An Experimental Study On The Vowel Transfer Of Chinese And English In The Acquisition Of German Vowel

The study of language transfer has began in the 1960 s,which has always been a hot topic in the field of language acquisition.With the development of language transfer theory,the study of language transfer on second and third language acquisition has attracted much attention.The researchers have found that the acquisition of each language could be affected by the existing language in the multilingual language system.Therefore,the acquisition of third language is more complicated compared with that of second language.The scholars pay more attention to the transfer of L1 and L2 to the acquisition of L3,and carry out some relevant researches in recent years.Based on the Language Transfer theory and Vowel Pattern theory,this study explore the transfer of Chinese(L1)and English(L2)vowels to German(L3)vowels by using the method of speech experiment.The F1 and F2 values of vowels are extracted from software to construct Chinese vowel pattern,German vowel pattern,Chinese learners’ English vowel pattern and that of German vowel pattern.By comparing the vowel sound patterns and analyzing the experimental data,this study aim to explore two problems:1.How do the pronunciation of Chinese(L1)and English(L2)vowels affect the pronunciation of German(L3)vowels?2.Which language’s vowels have more influence on the acquisition of German(L3)vowels,Chinese(L1)or English(L2)?The experimental results of this study are as follows:1.The articulation of German vowel sounds [a:],[u:],[y:] are influenced by the negative transfer of very similar vowels [a],[u:] in English and the very similar vowel[y] in Chinese;German [o:],[?:] are negatively transferred by English [?] and Chinese[y] respectively;German [ε: ] is negatively influenced by the allophone [?] in English;German [e:] is a new vowel,which is not affected by the transfer of Chinese or English.In addition,German vowel [i:] has the same pronunciation as Chinese and English,and it is influenced by the positive transfer of Chinese [i].2.Both Chinese(L1)and English(L2)have effects on German(L3)in the process of Chinese learners’ acquisition of German vowels,and English(L2)has a greater influence than Chinese(L1).Based on the results above,this study puts forward some suggestions for German teachers and German(L3)learners.It is hoped that the results of this study may provide a reference for the future relative studies.