Chinese EFL Students’ Errors of Consonant Acquisition

Xiaoyan RUAN

Abstract


This paper, based upon the Chinese Learner Spoken English Corpus, analyses Chinese college students’ common pronouncition errors of English consonants. Statistic analysis indicated the following: (1) The most frequent pronounciation errors were lateral and fricatives; (2) Consonants in which errors occurred during the acquisition were generally of the same type as source consonants; (3) Some errors tended to appear at the specific locations of words, and their distributions in general had no obvious tendencies; (4) Gender differences had little effect upon Chinese EFL learners’ consonant pronounciation errors. The main reasons for the Chinese college students’ common pronounciation errors of English consonants might be due to the participants’ negative transfer of L1 to L2, the overgeneralization of the target language and students’neglect of English pronounciation rules and regularities. Implications and suggestions are provided for the results.


Keywords


Errors of English consonant pronounciation; Tendencies of errors; Corpus; Chinese EFL learners

Full Text:

PDF

References


Chen. N., & He, A. P. (2008). Error analysis of advanced learners’ spoken English segment: A corpus-based study. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages, (3), 38-42.

Chen, Y. L. (2011). On English phonetic variation and strategies for Chinese learners. Teaching Research, (5), 54-58.

Chen, W. K. (2010). Review and reflections on English phonetics acquisition researches. Journal of Zhengzhou University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition), (5), 43-48.

Cui, X. H. (2010). A tentative plan on reconstruction of English phonetics teaching and testing system. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal, (3), 63-68.

Cui, X. H. (2012). Reflections on EFL-based pronunciation instruction in China. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal, (6), 70-74.

Dai, W. D., & Lai, J. M. (2006). Review of studies on Chinese and English interlanguage. English Language Education, (1), 35-43.

Du, X. M. (1998). Analysis of and reflection on junior high school teachers’ phonetic present situation. Research in Teaching, (4), 255-256.

Fa, X. Y. (2011). On negative transfer of Chinese dialects on English pronunciation’s segmental phoneme acquisition. Journal of Hunan Financial and Economic College, (4), 133-138.

Gao, L. (2011). A brief review of the researches in English pronunciation learning in China. Journal of Wuxi Institute of Technology, (2), 57-60.

Gao, X. (2002). Transfer in English phonetics learning and English teaching. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice, (2), 32-35.

Hu, M. (2013). A preliminary study on the development of Chinese college students’ English phonological awareness and its contributing factors. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice, (2), 28-35.

Lai, L. H. (2012). Analysis of and solutions to high school teachers’ phonetic situation. Foreign Language Education, (12), 172-175.

Li, B. (2011). Role of English phonological awareness in Chinese Children’s English word reading and spelling. Psychology Development and Education, (4), 21-28.

Loup, G.(2008). Exploring the role of age in the acquisition of second language phonology. In J. G. Edwards, & M. L. Zampini (Eds.), Phonology and Second Language Acquisition (pp.41-62). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ma, X. J. (2004). Effect of Chinese phonetics on English phonetic learning. Wulumuqi Institute of Technology, (2), 76-79.

Ma, Z. Q. (2007). Analysis of Chinese EFL learners’ perception of functional phonetic system. Modern Foreign Language, 30(1), 79-98.

Major, R. C. (2001). Foreign accent: The ontogeny and phylogeny of second language phonology, (p.5). Mahwash, NJ: Lawrence Erbaum Assiciates.

Mao, C. (2010). The influence of negative transfer in English phonetics learning for Chinese students and corresponding countermeasures. Journal of Anqing Teachers College (Social Science Edition), (3), 54-58.

Pei, Z. W. (2012). English phonological competence of non-English majors and its factors. Journal of Southeast University (Philosophy and Social Science edition), (6), 116-123.

Pei, Z. W., & Ding, Y. R. (2013). Effect of Chinese college students’ musical competence upon their English phonological one. Foreign Language World, (1), 36-44.

Selinker, L. (1995). Rediscovering interlanguage (p.259). New York: Longman Inc.

Song, X. (2010). Positive impact of standard Putonghua on the English pronunciation for students majoring in English. Journal of Wuhan Institute of Technology, (4), 79-82.

Tian, K. (2000). A brief discussion of English pronounciation training. Journal of Mongolia Education College, (1), 11-14.

Wang, C. M. (2004). Self-concept and foreign phonetics learning hypothesis. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, (1), 56-64.

Wang, L. F., & Sun, X. K. (2007). Recent development abroad in the second language acquisition. Foreign Language and Their Teaching, (4), 25-29.

Wang, L. M. (2004). Multiple interpretations of L2 phonetic inter language transfer. Foreign Language and Their Teaching, (4), 8-12.

Wang, Q. Y. (2010). Freshmen’s EFL phonetic ability and its implications upon the high school stage phonetic teaching. Course, Curriculum and Method, (7), 54-60.

Wang, X.F. (2012). A study of Chinese science students’ English phonological awareness. Journal of Shanxi Finance and Economics University, (2), 23-26.

Wang, Y. (2010). Analysis of college EFL phonetic teaching and use of English phonemes. Journal of Shan’xi Normal University (Social Sience edition), (3), 56-60.

Xv, G. Y., & Wang, Z. G. (2002). Comparisions between Chinese and English phonetics in the 20th century. Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences), (5), 50-55.

Yang, H. Z., & Wang N. X. (2005). Construction and research on Chinese learner spoken English corpus. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Yavas, M. (1994). Final stop devoicing in interlanguage. In M. Yavas (Eds.), First and second language phonology (pp.267-283). San Diego, CA: Singula.

Yu, M. L. (2004). Language transfer and second language acquisition: Reviews and reflections (p.3). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Zhang, M. (2010). Transfer effect of Chinese pinyin on Chinese learners’ English phonetics. Journal of Hubei University of Economics (Humanities and Social Sciences), (7), 3-6.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.css.1923669720130906.2926

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c)



Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/css/submission/wizard

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
  • We only use four mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.org

 Articles published in Canadian Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 

Canadian Social Science Editorial Office

Address: 1020 Bouvier Street, Suite 400, Quebec City, Quebec, G2K 0K9, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail:caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture