An Acoustic Study On The English Front Vowels Production By Shenyang English Language Learners

Vowels are an important component of language,the production of which is indispensable in communication.However,vowels produced by Chinese English learners are significantly different from those pronounced by the native English speakers due to the distinctions between two languages.Moreover,the broad territory of China produces various regional dialects which exert more dialectal influences on the production of English vowels.For this reason,it is of great necessity to conduct a research to explore the influences generated by dialects on the production of English.However,few studies have been carried out on the Northern dialects and their influences on the L2 English production.In this case,the paper attempts to explore an acoustic study of front vowels produced by the English learners from Shenyang city,by which the dialectal influences on the production are presented.In the research,sounds produced by 50 Shenyang English learners(25 females and 25 males)and 50 American native speakers(25 females and 25 males)are selected from the AESOP-CASS(Asian English Speech Corpus Project-Chinese Academy of Social Sciences),the corpus employed in present study.Besides,16 words that contain the English front vowels and 16 words that have Chinese front vowels are chosen as the research materials.Then,the selected sounds are annotated by the software Praat in order to extract the two parameters,the F1(first formant)and F2(second formant),by which the differences between the learners and native speakers could be analyzed.In addition,this thesis attempts to employ the SPSS to operate the Independent-samples ttests to explore the Mandarin influences and dialectal influences on the production of English front vowels.The research answers the three questions as follows:1.What are the phonetic features of front vowels produced by Shenyang English learners?2.What are the differences of front vowel production between Shenyang English learners and American native speakers in terms of F1 and F2?3.What are the possible reasons that cause the differences?The research finds out that the tongue positions of Shenyang English Language learners are in accordance with each other,signifying a consistent production manner that the learners may have.Furthermore,the tongue height can be ranked as follows /i:/>/i/>/e/>/(?)/,and the tongue advancement can be ordered as below: /i:/>/i/>/e/>/(?)/.In addition,the differences of front vowels produced by SyELs(Shenyang English learners)and ANSs(American native speakers)are obvious.Based on the RQVPV(Range of Quantitative Variation in Phonetic Values)and Acoustic Vowels Charts,vowel /i/ is produced with either a higher or lower tongue height,or either a more advanced or backer position than ANSs',indicating that vowel /i/ is not mastered properly.Vowel /i:/ by SyELs goes with either a higher or lower tongue height,or either a more advanced or backer tongue advancement than ANSs'.This signifies that there are some problems in the acquisition of vowel /i:/,and the production of this vowel is greatly affected by other elements.Vowel /e/ is featured by a lower tongue height in general,and its tongue advancement is either more advanced or backer,manifesting that SyELs do not grasp the correct tongue position,by which the deviations are made.Vowel /(?)/ is either in a higher or lower tongue height,or either in a more advanced or backer tongue advancement.These poor productions further demonstrate that SyELs have not mastered the vowel /(?)/ accurately.Furthermore,both Mandarin and Shenyang Dialect are negatively transferred into the production of English front vowels.To be specific:(1)The English vowel /i/ is affected by the D-/i/ and M-/y/ in both the tongue height and advancement,and also influenced by M-/i/ and M-/(?)/ in the tongue height and M-/?/ in the tongue advancement.(2)The English vowel /i:/ is impacted by the D-/i/ in the tongue height and advancement and influenced by D-/(?)/ and D-/?/ in the tongue height.In addition,the front vowels in Mandarin also exert some effects on the vowel /i:/.To be concrete,the M-/i/ and M-/(?)/ can affect the tongue height of vowel /i:/,and M-/?/ influences its advancement.Another vowel M-/y/ can also affect the production of /i:/ in the tongue height and advancement.(3)The English vowel /e/ is mainly impacted by the M-/(?)/ and D-/(?)/ in the tongue advancement.(4)The English vowel /(?)/ is affected by D-/y/,D-/(?)/,and M-/(?)/ in the tongue advancement.Moreover,the research on the Acoustic Vowels Charts reveals that Shenyang Dialect affects the production of English front vowels greatly.Among the front vowels in Shenyang Dialect,the D-/i/ and D-/(?)/ are the most influential factors.The findings of this thesis have a positive effect on the English pronunciation teaching.The study indicates that the production of English front vowels of SyELs is far from satisfactory due to profound influence exerted by Shenyang Dialect,which further reminds us that more emphasis on pronunciation teaching should be laid.First of all,the teaching should be more meticulous and provide students with necessary phonetic knowledge.Besides,more classes about correcting and practicing pronunciation should be complemented in the English curriculum to improve the articulation of learners'.In the meanwhile,the multimedia and software for phonetic analysis can be used in teaching to visualize and standardize the pronunciation teaching to achieve the goal of the improvement of pronunciation English pedagogy.