An Acoustic Study Of English Vowels Acquisition By Chinese EFL Learners From Northeast Region

Pronunciation is very important in communication,and correct pronunciation makes our speech understandable and comprehensible to our interlocutors.Vowels are the main components of English speech sound.Every English word has a vowel,and the vowel is not only the core of a syllable but also the direct carrier of the suprasegmental features.Therefore,the vowels acquisition will directly affect the accuracy of English pronunciation and the effect of communication.However,different languages have different phonetic systems and phonological rules.In China,apart from the Mandarin,there are various dialects.When Chinese EFL(English as Foreign Language)learners acquiring English vowels,they will be interfered with the vowels of dialect and Mandarin.In other words,Chinese EFL learners are used to using the vowels pronunciation of dialect or Mandarin to replace the English vowels pronunciation,which causes a lot of difficulties and mistakes in the process of English vowels acquisition.This study adopts the acoustic means to investigate the transfer effect of dialect and Mandarin on English vowels acquisition and analyze the acoustic features of English vowels produced by Harbin(HEB)and Dalian(DL)EFL learners,from the spectral and temporal perspective.This study involves two groups of participants.First group is American native English speakers who come from Midwest(10 males and 10 females)without any regional accent.Second group is EFL learners(10 males and 10 females from each city)who come from universities.All EFL learners were born and raised in their cities with enough exposure to their dialects.They learned Mandarin since they went to school,and also have learned English for more than seven years.The ten English vowels acquisition by HEB and DL EFL learners are analyzed by PRAAT,SPSS and MATLAB.The thesis mainly discusses the following three questions:i)From the spectral and temporal perspective,what are the differences between English vowels produced by Harbin EFL learners and American native speakers?ii)From the spectral and temporal perspective,what are the differences between English vowels produced by Dalian EFL learners and American native speakers?iii)What are the effects of L1(dialect)and L2(Mandarin)vowel systems on L3(English)vowels acquisition?The study shows that ?)the English vowels/i/and/(?)/are acquired well by HEB EFL learners.As for DL EFL learners,only the English vowel/a/is acquired well.?)The results of independent sample T-test and the Mahalanobis Distance have proved that there is a transfer effect of dialect and Mandarin.Among the English vowels produced by HEB EFL learners,the English vowels/a/,/(?)/,/(?)/and/?/,they are affected by their dialect counterparts/a/,/au/,/(?)/and/ai/respectively.And the English vowels/u/and/(?)/are affected by HEB Mandarin vowel/u/.However,in terms of the English vowels/I/and/?/produced by HEB EFL learners,they are neither affected by their dialect nor Mandarin.HEB EFL learners are likely to develop the English vowels/I/and/?/as an interlanguage.Besides,HEB EFL learners distinguish the long-short vowels mainly depend on the duration.?)For DL EFL learners,the transfer effect of dialect and Mandarin are investigated and proved as well.The English vowels/i/,/I/,/u/,/(?)/,/(?)/,/(?)/produced by DL EFL learners,they are affected by their dialect counterparts/i/,/u/,/(?)/and/?/correspondingly.In terms of the English vowels/?/,/?/and/(?)/produced by DL EFL learners,the vowels may be in the transitional stage of acquisition of their native English counterparts.Moreover,DL EFL learners distinguish the long-shorts vowels depend on the duration as well.The results of this study have significance.Firstly,the pronunciation problems reflected in the study can draw attention of English teachers and EFL learners,thus it can promote English teachers' pronunciation pedagogy and guide EFL learners on how to acquire the pronunciation of English.Secondly,the use of the software can help the researchers to analyze the pronunciation problems of the EFL learners more intuitively.Thirdly,the similar and different phonetic features of two different groups can offer references for EFL learners who live in other dialectal areas.