An Acoustic Study On Poyang EFL Learners Vowels Acquisition

Pronunciation is a vital part in second language acquisition,and its acquisition effect will directly affect the second language acquisition.In the study of second language acquisition,many theories proposed by linguists,such as the Language Transfer Theory and Native Language Magnet Model,have stated that the mother tongue will affect the second language acquisition.In China,the first language for most EFL learners are their dialects.Therefore,studying the influence of the first language on second language acquisition means studying how dialects affect the English acquisition in some way.This study focuses on the study of English phonetic acquisition by EFL learners in Poyang.Based on the Language Transfer Theory and Contrastive Analysis,the thesis studies the transfer influence of Poyang dialect on English phonetic acquisition through the acoustic method and the help of phonetic analysis software Praat.Relying on relevant theories and the classification of vowels,this study selects eight vowels /?/,/i/,/?/,/?/,/?/,/?/,/a?/,/a?/ to conduct research.15 middle school students in Poyang and 10 American native speakers are chosen as informants,and their pronunciations are collected in a relatively quiet environment by using special voice collecting headphones.Through collecting and comparing the English corpus and the Poyang dialect of Poyang speakers and English native speakers,the study tries to find out the same and different aspects between them.Then the positive and negative transfer influence from Poyang dialect on the acquisition of English vowels can be known.It can be found that the Poyang speakers can pronounce the vowels /i/,/?/,/?/,/a?/,/a?/ well because of the positive transfer from Poyang dialect.But for the negative transfer influence from Poyang dialect,Poyang speakers pronounce the vowels/?/,/?/,/?/ which are different from the native English speakers on the tongue position.When Poyang speakers articulate the short vowel /?/,the tongue position of Poyang speakers moves more upward and forward than American speakers;for the vowel /?/,the tongue position moves higher than American speakers and when Poyang speakers pronounce the long vowel /?/,the tongue position moves more downward and forward.In view of these research results,this study combines the Native Magnet Model with the Perceptual Assimilation Model to put forward some effective and feasible suggestions for EFL learners and teachers in the Poyang area.Firstly,teachers and learners can learn to make full use of phonetic analysis software to visualize the pronunciation problems of themselves and students.Then they can teach and improve their English pronunciation in a more efficient way.In addition to the use of acoustic analysis software,teachers need to encourage students in the usual teaching,use a variety of teaching methods to teach and develop students' interest and confidence in learning.Through these suggestions,the phonetic teaching and learning of English teachers and learners in Poyang area can be better improved.Besides,this study can also provide some reference for future study.