An Optimality Theoretic Approach Towards Chinese College Students' Pronunciation Of English Syllable Final Clusters

This dissertation studies the interlanguage characteristics of the SLA learners through an experiment on English syllable final clusters by college students, and then explains the reasons of the experiment results using Optimality Theory.First of all, the author compares the consonant systems and the syllabe structures of Chinese and English, and finds some similarities and differences between them. The compared results will set a theoretical base for the following experimental results.Secondly, the author designs an experiment on English consonant clusters according to the purpose of the dissertation in order to provide the data for the following study. The subjects are 32 senior non-English major students. The experimental results show that the correct rate is higher than the error rate in consonant clusters, and the error types are epenthesis, deletion, replacement and /1/ sound forward. Most subjects tend to make one mistake in a word in the epenthesis, deletion or replacement errors.Finally, the author explains the data collected in this experiment using Second Language Phonetic Acquisition theory, particularly Optimality Theory. The results show that the pronunciation of most learners are neither the same as their source language nor the target language, but are the interlanguage because their constraint rankings are different from that of their source languge or the target language. Their constraint rankings are being adjusted from that of their source language to the target language, that is to say the markedness constraints *COMPLEXCoDA and* CODA/X are being demoted.Specifically to say, in the epenthesis errors the faithfulness constraint DEP-IO is demoted behind MAX-IO and IDENT-IO (F), and some corresponding markedness constraints are demoted according to different places of epenthesis. Epenthesis errors occur twice in a word and epenthesis after C3 are not demoted in markedness constraints.*CODA/X is demoted both in epenthesis after C1 and C2. In the deletion errors the faithfulness constraint MAX-IO is demoted behind DEP-IO and IDENT-IO (F).As for the number of the deletion errors in a word, constraint *CODA/X is demoted both in deletion twice per word and in once per word. In the replacement rors the faithfulness constraint IDENT-IO (F) is demoted behind MAX-IO and (?)-IO, while the markness constraints are adjusted as the same as that of the mother age—constraints *COMPLEXCODA and *CODA/X are both demoted. /1/ sound forward errors can be the reason that the markedness constraint *1/#_V in the subjects' interlanguage is demoted behind *1/V_#. As for the manner of articulation, most subjects tend to vowel epenthesis after stop and fricative deletion in order to make the stop be the margin of the syllabe, and this phenomenon conforms to the constraint ranking associational harmonies between segments and syllalbe positions as follow: *M/LA>>*M/N>>*M/F, A>>*M/S (LA stands for lateral approximant, N stands for nasal, F stands for fricative, A stands for affricate, S stands for stop).