An Empirical Study Of The Acquisition Of English Vowels By Chinese EFL Learners

As an important component of speech,vowel is indispensable in language communication.Due to the differences between English and Chinese language systems,the production of Chinese English learners' vowels is not optimistic.Although in recent years,there are more and more researches on English pronunciation problems of Chinese EFL learners,most of which are focused on dialects,while there are few researches on the common problems that Chinese EFL learners have.The key issues the thesis plans to solve are:(1)To what extent do Chinese learners' pronunciation deviate from the native speakers' ?(2)What kind of negative transfer effects the Mandarin has on the pronunciation of English vowels for EFL learners in China?(3)What suggestions can be provided for English teachers and learners in terms of vowel production?By analyzing the recording of 30 non-English major Chinese EFL learners(15females and 15 males),and comparing the vowel systems between Mandarin-the standard Chinese and native English speaker,the thesis tries to summarize the general vowel pronunciation problems of Chinese EFL learners and provides some feasible suggestions for both learners and teachers,hoping to help them avoid the negative transfer in vowel production.From the analysis of the data in the experiment,Chinese EFL learners' vowel pronunciation mainly deviates in tongue position,like they tend to have a more forward tongue position than the RP speaker in terms of vowel /i?/and /?/,a more backward tongue position of /?/ and/??/,a slightly higher tongue position of /?/ and/u:/,and a lower tongue position of /??/ and /?/;and the deviation of vowel length mainly happens to long vowels and short vowels.Moreover,the lacking of glide process when pronounce diphthongs is also another common problems for Chinese EFL learners.The possible reasons behind the problems are that Chinese EFL learners make no distinction between the similar vowel phonemes in English and Chinese,like English /?/ and Chinese(i)[i] or English /?/ and Chinese(u)[u],and produce all the vowels with the same length as a result of negative transfer of Mandarin Chinese,which has no alteration between long and short vowels.Based on these phenomena and causes,more attention of pronunciation,especially vowel pronunciation,should be paid to in the process of EFL teaching.Thus this thesis puts forward some effective and feasible suggestions for English learners and teachers in China,and these suggestions are the conveying of suitable vowel pronunciation knowledge to learners,more specific practice about vowel pronunciation and the application of multimedia to improve phonology teaching,etc.