A Study On Fuzhou English Learners’ Consonant Acquisition

With the reference of Praat spectrogram and statistical analysis of the Independent Sample T-test,this study describes and explores the differences between the pronunciation characteristics of English consonants produced by Fuzhou English learners and native English speakers.Based on Language Transfer Theory and Perceptual Assimilation Model,the study explains the causes of English consonant acquisition errors of Fuzhou English learners referring to their phonetic features of Fuzhou initial consonants,and the study also puts forward some countermeasures for English consonant acquisition in Fuzhou dialect area.The research targets on fifty-four English words produced by twenty Fuzhou English learners and eight English native speakers selected from AESOP-CASS-FJ(Asian English Speech Corpus Project-Chinese Academy of Social Sciences-Fujian)project.The plosive spikes in Fuzhou English learners’ spectrograms are in lighter color and their obstructive time is shorter than that of native speakers.Fuzhou learners have a poor command of the pronunciation of unaspirated voiceless plosives /p/,/t/,/k/.In Fuzhou learners’ spectrograms,the amplitude fluctuation range of English fricatives is much smaller with lighter fills,and there exists significant difference between amplitude values of Fuzhou learners and native speakers.The fills and amplitude of Fuzhou learners’ affricates are vaguer in spectrograms.The formants in Fuzhou learners’ spectrograms of English nasals can be clearly observed,and their first formant values are larger which indicates that they have lower tongue position in pronunciation.The formants of approximants /j/ and /r/ are difficult to be seen in Fuzhou learners’ spectrograms.Besides,Fuzhou English learners have an unsatisfactory command of voiced consonants and the consonants placed at the end of a word.Based on Language Transfer theory,the similar consonants in Fuzhou dialect can’ t be found like English fricatives /f/,/v/,/θ/,/e/,/ ? /,/?/,affricates /t?/,/d?/,/tr/,/dr/ and appoximants /r/,/j/,so Fuzhou English learners’ phonetic acquisition of these consonants is less satisfactory.On the basis of Perceptual Assimilation Model,Fuzhou learners tend to assimilate unaspirated voiceless plosives /p/,/t/,/k/ and voiced plosives /b/,/d/,/g/ inEnglish to unaspirated plosives /b/,/d/,/g/ in Fuzhou dialect.With the analysis of deviation causes,English teachers should provide systematic phonetic training of English consonants and accurate pronunciation videos with mouth movement as an audio-visual channel method to Fuzhou learners.English learners in Fuzhou dialect area could have a better command of consonant acquisition through self-observation and group work.