronounced differently in different regions. Though the difference is not that much acute, still it is observable.

Intelligibility Vs Standard Pronunciation
Gimson opines that it must be admitted that a good number of foreign learners will need sternly a practical purpose for learning English and will perceive no important use in getting the performance of a native speaker and for them, information conveying is the main thing (316). In other words he gives importance on comprehensibility of the pronunciation. Like Shahidullah et al (276), Harmer (184) and Yile (228) also put emphasis on Mutual Intelligibility. Harmer holds the point that there will be a serious problem if the second language learner cannot communicate effectively and at the same time he is concerned about how the students' sound should be (184).
Harmer adds that it has become usual for language teachers to consider intelligibility as the prime goal of pronunciation teaching (18a). McDonough and Shaw give emphasis on 'naturally spoken English' and they believe that if a student continues his or her natural speaking flow then he or she will be easily understood (79).In this regard they further say: The only pronunciation practice in the materials is on individual sounds and minimal pairs; however this may be necessary but not sufficient. Our students need to be intelligible, and intelligibility entails more than articulating a vowel or a consonant correctly. Therefore, we decide to add some work on sentence stress and rhythm and on the related phenomenon of 'weak' and 'strong' forms in English. A further advantage is that students will be better able to understand naturally spoken English. (79) Yule also suggests that mutual intelligibility should be the prime goal of communication and therefore it is very important while learning correct pronunciation to give special attention to the comprehensibility of the speaker and the listeners (228). Richards and Rodgers opine that successful communication and interaction is the main goal of any language and in order to calry on fruitful communication comprehensible pronunciation is very important (161). It can be said that for the purpose of successful communication intelligibility should be given maximum priority.
According to Gimson some students may be able to succeed only in speaking English with the phonetic and phonological system and in this case they may be either totally unintelligible to most native English listeners or comprehensible only to the extent that the listener can infer small number of information (316).
On the basis of intelligibility of pronunciation of the native and non-native speakers the achievement may lie somewhere between two extremes and he identifies two exftemes as minimum general intelligibility and high acceptability (316).

Dialect and Accent
Every language has more than one variety, especially in its spoken form.
According to Yule the variation in language speech is an important and wellrecognized aspect of daily lives for the language-users in different regional and social communities (226). on the basis of the 'linguistic geography' and The effect of regional Bengali dialect on English pronunciation of Bangladeshi second lang 2'7'7 concentrating on regional varieties he (1985) explains that there is a clear demarcation between Accent and Dialect and says: The term accent, when used technically, is restricted to the description of aspects of pronunciation which identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally and socially. It is to be distinguished from the term dialect which describes features of gralnmar and vocabulary, as well as aspects of pronunciation...

(22s)
The existence of different regional dialects is widely familiar. On the basis of this regional variety sometimes people of a particul ar area are mocked at. But this is a nna of generalizing practice. Yule agrees with the point that some regional dialects clearly have stereotypical pronunciations associated with them (228). He has further stated that regional dialects become source of humor and of course this is a kind insult for those people who are ridiculed on the stereotypical ground of pronunciation (228). Yule has also given emphasis on the point that researchers should be careful about these stereotypical aspects of accent and at the same time researchers should have clear ideas about isogloss, dialect boundary, and dialect continuum. He explains isogloss as an imaginary line representing a boundary between the areas with regard to that one particular linguistic item when a nurnber of isoglosses come together the boundary line becomes more solid and it is called dialect boundary Q29). He again explicates that there is a chance of overlapping of one dialect boundary with another and that is why no dialect boundary should be treated as rigid rather the continuity of regional accent or dialect continuum should be taken into account (96). Honey has added that for speakers' level of education and movement dialect continuum takes place (96).

Some Universal Problems
There are some universal problems the learners face while learning correct pronunciation of English. In this regard Crystal has mentioned that some students become worried about pronunciation because it does not match the spelling and it is the spelling which finds priorities (60). He has also given emphasis on the problem that pronunciation patterns have changed completely since the days when the spelling system was laid down and English spelling has not been a good guide to pronunciation for hundreds ofyears (60)' Ellis has observed that inhibition might be a problem in the utterance of second or foreign language (I2I). Guiora et al. also state that inhibition has a negative effect on second language pronunciation. Ellis has stated that according to behaviorist learning theory, old habits get in the way of learning new habits (2I-22). Bright and McGregor have opined that where second language learning (SLA) is concerned first language interferes with the smooth acquisition of the second and therefore the pronunciation learning becomes also problemaric (236). According to Ellis negative transfer plays an important role in this regard.
Harmer has detected two particular problems that occur in much pronunciation teaching and learning: I. What students can hear Some students have great difficulty hearing pronunciation features which we want them to reproduce. Frequently speakers of different first languages have problems with different sounds, especially where--as with /b/ and lvl for Spanish speakers--there are not the same two sounds in their language. If they cannot distinguish between them, they will find it almost impossible to produce the two different English phonemes.

The intonation problem:
For many teachers the most problematic area of pronunciation is intonation. Some of us (and many of our students) find it extremely difficult to hear 'tunes' or to identify the different patterns of rising and falling tunes. showing where they are made in the mouth, making students aware of where words should be stressed--all these things give them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility. In some particular cases pronunciation helps students to get over serious intelligibitity problems. (183) McDonough and Shaw have said that the teaching of pronunciation is carried out in many different ways, and for different reasons (136). They observe: Sometimes whole lessons may be devoted to it; sometimes teachers deal with it simply as it arises. Some teachers like to 'drill' correct pronunciation habits, others are more concerned that their students developcomprehensibilitywithinfluency. The effect ofregional Bengali dialect on English pronunciation ofBangladeshi second lang 2'19 They opine that any single approach is universally applicable (136). In this regard Dalton and Seidlhofer say: "the task of pronunciation teaching ...is to establish models for guidance, not norms for imitation" (6).
Harmer has added that the key to successful pronunciation teaching does not mean that the students should be taught to produce correct sounds or intonation tunes, rather to have them listen and notice how English is spoken-either on audio or videotape or from the teachers themselves (185).

4.7.lThe relationship between listening and speaking
According to McDonough and Shaw there is a link between listening and speaking and they strongly believe that listening is not a passive skill and they give emphasis on listening as they observe listening is directly linked with speaking (116)(117)(118). In this regard Vandergrift states: Listening comprehension is anything but a passive activity. It is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance. Co-ordinating all this involves a great deal of mental activity on the part of the learner. ( 168) For listening practice both Harmer and Brown and Yule suggest speaking as a very important factor. On the one hand, Harmer says that information presented in a speech tends to be less densely packed than it is in written form and it is also more repetitive (i18). On the other hand Brown and Yule hold the view that spoken language is less complex in respect of its grammatical and discourse structure and it gives a broken impression with new starts in mid-sentence.
Pronunciation is not a separate skill; it is part of the way we speak (Harmenl86) Concentrating on listening comprehension White points out a number of subskills that go to make up the overall skill of listening and among these subskills he gives importance to the point 'interaction' with a speaker and it should be noted that for successful interaction intelligible pronunciation is very necessary (8-9). Brewster giving importance to the link between speaking and listening, declares that listening is important for learning pronunciation and he further says that while speaking, important information carrying words are normally pronounced with more stress which is very much necessary for the leamers of accurate pronunciation as the learners learn by hearing the sounds (2).

Whento Teach Pronunciation
Teachers have to plan when to teach pronunciation because teachers are to give life to the innate syllabus. Pronunciation teaching into appropriate lesson sequence is very important. Harmer gives an idea about how generally pronunciation is taught by different teachers: i. Whole lessons: Makiirg pronunciation the main focus of a lesson does not mean that every minute of the lesson has to be spent on pronunciation work. Sometimes students may also listen to a longer tape, working on listening skills before moving to the pronunciation pafl of the sequence.
ii. Discrete slots Some teachers insert short and separate bits of pronunciation work into lesson sequences. Over a period of weeks they work on all the individual phonemes either separately or in contrasting pairs. At other times they spend a few minutes on a particular aspect of intonation...

iii. Integrated Phases
Many teachers get students to focus on pronunciation issues as an integral part of a lesson. When students listen to a tape, for example, one of the things which we can do is draw their attention to pronunciation features on the tape...

iv. Opportunistic teachings
Just as teachers may stray from their original plan when lesson realities make ,this inevitable, and teach vocabulary or grammar opportunistically because it has 'come up', so there are good reasons why we may want to stop what we are doing and spend a minute or two on some pronunciation issue that has arisen in the course of an acrivity... (186)(187)(188)(189)(190)(191)(192)(193)(194)(195)(196)(197) Harmer holds that apparently phonemic symbols might not be necessary and the learners can make the pronunciation correct by hearing the sound again and again and it can be effective (185-6). But, he adds that to be aware of the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, phonemic symbol is also necessary (185-6). He again says that students can be aware of the sound of unheard word through phonemic symbols and for the correct pronunciation phonemic symbols are necessary and these phonemic symbols can be used for pronunciation activities (tasks, games etc) (185-6).

Teachers' strategies and principles
For carrying out successful teaching of pronunciation, teachers should take extra care. Johnson mentions some strategies which were found to be successful before: i. Paring pupils with supportive partners; The effect of regional Bengali dialect on Engiish pronunciation of Bangladeshi second lang 281 11. iii. iv.
Putting pu.pils into the role of questioner and interviewer; Planning for well structured smart-group work, with clear time limits; Asking for appropriate teacher interaction in small-group work; Tape-recording individual pupils doing their tasks, using a microphone where necessary; Providing pupils with a cassette player so that they can record their work orally rather than in writing; Redrlcing extraneous noise and explaining tasks fully and explicitly; vi. vii.
viii. Using drama, role play, puppets and play to encourage participatory talk.
(3e) It has always been found that students with dialectical accent are considered as 'problems'; it is natural that students might have an influence of their mother tongue on the second language they are learning. It can not be said that the impact of regional dialect should be ignored rather pupils having the touch of regional dialect might be considered as possessing linguistic strengths. This linguistic strength should be fostered and nourished. Johnson's principles appear to support this: i. Pupils' home languages should be respected; ii. Displays and resources should reflect the cultures and contexts in which children's language is used; iii. All children's language should be encouraged in presentations and public contexts such as school assemblies; iv. All children's languages should as far as possible be reflected in the curriculum; v. Assessment of pupils' work should not be affected adversely by any ' comparative weakness in English. (39) 5. Study Method: 5.1 Participants: We selected in total eight regions of Bangladesh and these regions were Barishal, Comilla, Chittagong, Noakhali, Dinajpur, Rongpur, Sylhet, Jessore and a total of 48 students were selected for sample speech collection and questionnaire survey. We selected them on a random basis especially from a few colleges having local background with local accent. We also selected 24language teachers from these eight districts on a random basis for questionnaire survey.

Survey instruments:
For the survey and speech sample, we used tape recorder, mp3 recorder, sample letter and word list and questionnaire. To collect information, questionnaire were developed both for teachers and students. The questionnaire for the students consisted of 5 multiple choice questions whereas, the questionnaire for the teachers consisted of 4 multiple choice questions along with an open ended question. In the open ended question the teachers were given the scope to incorporate their valuable suggestions regarding the development of the pronunciation of the learners.
6. Sample analysis and findings: After analyzing the sample speech (collected from the selected students in a formal setting) we found interesting information. We have shown data in different tables for better understanding.      In case of Chittagong, they pronounce /s / sound instead of ltf .If the other zones are considered, any rigid isogloss cannot be set rather those zones can be tagged as dialect continuum. It has been found that the people of other regions (except Noakhali, Chittagong and Sylhet) are almost same in their English accent. We should mention one thing here and that is people from all the zones have problem with lzl sound that's why it has not been mentioned in the tables and obviously it is a common problem of pronunciation of the learners in Bangladesh.  From analyzing the questionnaire we have found why the students are facing problem with their English accent. From the questionnaire survey we have come to know that most of the students (817o) have no idea about standard pronunciation. They (both the teachers and the students) think that they need special care for their English accent and their teacher should take extra care for that. Most of the teachers (917o) and students (76Vo) think that regional accent has an impact on their English accent. 97Vo surveyed teachers have said that they do not have enough logistic support for teaching pronunciation.
7. Limitations of the study: The major limitation of the study was the formal setting for sample collection as the contributors were very conscious while giving sample speeches and they tried their best to avoid mistakes. The second limitation was the number of participants; the result would have been different if we had collected more samples and if we could have included more zones to collect the speech samples.
For the purpose of intelligibility, we did not consider the intonation, stressed and unstressed part of their English pronunciation as we tried to locate only influence of dialect on English pronunciation. e. If the students are made familiar with the phonemic symbols through standard English to English dictionary, it will be easier for them to establish the connection later on.
f. Listening and speaking are inseparable skills; when leamers hear standard English pronunciation, gradually they will be able to produce that utterance by themselves.
g. Tone and intonation is another neglected area of our ELT classroom. For that reason, our learners fail to do the proper use of intonation in their speech and fail to understand the speech of the native English speakers. So, the learners must take the problems in tone and intonation seriously.
i. Pronunciation should be taught through connected speech, because isolated word and its pronunciation are not stored for a long time. Good news is that my brother has got a job of a journalist in the Daily Star and you know he always prefers a challenging job.
However, next time when you will come to Dhaka bring your younger brother with you, and then we will visit the national zoo and arrange a picnic to have fun.