A Study Of Factors Affecting Chinese EFL Learners’Production Of English Onset Consonant Clusters

Consonant clusters constitute an important area of phonological research in English. English onset consonant clusters containing voiceless plosives have been found to be an area of difficulty in both L1and L2acquisition. However, no specific study has focused on these clusters. The Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) and Optimality Theory (OT) explore the production and acquisition of English consonant clusters in terms of deviation rate and deviation type. In researches on the effects of linguistic factors on the clusters, using the MDH and OT, researchers have investigated effects of a certain type of markedness on the production of consonant clusters in individual studies. However, they have not considered effects of two or more types of markedness on the production. Furthermore, previous studies using OT were based on research of static constraint rankings. Besides linguistic factors, learner factors may also lead to diversified productions in the process of language acquisition. Neither the MDH nor OT explains the influence learner factors may have. Therefore, the present study will further the research on the effect of linguistic factors and explore effect of learner factors, including learners’English proficiency and their gender difference, on the production of consonant clusters. This study investigated Chinese EFL learners’ production of English onset consonant clusters containing voiceless plosives. An English proficiency test was taken by30first-year and30third-year English majors. Finally,20first-year and20third-year students were chosen to participate in a sentence-reading task. In addition,2native English speakers were invited to complete the sentence-reading task. Their production was taken as the English norm and as a reference for the analysis. Recordings were annotated and normalized. Based on the description of deviation rate and deviation type regarding the40Chinese EFL learners’ production of the target consonant clusters, the study explored effects of markedness, L1transfer, phonological environment, and the learners’ English proficiency and gender difference on the learners’ production of onset consonant clusters. Major results of the present study are as follows.1. The Chinese EFL learners’ production deviated from the native speaker norm. The number of deviations was significantly greater for tri-consonantal clusters than for bi-consonantal ones. As to the type of deviation, for onset consonant clusters beginning with/s/, replacement was frequently found; for those without/s/, epenthesis was the most common type of deviation. Epenthesis was either a consonant epenthesis or a vowel epenthesis. In consonant epentheses,/s/was the only sound inserted. In vowel epentheses, vowels were found with various phonetic properties. Among the vowels epenthesized,/(?)/and/u/were the most common vowels. Unnecessary aspiration and replacement of one consonant with another were two sub-types of replacement. Unnecessary aspiration was common but replacement of one consonant with another was rare.2. Certain effects were found for linguistic factors, including markedness and L1transfer. As to markedness, complexity markedness had the strongest effect on the production of onset consonant clusters. The more marked a consonant cluster is in terms of complexity markedness, the higher its deviation rate would be. Sonority markedness was effective merely on bi-consonantal clusters. The more marked a bi-consonantal cluster was in terms of sonority markedness, the lower its deviation rate would be. This finding is in contrast to those in previous research.The application of the stochastic model of OT in the present study took advantage of a set of constraints and their ranking to discover the interlanguage phonology of English consonant clusters. Relations between constraints reflected obvious L1transfer in the EFL learners’ interlanguage. Generally speaking, among four couples of constraint relations in English phonology, faithfulness constraints were ranked higher than markedness constraints relative to epenthesis, replacement and deletion, therefore, deviations will be prevented. In Chinese EFL learners’ interlanguage phonology, relations of three couples of constraints, regarding epenthesis, replacement and deletion, were featured as faithfulness constraints being dominated by markedness constraint. The relations between markedness constraint and faithfulness constraint concerning aspiration were unstable. These relations led to deviations. In Chinese phonology, markedness constraint dominates faithfulness constraint regarding onset complexity and faithfulness constraint dominates markedness constraint in terms of aspiration. Therefore, Chinese phonology has been transferred into EFL learners’ interlanguage. The effect of L1transfer can be reflected by studying the relations between markedness and faithfulness constraints.Phonological environments were found to have little effect on the Chinese EFL learners’ production of onset consonant clusters. Deviation rate of consonant clusters following a consonant did not significantly differ from that of consonant clusters following a vowel. As to the distribution pattern of deviation type, productions of consonant clusters in both phonological environments were the same. For consonant clusters following a consonant, the occurrences of deviation were in a decreasing order from epenthesis to replacement, and then to deletion. It was same case with consonant clusters following a vowel.3. Certain effects were found for the learners’English proficiency and the learners’ gender difference did yield significant effects.The learners’ English proficiency had a little effect on the Chinese EFL learners’ production of onset consonant clusters. Low proficiency learners did not produce significantly more deviations than high proficiency ones. Additionally, both low and high proficiency learners were found to be similar regarding the distribution patterns of deviation types. The occurrences of deviation were in a decreasing order from epenthesis to replacement, and then to deletion. However, if only the production of bi-consonantal clusters is concerned, or if only the production of consonant clusters following a consonant is concerned, high and low proficiency learners differed significantly. High proficiency learners produced deviations less often than low proficiency learners.Gender had an obvious effect on the production of onset consonant clusters. Female learners produced significantly more deviations than male learners in both number and type. There was a greater difference of deviation for the production of onset consonant clusters following either a vowel or a consonant. Findings on gender effect of the present study differ from those in previous research.The present study contributes to a better understanding of Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of onset consonant clusters and their L2interlanguage phonology, by studying factors affecting the learners’ production of onset consonant clusters from both linguistic and learner perspectives, with an instrumental phonetic investigation of deviations instead of merely errors. The results of the present study might also help with the instruction and learning of L2English phonology.