Construction Of Cantonese-English Interlanguage First-grade Vowel System: An Experimental Study

Adopting sound pattern theory and experimental phonology method, taking ten English beginners(pupils in grade three) whose mother tongue is Cantonese as subjects, this thesis studied their acquisition of five English first-grade vowels /ɑ/, /i/,/u/, /?/, /?/(Wen Baoying, 2005). The thesis mainly discussed the acquisition from four aspects, including analysis of vowel charts, the accuracy degree of interlanguage first-grade vowels(the accuracy degree for short), the similarity degree between Cantonese first-grade vowels and interlanguage first-grade vowels(the similarity degree for short), and the relationship between the accuracy degree and the similarity degree.First of all, formant data were collected through Mini Speech Lab, which is a phonetic analysis software developed by Nankai University. Then, 250 groups of formant data and ten vowel charts of interlanguage first-grade vowels were obtained.According to the 250 groups formant data, the accuracy degree of interlanguage first-grade vowels were calculated through the accuracy degree formula. Besides,adopting the same method, 200 groups formant data of four Cantonese first-grade vowels /a/, /i/. /u/, /?/ were collected, these four vowels are similar to English first-grade vowels /ɑ/, /i/. /u/, /?/(four similar vowels for short). Then through the similarity degree formula, the similarity degree of the four similar vowels were obtained. The main findings include four aspects.1. There are two kinds of interlanguage first-grade vowels’ vowel charts. One is acute triangles, and the other one is obtuse triangles. Although there exists differences between the two kinds of vowel charts in shape and formant values, the whole patterns of the five first-grade vowels are similar. All the patterns are triangles formed by wiring /i/ and /u/, /i/ and /ɑ/, /u/ and /ɑ/. These patterns show that forEnglish beginners whose mother tongue is Cantonese, their pronunciations are systematic instead of chaotic.2. It is verified that the interlanguage is a transitional language which is transiting from the mother tongue to the target language(TL) both in shape and in area. This verification was obtained through comparison of sketch maps of four similar first-grade vowels, the interlanguage first-grade vowels and English first-grade vowels’ vowel patterns.3. According to the data of accuracy degree, we found that when subjects articulating English first-grade vowels, their tongue positions tend to be lower than TL tongue positions and be in front of the TL tongue positions,In descending order, the overall accuracy degree of the vowels is/i/-/?/-/u/-/ɑ/-/?/. The accuracy degree of the new vowel /?/ is relatively high among the five first-grade vowels. Therefore, the new vowel is easier to acquire than similar vowels to some extent.According to the accuracy degree analysis in one dimension, it was found that the accuracy degree of /i/ is the best in high-low dimension and the accuracy degree of /?/ is the best in front-back dimension. Besides, the accuracy degree of /?/ is the worst both in high-low dimension and in front-back dimension.According to the accuracy degree analysis from the angle of gender, it was discovered that no matter for males subjects or for female subjects, their accuracy degree in descending order is /i/-/?/-/u/-/ɑ/-/?/.4. High similarity degree results in high accuracy degree to some extent. In other words, to some extent, the smaller the differences between TL vowels and mother tongue vowels, the easier to acquire. This conclusion was drawn through comparing the relationship between the accuracy degree and the similarity degree in one dimension, that of males subjects and female subjects, and that of ten subjects in the whole.