A Corpus-based Study On The Mispronunciation Of /n/-/l/ In Chinese EFL Learners' Read Speech

This thesis attempts to holistically investigate the mispronunciation of English /n/-/l/ by Chinese English majors in read speech,with the aim of revealing the whole picture of the misarticulation of /n/ and /l/ as well as how such factors as dialectal,geographical and phonological contexts affect the mispronunciation of English /n/-/l/.The data in the present study was extracted from ESCCL(English Speech Corpus of Chinese Learners),which consists of 584 recordings,produced by English majors in different geographical and dialectal parts of China.Through quantitative analysis,it is found that:Firstly,in terms of overall performance,a certain number of Chinese EFL learners have difficulty in the pronunciation of English /n/ and /l/ .Specifically,the replacement of /l/ by /n/ happens more frequently than the substitution of /n/ with /l/ .Secondly,as far as the dialectal background is concerned,students from different dialectal areas suffer different levels of difficulty in the production of English /n/ and /l/ .Except HAKKA and JIN,students from other seven dialectal areas(XIANG,HUI,GAN,NORTHERN,MIN,YUE,WU)all experience the substitution of /n/ and /l/ .In NORTHERN Dialect,the frequency of the mispronunciation of /n/-/l/falls from the highest to the lowest among students from XINAN,JIANGHUAI,LANYIN,ZHONGYUAN,BEIFANG,and JIAOLIAO respectively.DONGBEI and BEIJING students are reported to have no difficulty in the production of English /n/-/l/.Thirdly,considering the geographical background,students from rural regions have worse performance than urban students in the production of English /n/-/l/.Further analyses show significant differences in the mispronunciation of /n/-/l/between the urban and the rural groups.Last but not least,regarding phonological contexts,the mispronunciation of /n/-/l/shows significant differences in the subsequent-vowel context,the syllabic-position context,and the supra-segmental context.In the subsequent-vowel context,the frequency of the alternation of /n/ and /l/ falls from the highest to the lowest when /n/-/l/is followed by low,mid,and high vowels respectively.In the syllabic-position context,errors occur more frequently when /n/-/l/is in the first syllable of a word than when /n/-/l/is in other positions.In the supra-segmental context,the frequency of the mispronunciation of /n/-/l/is higher when /n/-/l/is accented than when it is unaccented.This study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications.Theoretically,it enriches the understanding of the mispronunciation of English /n/-/l/by providing a panoramic picture of how Chinese students mispronounce English /n/-/l/.Pedagogically,the present study reveals the frequent occurrences of the substitution of /n/ and /l/ by Chinese EFL learners,which alerts both students and teachers to the severity of the mispronunciation of /n/-/l/in English.It is anticipated that the present study could provide empirical support to English pronunciation teaching.