A Diagnostic Study On The Super-Segmental Pronunciation Of Chinese English Majors

The features of speech sound are not only the substantial basis of natural language but also the first involvement for language teaching and learning.As for English learners,the aim of teaching and learning is to cultivate the ability of language communication,in which spoken skills are typically emphasized.Therefore English phonetic ability is an essential indicator for embodying English proficiency level.However,in practical teaching,we pay more attention to the presentation of knowledge of English language instead of oral skills.English phonetics teaching is generally neglected.So it is necessary for us to approach the importance and influential effects of English phonetics.In communication,super-segmental features are more important than segmental phonemes for native speakers.Phonetics consists of two main parts which are segmental phonemes and super-segmental phonemes.In China,teachers focus on teaching segmental phonemes,meanwhile,the training of super-segmental phonemes has been neglected.As a result,when Chinese students speak English,the negative transfer of super-segmental features may appear.That is Chinese students tend to speak out every words clearly and exactly without the pattern of English rhyme to the effect that may cause social misunderstandings.According to the aims of cultivating English professionals,students in English major should not only speak English words correctly,but also fluently as native speakers do,for job requirement,like English teachers,English translators or other relative jobs,all of which have a high demand for English phonetics.Students in English major have achieved a high level of segmental phonemes,which means they make few mistakes in the pronunciation of each word.But can they perform well at super-segmental level.In order to find the answer,the present study tries to conduct a diagnostic research with 30 postgraduates of English major so as to see how well they can do in the production of English speech by reading a passage.Their reading was recorded.Three aspects of the super-segmental features including intonation,stress and rhyme were analyzed by two Chinese phonetic teachers and one English native teacher.Based on the Error Analysis Theory,the three evaluators were required to listen to the recordings repeatedly so that they could give a relative evaluation and find out and classify the errors in super-segmental performance of the subjects.A comparison was made between the performance of the subjects and that of the(recorded)native speakers.The data analysis led to the following conclusions:the overuse of stress,the neglect of the patterns of thyme,and the overuse of falling tones commonly exist in the segmental production of the subjects.The comparison suggested that the teaching of segmental pronunciation could not guarantee the improvement or perfecting of the super-segmental production,or in another word,super-segmental pronunciation needed to be instructed.That is the enlightenment of the present study.