Contrastive Analysis Of English Pronunciation By English And Chinese Speakers

In recent years, with the development of linguistic theory and foreign language research, contents of foreign language teaching have been constantly updated with emphasis on application. In communication, information is transmitted via language and speech sounds play a very important role in the transmission of information. As we know, speech sound is the foundation of language. Failure in understanding the distinctive features of phonemes in different languages will possibly lead to mistakes in pronunciation, and will even influence the English learning and reading. Therefore, a contrastive analysis of speech sounds can not only improve English pronunciation of Chinese students, but also promote the development in linguistic theory. Speech is a habit, and the phonetic habit of native language usually influences the foreign language study. Second language learners need to find out the differences between their native language and the foreign language, and form their new language habits. However, English students usually make mistakes in pronunciation. There are many reasons. The main factor is that the native language of the learner usually influences English learning. The aim of the thesis is to analyze British English pronunciation by English and Chinese speakers.This thesis is a phonological comparative analysis of English pronunciation produced by English and Chinese speakers. And the main part is to find the similarities and dissimilarities between them, and exposes the problems that exit in the pronunciation of Chinese students. This thesis provides some theoretical suggestions to help the English learner in China and also gives some practical ways to improve their English pronunciation in foreign language teaching and learning.Eight English common words are selected for the analysis and the eight words are: bead [bi: d], beat [bi: t], bid [bid], bit [bit], bag [b?g], beg [beg], back [b?k] and bake [bek]. The first consonant of the eight words is consonant [b]. And the first four words contain the vowels [i:] or [i] followed by voiced consonant[d] and voiceless consonants [t]. The other four words contain the vowels [?] or [e] followed by voiced consonant [g] and voiceless consonant [k]. This research analyzes eight speech sounds—[i], [i:], [d], [t] and [?], [e], [k], [g]—in these eight words.These eight words are collected from different groups. According to different sources, the speech sounds are divided into three groups. Group One is British English pronunciation from the Longman Audio Library. English words of Group Two come from the New Concept English tape (the version of the British English). In Group Three, these words are extracted directly from the pronunciations of Chinese students who use the Mandarin as their first language. These students learned some English and they are from non-English department.The speech sounds are put into the spectrum analyzer and the data of the duration and the quality of the speech sounds are obtained from the three groups. Firstly, this thesis analyzes the characters of Group One and Group Two. The data is gathered to analyze their similarities and differences. And then the research goes on with the analysis of the characters of Group One and Group Three. According to the data, sound quality of these three groups is similar. The changing of formants shows a gradual downward trend, except some formants in Group Two. In addition, the duration is basically the same in Group One and Group Two, but there are many differences between Group One and Group Three. In this research, the main findings are the similarities and differences of the English pronunciation by the Chinese learners and English speakers. According to the differences between Chinese learners and English speakers, this research gives some suggestions to the English learner in China to improve their pronunciation skills.