A Research On Chinese EFL Learners’ Foreign Accent

"Foreign accent" is generally referred to as the non-nativeness of learners’L2pronunciation as a result of the impact of the phonetic features of their mother tongue. Chinese EFL learners’ foreign accent is defined here as the deviation in speech production from native English norm due to the negative transfer of their mother tongue——Chinese. Among several factors that result in learners’ foreign accent, the effect of vowel reduction is recognized as the biggest. This research aims at studying Chinese EFL learners’ foreign accent, in perspective of vowel reduction, from the angles of both production and perception, with contrastive analytical methodology. It mainly explores the following aspects:(1) The characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ vowel reduction production and its relationship to their foreign accent;(2) The characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ performance in perceiving native English vowel reduction;(3) The relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ vowel reduction perception and its relationship with their foreign accent as manifested by their performance of vowel reduction production.Participants in this research were24English majors (NNS group) from a "211-Project" university and6English-native speakers (NS group) who teach in this university. In the production experiment, both groups were required to read aloud a diagnostic passage, and their readings were recorded. Foreign accent rating was done by NS group who was supposed to give a subjective-impression score to each NNS participant. In the perception experiment, a no-prompt dictation test was used to examine every NNS participant’s vowel reduction perception.Findings of this study indicate:(1) The average timing of vowel reduced syllables of Chinese EFL learners is longer than that of native speakers, while the average timing of tonic syllables of Chinese EFL learners is shorter than that of native speakers. The differences in both are statistically significant. An obvious tendency in Chinese EFL learners’ production is that the should-be weak syllable is not weak enough while the should-be strong syllable is not strong enough.(2) In speech production, the better performance an NNS participant has in producing vowel reduction, the weaker foreign accent he/she has.(3) The average level of Chinese EFL learners’ vowel reduction perception is at a mid-level, and they perform better in perceiving verbs and adverbs than in perceiving pronouns and articles.(4) There is a positive but low correlation between Chinese EFL learners’ vowel reduction perception and their foreign accent as manifested in their vowel reduction production, and the correlation is not statistically significant.