Cross-linguistic Influences Of First Language On Third Language In Mongolian Students’ English Pure Vowel Acquisition

The present study explored Mongolian students’ acquisition of Englishas a third language through a study on the cross-linguistic influence in theirlearning of English pure vowels. Based on the theories of third languageacquisition abroad and the status quo of EFL in Inner Mongolia, the presentstudy aimed at finding the Mongolian students‘cross-linguistic influence intheir acquisition of English pure vowels and the extent at which thecross-linguistic influence occurs from Mongolian students’ L1-Mongolian toL3-English and its constraints.Research instruments like phoneme discrimination test on English purevowels, language background questionnaire and interview are used in thepresent study to answer the following three research questions:(1) What arethe relationships between Mongolian students’ proficiency in Mongolianpure vowels and English pure vowels?(2) Are there any regional differencesbetween Mongolian students from western part and from eastern part ofInner Mongolia in English pure vowel acquisition？(3) What are thepotential factors that affect the cross-linguistic influence from L1to L3inMongolian students’ acquisition of English pure vowels? With the premise ofthe research questions, the subjects in the present study were chosen fromtwo groups (one group are students from western part, another group arestudents from eastern part) of third-year college students in the InnerMongolian Normal University in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. And they areinvolved in the following three research steps. First of all, the subjects aretested on their proficiency of English pure vowels with a specially designedphoneme discrimination test. The second step is a survey study in the formof language background questionnaire, which is designed to collect theinformation on the subjects’ language background. A follow-up interview is conducted as a last step to offer detailed information about the researchquestions by interviewing some of the subjects individually. On analyzingthe data, independent variable T-tests are employed to compare the twogroups’ achievement on the vowel discrimination test; and the correlationsbetween the Mongolian subjects’ achievement on the correct choice ofEnglish words and Mongolian words are measured by the Pearsoncorrelation.The results of the study revealed that there are statistically significancesbetween Mongolian students‘proficiency in Mongolian pure vowels andEnglish pure vowels in phoneme discrimination test on the following fivevowels:. The results of the correlation testindicated that the L1Mongolian language of Mongolian students plays animportant role in their third language acquisition. Meanwhile, comparedwith subjects from eastern part of Inner Mongolia, subjects from westernpart of Inner Mongolia have shown greater proficiency in the acquisition ofEnglish pure vowels according to the results of the phoneme discriminationtest. It means there are some regional differences in acquisition of Englishpure vowels between Mongolian students from western part and fromeastern part of Inner Mongolia. And there are other potential factor likelanguage distance and language recency of use, which can also influence theMongolian students‘proficiency ofEnglish pure vowels.As a conclusion, the present study emphasized the fact that English is athird language to Mongolian students, and any decision on the TEFL in InnerMongolia should be based on the characteristics of Mongolian students’ thirdlanguage acquisition, and the cross-linguistic influence involved in it.Moreover, it was suggested that more English textbooks and referencematerials for Mongolian students should be compiled in Mongolian language,to enhance the positive cross-linguistic influence from LI Mongolian to L3English in their third language acquisition.