Proficiency Differences among Iraqi Speakers in the Pronunciation of English Loanwords

Abstract

The research demonstrates the impact of proficiency on how English loanwords are pronounced in Iraqi Arabic. The descriptions of the phrases "degree of education" and "loanwords" are also provided. The research's forty participants provided the data for it (20 educated and 20 un-educated). Information gathered through the use of an individual interview technique, which involved speaking with the participants and asking them to complete a demographic questionnaire. To elicit the targeted pronunciation of the words in which phonological processes were anticipated to take place, a picture naming task was used. They comprised vowel and consonant changes, deletion, and r-insertion. The findings demonstrated that, educated group used vowel change the least and uneducated group used deletion the least, while /r/ insertion the most.