An Analysis of Multiple Articulations in the Speech of Multilinguals: Problem-posing Pronunciation Difficulty Types in Indo-European and Semitic Speaking Multilinguals

In the pronunciation efforts of multilinguals there is a continuous struggle for correct pronunciation. In the field of phonetics and phonology, oral articulations are primarily grouped into primary, secondary, coarticulation, and multiple articulations. . In the pronunciation and intonation of multilinguals, there are solid traces of impacts originating from their native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic ability, identity and language ego, motivation, and concern for good pronunciation. While primary articulation is not a serious problem-posing hardship for non-native learners of English for pronunciation, secondary articulation, coarticulation and multiple articulations give hard times to non-natives of English. Especially, multiple articulations contain two or more articulations due to their articulatory compression that take place simultaneously in different locations of the vocal tract. Double articulations, nasalization, labialization, palatalization, retroflexion, velarization, glottalization, pharyngealization, laryngealization, flapping, and so on can easily take place in the same lexical item. In this study, the causes and types of fossilized pronunciation errors of Indo-European and Semitic language speakers will be unearthed.