An Experimental Study Of Tibetan Students’ English Vowel Acquisition

This thesis investigates the Tibetan students’ English vowel acquisition based onthe acoustic experimental analysis. It analyses the differences between Tibetan vowelphonological system and English vowel phonological system. And it reaches aconclusion that the language transfer influences the Tibetan students’ English vowelacquisition and the features of interlanguage of the Tibetan students’ vowelpronunciation in their process of English study are concluded.This thesis, based on the experimental study of Tibetan students’ English vowelacquisition, is aiming to answer the following questions：(1) What is the differencebetween Tibetan and English vowel systems?(2) Are the Tibetan English learnersinfluenced by the language transfer of their mother tongue?(3) What are the featuresof Tibetan learners’ English interlvowels?The participants are eight sophomores of Southwest University for Nationalitiesand two American native speakers from New York. The samples are recorded by JWDdigital voice recorder DVR-902, and analyzed by the acoustic and phonetic researchtool Praat. According to the analysis, it can get the first and second format frequencies,which are F1and F2. All the F1and F2numbers are used to draw the vowel patterndiagram with Excel.First of all, we can obtain the first and second frequencies (F1and F2) of Tibetanvowels from the Tibetan participants and English native speakers with Praat, andmake a contrastive analysis about Tibetan basic vowels and English basic vowels andthen the Tibetan and English vowel patterns can be got. Next, the two vowel pattersand the Excel diagrams are compared by using the Praat numbers. Furthermore,Tibetan students’ English vowel patterns and Americans’ English vowel patterns,Tibetan students’ English vowel patterns and Tibetan vowel patterns are analyzed andcompared. Finally, the influences from the mother tongue on the Tibetan students’ English vowel acquisition and the features of Tibetan students’ intervowels areconcluded.The study shows the difference between the Tibetan vowel system and Englishvowel system and language transfer influences on the English vowel acquisition.According to the description of the features of Tibetan students’ English intervowels,this thesis attempts to give some practical suggestions for English phonetics teachingin Tibetan areas.