Influence Of Dalian Accent On The Acquisition Of English Speech Sounds

Language is a means of communication by which our thoughts and feelings can be expressed. In any language, speech sound is foremost and is the most important medium in oral communication. Hence, the mastery of English speech sounds is important for the students who study English. However, the differences between native language and target language usually result in problems and errors in the acquisition of the target language, especially for the adult foreign language learners. This influence of native language is negative transfer of mother tongue on the acquisition of second language.Dalian accent is one of the sub-branches of Northern Mandarin Dialect. The Initials (Consonants) and Finals (Vowels) of Dalian accent and those of Chinese Putonghua have similarities, while differences also exist. Dalian accent has some differences from English language in phonetics, which results in difficulty for the native speakers of Dalian dialect in acquisition of English pronunciation. By comparing and contrasting the pronunciation of Dalian accent and English, the thesis discusses in theory the negative transfer of Dalian accent to vocational and technical school students when they learn English pronunciation. In the meanwhile, on the basis of theoretical comparison and contrast by means of questionnaire, tape recordings and face-to-face interview the study attempts to analyze the characteristics of English pronunciation by Dalian dialect speaking students and tries to find the pronunciation problems and then tries to find the factors that influenced students' English pronunciation learning and find out some feasible measures to overcome the existing problem, and finally improve the quality of English pronunciation.The implication of this study is that both EFL learners and teachers should pay attention to the influences of a dialect on the SLA, avoid the negative influences, and give useful suggestions to English students and teachers for learning and teaching English speech sounds well. In this way, EFL learners can reach a high level on the acquisition of English speech sound.