A Study Of The Acquisition Of First Level Chinese Vowels By Korean Students

The vowel is the important part in the phonetic system.In this thesis,we study the Chinese first level vowels of the south korean students. Based on the old and the new migration of linguistics theory,such as the contrastive analysis hypothesis,the speech learning model theory and the markednedd difference hypothesis theory,the interlanguage theory and speech pattern theory, analyse the korean students’acquisition of the Chinese first level vowels,after determining the similarity of the first level vowels between the Chinese and Korean language.This paper mainly adopts the research methods of experimental phonetics, with the help of Praat, Cool edit,SPSS and other software to analyze the voice acoustic data.In this paper we mainly focus on four questions.One is to determine the similar and strange vowels of Korean and Chinese vowels system; the second is to solve the question that whether the pronunciation accuracy and concentration research method need to distinguish the males and the females; the third is to know the korean students’ Chinese first level vowels acquisition process; the fourth question is by the analysis of the vowel pattern, to know the systemic of the korean students’Chinese pronunciation, and to observe the consistency between the results of the vowel pattern analysis and the acoustic analysis.In order to make sure of the similar phonemes between the Chinese and Korean language,we adopt the phonological contrast method, acoustic parameter analysis method and vowel pattern method.We find in the Korean language system does not exist the same vowels, but has five similar vowels/a,i,u,y,(?)/, and two strange vowels/(?),(?)/ Because of the different research methods,the different research objects and the different research analysis software,we make a different judgement of vowel /(?)/ with the previously researchers.On the basis of the the similar phonemes between the Chinese and Korean language,we want to study the korean students’Chinese first level vowels acquisition process,with the the pronunciation accuracy and concentration research method and the the vowel pattern.We do the acoustic analysis from two angles,one is from the different learning groups,another is from the gender perspective, to do the synchronic and diachronic research.Through the two angels of the acoustic analysis,one result supports the contrastive analysis hypothesis,while another supports the speech learning model theory.The different conclusions prove that when we use the the pronunciation accuracy and concentration research method,it is necessary to divide males and females.Eventually the result of the korean students’Chinese first vowels acquisition process, depends on the conclusions of the males and females group. According to the above research result, we found that the korean students’Chinese vowels acquisition process is shown as:/(?),u,(?)/>/a,y,(?)/, but the acquisition of /i/ is related to the gender, for the males’acquisition is better than the females. The acquisition conclusion indicates that the acquisition of strange sounds is better than that of similar ones,such as the strange vowels /(?)/ is significantly easier to learn than the similar vowel acquisition/a,y/. But the strange vowels /(?)/acquisition is the most difficult one. This conclusion verifies and supplements the Flege’s language learning model theory, that the aqusition is different between the strang vowels. Markedness theory explains the difference of strange vowels’acquisiton,that strange vowels /(?)/ has strong markedness, but vowel/a/is weak compared to /(?)/,so /(?)/ is more difficult to learn than /(?)/.In the acquisition of strange vowels, markedness strength determines the difficulty of the acquisition. In similar vowels,the vowels are all easy to learn,while /(?)/ with strong markness,/a,u,y/with weak markness. This argument proves that to the acquisition of the similar vowel,the marked difference hypothesis theory doesn’t work.The author tries to observe the native language transfer and the systemic features in the Chinese language acquisition process of the korean students, by the the vowel chart pattern. The mother tongue has a big influence of the korean students to learn the Chinese vowels.Compare the results of the vowel pattern analysis and the acoustic analysis,we find that the two conclusions are basically identical, but the strange vowel /(?)/ has a different performance.The author thinks the different research objects lead to the different results.The pronunciation accuracy and concentrated study is considerd by the mean values of each person’s each vowel, at the same time because of the difficulty to select the wrong data of /(?)/,and the small sample sizes,it will make deviations. The vowel chart pattern studies the characteristic of each students’ Chinese vowels, does not have the characteristics of the whole.But if you what to know more.you need to futher study.