Phonological Intricacies for EFL Undergraduates in Accentuating Particular Parts of an Utterance

Abstract

This study strives to explore the phonological intricacies experiencing EFL undergraduates in accentuating particular parts of an utterance (prominence feature). The descriptive analytical approach has been adopted as it relevantly fits the nature of the present study. In the conduct of collecting the data needed, a diagnostic production test was developed to collect the quantitative data from fifty students in the third year of the English Language BA whom were randomly selected from Sudan University of Science and Technology and Al-Neelain University during the academic year 2017-2018. Then the data collected have been acoustically and statistically analyzed by using Computer Software Package for Speech Analysis in Phonetics known as PRAAT (Boersma, 2001) together with the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The results obtained were tremendously in favour of what had been assumed. On this basis, a number of recommendations have been suggested , the most notable of which is the necessity of creating English environment in EFL classrooms through presenting audio and visual materials in conjunction with English classes in order to offer EFL learners a greater opportunity of more English exposure which in turn contributes to promoting their fluency