Phonotactic Interference Between English and Arabic Among Arab Learners of English as a Foreign Language

The main objective of this article is to find out why Arab Learners of English (ALE) pronounce: first, the verb past suffix “ed” /t/ sa /id/ as in the word asked /ɑːskt/ and advanced /ədˈvɑːnst/; second, they pronounce the plural form “s” /z/ as /s/after a voiced sound as in codes /kəʊdz/ and beds /bedz/. The sample of this study was Sudanese Secondary Schools students in Omdurman Locality. The researcher uses a descriptive analytic method to describe the nature of phonotactics difficulties besides a simple comparison between the problematic sounds in both languages, English and Arabic, to arrive at the study’s hypotheses. To verify the study hypotheses, the study sample took a pronunciation test to assess difficulties that the study sample encountered. The test includes a list of words the students may find difficult to pronounce, the verb past suffix “ed” /t/ and the plural form as s /z/ after a voiced sound. The most important result is that the absence of English allophones /t/ and /z/ from Arabic motivates ALE to use submitted sounds from Arabic to pronounce English allophones /t/ and /z/ a s in the words asked and codes.