| Language transfer as the core problem in second language acquisition, linguistics, and applied linguistics has been developing since 1950s, with the efforts of many linguists and professors on the research of the influences on the mother language to second language acquisition. English pronunciations are been paid attention to as one of the most important parts in English study.Language transfer can be divided into two kinds, positive transfer and negative transfer. What this dissertation mainly discusses is the negative pronunciation transfer encountered while learning English pronunciations. In Cantonese-speaking districts, it is likely for the middle school students to get influenced by Cantonese, which is their mother tongue. Therefore, the dissertation attempts to research on the study of Cantonese-speaking students learning English phonetics and solve the problems of negative pronunciation transfer with different learning strategies. To be specific, three purposes are to be achieved:(1) The influence on the pronunciation transfer from Cantonese to English in the study of the middle school students in Cantonese-speaking districts learning English phonetics.(2) The influence on the learning strategies proposed to solve the negative phonetic transfers.(3) Some pedagogical implications related to the research findings in English pronunciation teaching and learning in Cantonese-speaking districts.The research of dissertations belongs to the confirmatory type. Therefore, the related theories and approaches are summed up in the dissertation at the very beginning. Besides, the research data are to be recorded and analyzed so that they can be confirmed to the conclusions. Oral English pronunciation proficiency of the subjects is tested by the oral English phonetic test, in which the sounds are to be recorded by the recording device and the scores are collected. Afterwards, the audio software Adobe Audition v.3.0 is used to analyze the data collected.All the 60 subjects selected are from Class 5 and Class 7 in Guangxi Wuzhou No.4 Middle School,30 subjects from each class. The subjects are to be tested the oral English phonetic proficiency, and their scores are to be recorded carefully in these two tests. The subjects are second year students whose mother tongue is Cantonese with the scores in different ranges.To achieve the purpose, the research questions are to put forward:(1) To what extent are the Cantonese pronunciations correlated to English phonetics?(2) What is the positive phonetic transfer from Cantonese to English? What about the negative phonetic transfer? Which one is in the dominant position?(3) Is there any use in solving the problem of negative pronunciation transfer from Cantonese to English by applying the learning strategies?The final research findings are the summary and illustration of the research questions. They can be concluded in the following aspects:(1) Cantonese pronunciations are correlated to English ones. They have something in common but they have diversity.(2) The negative phonetic transfer is in the dominant position in the phonetic transfer from Cantonese to English, which may cause some negative influence in the study of English phonetics.(3) The subjects applying the learning strategies have higher scores in the test in accuracy than those not applying the learning strategies. |
PDF Full Text Request