Chinese students'' performance in the pronunciation of English tense and lax vowels

• Main Authors: Hsin-yi Teng, 鄧欣怡
• Other Authors: Ing Cherry Li
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/26954300003730561139

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 91 === Abstract This study investigates Chinese subjects’ performance in the pronunciation of eight English tense and lax vowels, namely, /i/ and /0/, /e/ and /G/, /u/ and /U/, as well as /o/ and /C/. An empirical experiment is conducted to collect real data from fifty Chinese subjects. The instrument applied is an oral reading text, including a wordlist containing twenty single words, five sentences, and a short passage. The design of the text is based on two major dimensions: one is the phonetic environment, and the other is the scope of the task. Data collected from the investigation shows that the phonetic environment and the scope of the task have significant impacts on the subjects’ error rates of the eight vowels. What is more, a correlation is also observed between the two factors. Nevertheless, the effects these two dimensions have on the four tense vowels are contrary to the effects they have on the four lax vowels. In addition to the phonetic environment and the size of the task, other factors are perceived to influence the subjects’ performance of the eight vowels, such as phonotactic constraint from L1, lack of diphthongization, prominence of stress, deletion, and subjects’ false recognition of the word’s original pronunciation. Lastly, pedagogical implications and suggestion for further research are provided in the final chapter of this study.