The Articulatory Timing of the English Supee-heavy Syllable as Produced by Iraqi EFL Postgraduate Students: An Acoustic Study

The current study investigates the phenomenon of articulatory timing and its variation between native speakers and foreign language learners. more specifically, the study focuses on the articulatory timing of heavy syllables in four multi-syllabic words produced by 36 iraqi efl postgraduate students. the study aims to answer the questions:(1) what are the differences in the at of the four selected words between the standard native articulation and the articulatory of iraqi efl under study (2) what are the factors causing such articulation timing variance? the researcher adopts the moraic theory and the praat software to analyze the data. the analysis has revealed that iraqi efl postgraduate students, as non-native speakers of english, produce (super-heavy syllables) with variant at compared to the standard at produced by the english native speaker. additionally, it is concluded that the pronunciation of iraqi efl under study is mainly affected by the factor of vowel modification. this factor was registered with high percentages in the items (herbicide, entertain, proverbial and amazing). the students often modify the vowel sounds more than they do with the consonant sounds. furthermore, the at variance is less when the token is familiar, while the at is more variant when the token is unfamiliar to the students.