An Analytic Study of Iraqi EFL Undergraduate Students' Use of Major Phonetic Processes

ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating Iraqi EFL university students' use of phonetic processes concerning their performance (recognition and production) of phonetic processes, that is to say, the research focuses on those learners' cognitive and productive abilities when using phonetic processes of English. As a consequence, one hundred 4th year students, as a representative sample, are subject to a questionnaire exclusively prepared for this purpose with the hope of discovering their performance in this concern. Since phonetic processes are a daunting challenge and insurmountable problem for all foreign learners, including Iraqi EFL learners, this research emphasizes the learners' performance (recognition and production) in this regard. Accordingly, the problem so far identified is to be discussed thoroughly and the findings of this work will be of use for foreign learners of English in general. The current research is first approached theoretically by drawing upon phonetic and phonological differences in conjunction with the key phonetic processes and discussing their peculiarities with respect to the way linguistic forms are pronounced. Later on, a test is conducted to detect the learners' abilities to use the phonetic processes when producing English forms. At last, the research terminates with an appendix containing the questionnaire that involves the questions designated for this end and arrived at some conclusions in this regard.