An Investigation Into Phonetic Transfer In Xingyi Dialect Area: A Case Study Of 87 Senior High School Students

Accurate and fluent English pronunciation could raise the level of learners, because it is helpful to the improvement of listening, speaking, reading abilities and communication through the target language. But in the process of knowing well the target language, we found that the phonetic system and the pronunciation pattern between different languages are distinguishable, they can affect each other. For example, when Chinese students study English, they are always affected by Chinese pronunciation in a certain extent, the acquisition of English pronunciation is often affected by the learners' Chinese phonetic system, which is often mentioned as a negative transfer. As for the students in Xingyi dialects area, if they want to master the way of English pronunciation, it is necessary for them to know the differences between the phonetic system of Xingyi dialect and English. Based on this, they should pay attention to eliminating the negative influence of their L1 phonetic system, identify the same, the similar, and the different sounds. Through 'dialect-mandarin Chinese-English', I employ a tri-way comparison, using the L1 transfer theory, investigating the students in Xingyi dialects area in China, comparing among these three phonetic systems, to set up a close relation among them and predict and validate the phonetic errors. The practical significance of this paper is to discuss how teachers can efficiently predict and correct the frequent errors of students in learning English, hoping that this paper can make students in dialect area overcome the influence of dialect and know the accurate English pronunciation, making the English teaching more efficient. The significance of this theory is: through investigation to validate and develop the positive & negative of second language acquisition in language transfer theory. There are six parts in this paper:the reason of choosing this topic and background, review of second language acquisition transfer, the comparison and analysis among mandarin Chinese, English and dialect, an investigation of demonstration for 87 senior high school students, analyze errors and suggest solutions, and conclusion. Generally speaking, this paper is structured on discovering, investigating, analyzing, solving questions.