Influences Of Dalian Local Accent Over The Acquisition Of RP Consonant

Chinese Putonghua is based on North Mandarin,and Dalian local accent is one of the subbranchs of North Mandarin group.The Initials and Finals of Dalian local accent and those of Chinese Putonghua have similarities,while differences also exist. These differences proved an obstacle to the communication between native speakers with Dalian local accent and people from other areas of China.What' worse,Dalian local accent also has certain influences on the acquisition of English pronunciation, especially those negative influences,which we call negative transfer make the communication between EFL learners of Dalian area and English native speakers more difficult.The participants of the study are 115 first year students from two junior middle schools in Sanshilipu,Dalian.The research is conducted by means of questionnaire, tape recordings,face-to-face interview,and classroom observation.Through qualitative analyses of the data,the writer found the similarities and differences between Dalian,consonants,Chinese Putonghua consonants and British RP consonants in respect of manner of articulation and place of articulation.In that way, the influences of Dalian local accent on the acquisition of RP consonants are discovered;and those errors caused by the negative influences are corrected.The research results are helpful for EFL learners of Dalian area to acquire accurate RP consonants.Meanwhile,it can also provide useful information for EFL learners from other areas of China.The research results show that there are similarities and differences between Dalian consonants and Chinese Putonghua consonants.Certain consonant like retroflex fricative[(?)]is pronounced as/y/[i]in Dalian area,which influences the pronunciation of/ff in RP consonant.As for some consonant like/v/which exists in Dalian consonant but not Chinese Putonghua consonant,it is easier for Dalian EFL learners to pronounce RP consonant/v/.As for some consonants like/θ,(?)/,which exist neither in Dalian consonant nor in Chinese Putonghua consonant,almost all the participants pronounced these two fricatives in a wrong way,and the obvious mistake is that these two consonants were replaced by other two similar consonants appeared in Dalian consonant.During the classroom observation,the writer found that some English teacher's own pronunciation did not reach a high level,and most of the students tend to imitate their English teachers' pronunciation.It is one of the reasons why the students' inaccurate English pronunciation was not corrected in time.The implication of this study is that both EFL learners and teachers should pay attention to the influences of a dialect or accent over the SLA,avoid the negative influences,and get rid of the incorrect pronunciation habits.In that way,EFL learners can reach a high level on the acquisition of English speech sound.