Influence Of Shenyang Dialect's Accent On The Acquisition Of RP From The Perspective Of Language Transfer

Learning English pronunciation is the foundation of English study. It is known to all that Chinese students learn English spending more time and putting into more energy but gaining less. To Shenyang local students who cannot speak standard Chinese Putonghua, they are usually influenced by Shenyang local accent when they speak English. The reason is possibly due to the difference from some vowel phonemes and consonant ones between Shenyang dialect and English. When negative transfer of Shenyang local accent appears, Shenyang local students are possibly to be influenced by it when they pronounce English. Knowing the differences between the two sound systems enables the students to get rid of the national or region dialects in learning English speech sounds. In this way, they can easily master the same sounds in English and Shenyang dialect, distinguish the similar ones and notice those ones only existing in English.Taking 48 first-year students from two junior middle schools in Shenyang as the participants, the thesis is conducted by means of questionnaire, tape-recording, and face-to-face interview. The author aims to find out the influences of Shenyang local accent on the acquisition of RP vowels and consonants and to ask for reasons.The results show that those pronunciation problems of Shenyang local students fall into three categories:Confusable Vowels, Confusable Consonants and Additional Vowels.First of all, Shenyang local students use Shenyang final e [(?)] to replace English central vowels [(?):] and [(?)]; use Shenyang ue [u(?)] to replace RP diphthong [u(?)].Secondly, they use Shenyang initial s[s] to replace RP fricative consonant [(?)]; they use Shenyang initial z [ts] to replace RP fricative consonant [3], and RP affricate consonants [d3] and [dr]; they use Shenyang initial c [tsh] to replace RP affricate consonants [t(?)] and [tr]; they use Chinese Putonghua initial r [z] to replace RP approximant consonant [r].Thirdly, Shenyang local students use the habits of Chinese pronunciation to pronounce in English—add a Shenyang final-i[(?)] after RP consonants of alveolar [s], [z], [t(?)], [d(?)], [(?)], and [(?)], and dental [(?)], [(?)]; add a Shenyang final e [(?)] after RP consonants of alveolar [t], [d], and velar [k], [g].The implication of this study is that both Shenyang local students and teachers should pay attention to the influence of Shenyang dialect's accent on the acquisition of British Received Pronunciation, avoid the negative transfer, and get rid of inaccurate pronunciation habits, consequently, Shenyang local students can succeed in pronouncing standard English speech sounds.