On the Problematic Sounds of English Interfered by Chinese Language from My Stud

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【摘要】 In our English teaching process， we may find some problematic sounds in the students’ pronunciation affected by our chinese language. How does this happen and what is the deep reason for this phenomenon？ Here I will analyze that with the theory of phonology.

【关键词】 problematic sounds affected Chinese language phonetics reason

【中图分类号】 G633.41 【文献标识码】 A 【文章编号】 1674-4772（2014）04-001-01

1. Introduction

1.1 The general problematic sounds pronounced by my students

In my english teaching process， I would find some problematic sounds pronounced by my Chinese students. Here are some examples. They may pronounce the word think [θi k] as [si k]. And they may pronounce the sound [ai] as the Chinese character 爱. Besides， they may confuse the sounds [e] and [ ] and could not find the difference between bed and bad.

2. The reason of these problematic sounds produced

2.1 How do these problematic sounds produced

Here I explain those problematic sounds I’ve mentioned above one by one. For the first one， some Chinese students would pronounce the word think [θi k] as [si k] which because our Chinese language doesn’t have the sound [θ] and some students cannot pronounce this sound correctly. It’s a dental sound and one should use the dental to bite the tongue tip slightly and make the air flow from the lung voicelessly and then this sound is pronounced. For the second sound [ai]， some students would pronounce it as the Chinese character 爱 which is also an error. In English， [ai] is a diphthong that glides from [a] towards [i] fluently and smoothly and the second part [i] is weak and then this sound is made. For the last one， many students are confused with the difference between bed and bad because neither of [e] and [？] exists in Chinese language. Both of them are front vowels but there are still subtle differences between them. For the sound [e]， the tongue body is shifted forward in the middle-plane while [ ] is produced by shifting the body of the tongue forward from its relaxed state and lowering it from the position for [e]. Many students fail to make a clear distinction between the two in their speech.

2.2 Are they affected by our Chinese language

The answer is definite. All of the problematic sounds above are affected by our Chinese language. Some mistakes are derived from the similar sounds in Chinese language and some mistakes are made because the students try to find an equivalent sound in Chinese language but there is nothing and thus they would substitute them with an error. Above all， those errors appeared when there were some similarities and some contrasts between equivalent items or structures in the two languages.

2.3 The deep reason for those problematic sounds.

In all languages， there is a series of general study of the characteristics of speech sound which is called phonetics. So the deep reason why the Chinese students make these mistakes is that they don’t know the phonetics clearly and systematically. In order to learn a foreign language correctly， the students should know about the phonetics previously and study it thoroughly. Only obtaining the rationale first could the students grasp a language correctly and fundamentally.

3. Some knowledge of English phonetics

As phonetics is so important in pronouncing a word， here I’d like to mention some knowledge of English phonetics. In English， there are altogether 44 phonemes including 20 vowels and 24 consonants. In 20 vowels， there are 12 pure vowels including

which consist of only one sound and 8 diphthongs

which consist of two sounds that glide from one to the other. The 24 consonants however， from different ways of classification， can be divided into different groups. According to the place of articulation， the consonants can be divided into bilabial， labio-dental， dental， alveolar， alveo-palatal， velar and glottal. According to the manner of articulation， they can be divided into stops， fricatives， affricate， nasal and approximants. Besides， according to that when one sound is made whether the vocal cord vibrates， they can be divided into voiced and voiceless. The relations can be shown in the following chart：

4. Conclusion

As for phonetics is so important， we should teach students some knowledge of the phonetics to help them avoid of the problematic sounds and pronounce the English words correctly.

[ Reference ]

[1] George Yule. The study of language. Foreign Language Teaching

and Research Press， 2000： 40-52.

[2] Rod Ellis. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Shanghai

Foreign Language Education Press， 1999： 19-41.

[3] 王桂珍. 英语语音教程. 高等教育出版社， 2000.

[4] 汪文珍. 英语语音. 上海外语教育出版社， 1999.

[5] 孟宪忠. 英语语音学. 华东师范大学出版社， 1999