The Effect of Native Language on Iraqi EFL Students' Articulation of Gliding Vowel Sounds

Abstract

This paper focuses on the capacity of Iraqi English foreign language (henceforth, EFL) students to articulate English gliding vowels. The problem is that Iraqi EFL students encounter certain challenges in learning English gliding vowel sounds, including limited exposure to native speakers and the influence of their native languages on English pronunciation. Additionally, there is a gap in the literature as well as the need for more context-specific phonetic research in this area since few studies have focused on gliding vowel sounds in relation to Iraqi Arabic. These factors contribute to difficulties in producing gliding vowel sounds effectively. It aims to examine the production challenges of gliding vowels and to investigate the extent to which their mother tongue affects these pronunciation patterns. It is firstly hypothesized that most diphthongs are correctly articulated by Iraqi EFL learners. Secondly, it is hypothesized that all triphthongs are incorrectly articulated by Iraqi EFL learners. To achieve this, (50) Iraqi students from third stage for the academic year 2025-2026/ Al-Shaheed Hassan Ali Al-Saadi for boys/ Baghdad Education Directorate/AL-Risafa3 were selected to participate in this study. It has been observed that the mother tongue has a major effect in articulating most of these sounds by the concerned sample. Thus, they do not have enough ability to pronounce gliding vowel sounds.