An Investigation Of The Impact Of Yuxian Dialect On English Pronunciation Acquisition Of The Local High School Students

First language acquisition plays an important role in second language acquisition (SLA),especially its impact on the pronunciation. During the process of SLA, pronunciation is abasic part and is one of the most important factors affecting vocal communication. Therefore,mastering good pronunciation is critical for students to learn a foreign language. However, inChina, it is common for English learners’ pronunciation to be influenced by ChinesePutonghua (PTH), or influenced by the negative transfer of dialect. There is no exception forYuxian dialect.Yuxian dialect, as a branch of Shanxi dialect, is one of the derivations of northerndialect. Although the sound systems of the initials and finals in Yuxian dialect are similar tothe sound system of Chinese PTH, there are some unique features in Yuxian dialect, whichcause some differences from PTH. Yuxian dialect’s differences from English in phoneticsresult in the pronunciation difficulty of Yuxian students. In addition, due to the limitation ofmany aspects such as lack of teaching resources, students in Yuxian are easy to be influencedby the habit of speaking dialect in learning English. For these reasons, this research aims atputting forward some suggestions to improve students’ English pronunciation by studying theinfluence of Yuxian dialect on English pronunciation of60local students.Based on the language transfer theory and contrastive analysis, this study addresses thefollowing three questions:(1) How do finals of Yuxian dialect influence the local students’acquisition of English vowels?(2) How do initials of Yuxian dialect influence the localstudents’ acquisition of English consonants?(3) How does the tone of Yuxian dialectinfluence the local students’ acquisition of English intonation? In addition to comparing thedifferences between the sound systems, questionnaire, tape-reading and face-to-face intervieware used to collect data.The results of the research show that:1) English vowel/i:/and Diphthong/ou/areinfluenced by the negative transfer of Yuxian dialect finals. Students in Yuxian are easy to make two types of errors about the English vowel/i:/. In Yuxian dialect,[i] after the initial [1] is replaced with [ei] and [i] in Yuxian dialect is pronounced shorter than the English sound/i:/, which cause the negative transfer of the sound [i] in Yuxian dialect to the English sound/i:/. The sound [ou] after the initial [m] is replaced by the sound [u]. Therefore,[ou] after [m] in Yuxian dialect is the second negative transfer phoneme.[ai] as the single sound is pronounced as [rjai] in Yuxian dialect, for example,"爱[ai]" is pronounced as [(?)ai]. However, it has no negative influence to the English Diphthong/ai/;2) The consonants/(?)/,/n/,/r/,/∫/,/t∫/,/d3/,/3/,/θI/,/(?)/and/w/are influenced by the negative transfer of Yuxian dialect initials. There is no retroflexed sound in Yuxian dialect. Therefore, the palatal alveolar sounds in English are easy to be pronounced as the blade-alveolar sounds in Yuxian dialect. The study shows the result that these consonants are easy to be replaced with/n/,/l/,/z/,/s/,/ts/,/ts’/,/z/,/s/,/z/and/v/respectively. For example,"fish/fi∫/" is easy to be pronounced as/fis/. Among them, the consonant/(?)/is the most influenced by the negative transfer of dialect./r/,/θ/,/(?)/,/3/and/w/suffer medium influence;/n/,/∫/,/t∫/and/d3/are least influenced./v/and/z/in Yuxian dialect have the positive transfer to the English consonants/v/,/z/;3) The English intonation of local students is flat and pronounced with falling tone by the influence of Yuxian dialect intonation. The rhythm sensation of local students is not obvious.The study implies that both students and teachers should attach importance to the English pronunciation. Those incorrect pronunciation should be corrected in time. Teachers should give students more phonetic knowledge at the beginning of learning English and pay attention to the negative transfer of Yuxian dialect to the English pronunciation. English learners should also lay stress on the pronunciation learning and practice and imitate the native speaker’s pronunciation.