The Chinese Pronunciation Of Mongolian Students, The Initial Stage Of Error Analysis And The Corresponding Teaching Strategies

In this paper, using the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and the Error Analysis as a theoretical framework, I investigate the pronunciation errors that Mongolian students make while learning elementary Chinese as a second language. The study includes a phonological contrastive analysis of Chinese and Mongolian phonological systems based on which some pronunciation errors were predicted, an experiment specially designed for the purpose of the study in which 50 Mongolian students were recruited, an analysis into the causes of the errors detected in the experiment and suggestions for teaching the correct pronunciation of the related sounds.Through the phonological contrastive analysis made of the two phonological systems, Chinese and Mongolian, it is learned that Chinese has 22 consonants and 23 vowels, among which are 13 complex vowels, whereas Mongolian has 34 consonants and 19 vowels, among which are 5 complex vowels. Most of the Chinese consonants have relatively similar counterparts in Mongolian, but most of the Chinese vowels do not have obvious Mongolian analogs. The two languages both have 3 semi-vowels, two of which are the same in both languages, at least according to commonly-used transcriptions. It is also learned that a retroflex vowel and apical vowel are found only in Chinese, while length contrast and vowel harmony are unique to Mongolian. Aspiration is the main distinctive feature of consonants in Chinese, whereas voicing and palatalization as well as aspiration are all distinctive in Mongolian. Semi-vowels may occur in any part of a syllable in Mongolian, but in Chinese they are never allowed at the end of a syllable.Based on the results of the contrastive analysis, I assumed that the pronunciation errors of Mongolian students would have unique characteristics that are different from those of the students of other countries. I believed Mongolian students would hardly make any errors when pronouncing the sounds that are identical in both languages, however, when pronouncing the sounds resembling in both languages (but not identical), they would make errors easily because it is very often that students substitute for the target language the corresponding equivalents in their native language similar to them.The results of the experiment confirm that the pronunciation errors of Mongolian students do have unique characteristics, but they also show that Mongolian students do make the same errors as students from other countries. Through the experiment, it is also revealed that the common errors made by the Mongolian students are seen in vowels a[a], o[o], u[y], e[γ], e[ε], er[(?)],-i[(?)], i[(?)], complex vowels ending with [u], consonants l[l], r[z], zh[ts], ch[tsh], sh[s], j[t(?)], q[t(?)h], x[(?)] and in semi-vowel y[j]. Among them, the adding of the semi-vowel [w] at the end of some complex vowels as well as the substituting of the lateral fricative[(?)] for the lateral l[l] could be regarded as unique to Mongolian students. The results also suggest that Mongolian students of elementary Chinese will not make such pronunciation errors as the confusing of z[ts], c[tsh], s[s] respectively with zh[ts], ch[tsh], sh[s], an error often observed among Korean students, the voicing of unaspirated consonants, an error often made by European students and the confusing of glottal [h]with bilabial [φ] and lateral [l] with nasal [n], an error often seen among the Japanese. Besides, it is revealed that the differences between the Chinese pinyin and the Mongolian phonetic notation have negative impact on Mongolian students'acquiring the correct pronunciation and, thus leading to many pronunciation errors.In this paper, the sources of the detected errors are attributed to the negative transfer from the native language, interference of third languages, negative impact of the Chinese Pinyin and inappropriate teaching methods, among which the negative transfer from the native language, I believe, is the leading factor. When it comes to pronouncing the sounds which are also existent in their native language, unfortunately, Mongolian students hardly turn to their native language, as a result, they still make errors. It is evident that as far as Mongolian students are concerned, the impact of native language on learning second language pronunciation is often rather negative.The paper suggests that in the practical teaching of those sounds which only exist in the target language, since the students'native language cannot provide any help, the only way is to use various methods specifically designed for each sound. As for the target sounds that are similar to some sounds in the students'native language, the best solution is, first to make the students become aware of the similarities and the differences between the two sounds by comparing them, then let the students imitate the two sounds. As for the vowels which cannot make syllables all by itself without any consonant, it is best to teach the pronunciation of the whole syllable in which the vowels occur. As for the pronunciation errors caused by the spelling of the pinyin, I assert that the teachers need to explain to the students the related spelling rules as comprehensibly as possible during the classroom study.