A Pilot Study of the English Pronunciation Errors of Chinese L2 Learners

【Abstract】This paper aims at finding out the English pronunciation errors of Chinese L2 learners using the material The North Wind and the Sun accompanied by the factors causing these errors. It also tries to put forward some strategies and teaching activities to improve the pronunciation of Chinese learners. This paper is just a pilot study and the large-scale study should be conducted in order to better the pronunciation teaching and learning.

【Key words】pronunciation; strategies; teaching activities

【作者簡介】俞双英（1982.05-），女，湖北利川人，江西省九江市九江学院外国语学院，讲师，韩国东亚大学在读博士，研究方向：英语教育，翻译，语法，句法及语义。

1. Introduction

Pronunciation is regarded as the most difficult and serious problem for intelligibility in communication. According to Michael Wei， pronunciation should be an integrated and integral part of language learning and cannot be separated from language learning. Wong （1993） argues that the importance of pronunciation is even more distinct when it comes to the connection between pronunciation and listening comprehension. This paper aims at finding out the pronunciation errors of Chinese L2 learners using the material The North Wind and the Sun accompanied by the factors causing these errors. It also tries to put forward some strategies and teaching activities to improve the pronunciation of the Chinese learners. This paper is just a pilot study and in the future， the large-scale study should be conducted in order to better the pronunciation teaching and learning.

The error in this paper refers to any derivation from Received Pronunciation or General America.

2. Method

In this part， the material used for recording， the subject’s background information and the measurement of the errors will be described in detail.

2.1 Material

The material used for recording is the North Wind and the Sun. The recording will be recorded two times based on three levels： word level， sentence level and oral speech level. The recording is recorded in the specialized recording multimedia room of Dong-a university and all the exterior interference that will have influence on the result is excluded so the recording is adequate for the analysis.

2.2 Subject

The subject is a 40 years old female and the Ph.D. student of Dong-a university majoring in sports. She comes from the countryside of Si Chuan province， China. She began to learn English at 12 via the grammar translation method. She did not get any formal and systematic instruction about the pronunciation. She has no experience of living in English speaking countries but has experience of teaching international students from India for 2 two years. She has been learning Korea for one and a half year. It is just less than 10% of English use in daily life before March of 2018 and the daily use of English has been increased to 30%-50% since March 2018.

2.3 Measurement of the Errors

In order to figure out the errors of the pronunciation， three distinct ways of measurement are used， that is， self-assessment done by the subject herself; native speaker’s judgement finished by a British native speaker and an American native speaker who are both professors of Dong-a university though they don’t have the systematic knowledge of the phonology and peer judgement done by my colleague who is non-native speakers but majored in phonology and has been teaching the pronunciation for English majors for more than thirteen years. The combination of the three different measurements is adequate to figure out the errors and the results are based on their judgement.

3. Results and Discussion

The results are classified into three subparts consistent with the recording and the results will be analyzed one by one as follows.

3.1 Results of Word Level

In the word level， the discrete sounds will be analyzed so that we can make a comparison with the pronunciation in the connected speech. According to the judgement， the main pronunciation errors in the segmental level are the followings. To begin with the consonants， the subject likes to confuse the sound [ð] [z] with[θ] [s] for example the word this usually pronounced as [zis] and easy as [iði]. The second pronunciation problem is the substitution of [n] with [ŋ] such as the word sun pronounced as song. These errors occur mainly because the sound system of Chinese and English.  Although we have the comparison and we know which sound is more difficult， the place and manner of articulation of the consonants differ and the subject started to learn English at 12 so the pronunciation habit has almost been fixed and it is hard for her to change the place and manner of articulation of the consonants. Sometimes she will pronunciation the English consonants unconsciously as the Chinese ones.

As for the vowels， there are mainly three errors. The first one is the substitution of [i] with [ei]. In my subject’s pronunciation， there is no distinction between the word the and they. The second one is the pronunciation of [ɪ] as [aɪ] such as the incorrect pronunciation of the word wind. However， the word wind actually has two distinct pronunciations as a noun and a verb， when we analyzed the result and consulted her and she said she knows wind is a noun and never knows that it can be a noun. Later another group of word containing [ɪ] was given to her and I found that the result was the same. The third one concerns with the pronunciation of [əʊ] as [ɔː] such as in the word fold.

In the word level， the pronunciation problem concerning the suprasegmental element is mainly the stress. The first difficulty concerns with the monosyllabic word with consonant clusters such as the word cloak. The most serious problem in stress has something to do with the multisyllabic words. If the syllable of word is more than one， she will have the problem to place the stress.

3.2 Results of Connected Speech

In the connected speech， the first error is the pronunciation of [m] as [ŋ] in the word immediately but in the word level， she has no such kind of error.  The second problem I found is the adding [n] to the ending of some of the words such as the word agreed pronounced as agreend and the word that [ðæt] as thant [ðænt]. This is an interesting error that many scholars have not mentioned and which can be an investigation for future research to see this is just a single case or a phenomenon for people of Sichuan province. The vowel in the connected speech mainly concerns with the schwa. The first one concerns with the adding the schwa [ə] after the consonant [t] and [d] so the pronunciation of the word wind [wɪnd] will be the pronunciation of the word [wɪndə]. Here an interesting result arises. In the word level， she pronounced the word wind as [waɪnd] but in the connected speech， she pronounced this word as [wɪndə]. The main reason for this kind of change error maybe is the lexicon influence such as the word window. The mental lexicon of the speaker makes the speaker choose some of the easy and familiar word to try to pronounce the word correctly. What is more， the speaker likes to change the schwa [ə] into the sound [ʌ] such as pronounce the word succeed [sək’sid] as [sʌ k’sid]. This error may also have something to do with the learner’s own asserted pronunciation rule such as the letter u usually will be pronounced as [ʌ] as in up， cup and so on.

Every word in the connected speech is pronounced with the great energy and forced especially the pronoun at the end of a sentence. Every word is pronounced with the full form and no reduced form even if the function words are more stressed than the content words. However， there is no intonation and liaison or linkage. This happens because of the Chinese transfer.

3.3 Results of Spontaneous Speech

The errors in the spontaneous speech are almost the same as what have been mentioned above.  Except that， the deletion of [ɪ] and[n] in multisyllabic word should be mentioned such as in [sɪ’sɪli] instead of sincerely. Sometimes she will add [n] as I mentioned before but here she deletes. Maybe the reason is the simplicity of pronunciation. She just pronounces some multisyllabic words as simple as possible.

The error in this part is the same as that in connected speech. Essentially these two are almost the same concerning the suprasegmental more. According to the analysis and discussion of the results， what should be followed are the factors causing the errors.

4. Strategies and Activities of Improving the Pronunciation

According to the analysis， the suprasegmental element is the most serious part that needs improvement. The focus of the improvement of pronunciation will be first the intonation， the stress and rhyme and then flow to consonants and vowels. Some of the strategies and activities are put forward so that the teachers of the pronunciation can use them as reference.

4.1 Intonation： drawing pitch lines/curves or arrows and using

Intonation is something we can perceive but can not teach. The teachers can adopt the drawing pitch lines or curves to show that this is the place for intonation. Arrows and musical scores are also a good choice for teaching intonation. For example：

From the direction of the arrow， the students can easily distinguish the rising and falling tone so that the speech will be spoken in a rising and falling way that is much better than the flat tone for all the words.

4.2 Stress and rhythm

Word is the building block of sentence and passage. The stress of the single word is crucial for the sentence stress. For the word stress， visual effects， rubber bands， tapping， clapping， or playing simple rhythm instruments are the usually used ways. As for the sentence stress， we should tell the students to distinguish the function words and content word and the stress rule is that the content words will be stressed while the function words are unstressed. If the function words are stressed， there is markedness and special meaning for this word. Many teachers also use the rhymes. It refers to the use of the rhythm of nursery rhymes to the rhythm of ordinary sentences such as HICKory DICKory DOCK The MOUSE ran UP the CLOCK. This activity is especially useful for students who have musical intelligence. Linkage is in my opinion the biggest challenge for the Chinese learners. Chain pictures will be a best option for linking because we can use chains to give a visual image of spoken English. For example，

The visual picture can let the students know that the [k] sound should be linked with the [ɪ] sound and the [t] sound should be linked with the [ʌ] sound. So the final pronunciation should be [pɪkɪ tʌp] instead of [pɪk ɪt ʌp]. Curved lines are another best way for linkage for example. Therefore， the correction linkage should be [həʊl dɑn]. Through these activities， students can improve their linkage greatly. However， the only should be focused is that students themselves should practice more.

4.3 Consonants and Vowels

Chinese learners have difficulty in distinguishing the tense and lax vowel. The rubber bands should be the first choice. The teachers can use a rubber band in /i：/， so that students have to pull both sides to the end， but for the/I/， students just need to pull both sides a little bit. If possible， animation can also be a good choice. Mirrors should be used widely in the pronunciation of vowels since a mirror can help students to see the shape of the lips and try to let the shape of the lip as original as possible.

Consonants are the least aspect we should pay attention to. Song lyrics are helpful and teachers can ask students to read some popular song lyrics aloud to practice final consonants especially the ones containing the most difficult ones. The following song lyrics are widely used for correcting the difficult sound such as[l] and [n]; [θ] and [ð] and so on. Telephone numbers also can be used to practice the consonants. The teacher can choose some numbers such as six， five and nine so on to practice the consonants. In this way， students can get improvement in pronunciation and the number of the students simultaneously.

5. Conclusion

This paper just analyzes the pronunciation errors of the Chinese speakers and then goes on analyzing the factors that lead to the errors. In order to improve the pronunciation of Chinese learners， some strategies and activities are put forward so that the teachers can take them as a reference. However， this study has some limitations. First， this is a pilot study and the subject is only one. Second， the recording is not so strict and there may be some emotional factors that have influence on the result. The future study can be conducted from the aspect of the district or age.  Moreover， further research should be focused more on suprasegmental element than the segmental element. Overall， there is still a long way to go for the pronunciation teaching of China.

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