Acoustic Analysis Of English Vowels Produced By Chifeng English Learners

Chifeng dialect, one of the regional varieties of Chinese Mandarin, has its own unique pronunciation features due to the historical culture and the geographical environment and so on. The research about the acoustic features of English vowels pronounced by Chifeng English learners is rare. Based on the comparison between Chifeng dialect and English in their sound systems, this thesis is focused on the characteristics of English vowels pronounced by Chifeng English learners through a comparison between the recording samplings collected from ten subjects and the English native RP speaker with the method of acoustic analysis. The subjects are five male and five female students from Chifeng Song Shan No.1 Senior Middle School. The recording material contains five groups of words including paired long and short monophthongs and eight single words including eight English diphthongs. The analysis has been done with the help of Praat. And the acoustic parameters involved in the analysis of monophthongs are the frequencies F1 and F2 as well as the time duration. The acoustic parameter involved in the analysis of diphthongs is the time duration including the length of the onset, the transition and the offset. The acoustic vowel chart is also made according to F1 and F2. The comparison first is conducted between the subjects and then between the subjects and the English native RP speaker.The results are as followed:monophthongs F1 and F2 produced by the male are smaller than monophthongs F1 and F2 produced by the female. Male students do better than female students in the length of the long and short vowels besides /p/ and /(?):/. Female subjects are more easily confused the long vowels with the short vowels especially the vowels/u:/and /(?)/. In terms of the length of the diphthongs, there is monophthongization in/eI/and/aI/produced by the female and the length problems in /(?)I,/a(?)/,/(?)(?)/and/(?)(?)/are also noticeable. Female are not good at the pronunciation of/e(?)/. When compared the data produced by the ten subjects with the English native RP speaker, Chifeng English learners tend to mix the long and short vowels such as /i:/-/I/,/α:/-/Λ/and also short vowels like /ae/-/e/. There are also problems in the tongue position of the monophthongs produced by Chifeng English learners especially in the vowels /u:/ and /(?)/ that/u:/is produced as /(?)/. In terms of the length of the diphthongs, they are too short produced by Chifeng English learners and there is less or no transition in most of the diphthongs especially in/eI/and/aI/Based on the above findings, the author attempts to put forward some suggestions for improving the English pronunciation of Chifeng English learners: English teachers should constantly improve their pronunciation accuracy and know better about the similarities and the differences in the sound systems between Chifeng dialect and English. In addition, the acoustic software can also be used to help students improve their English pronunciation.