Analysis Of English Pronunciation Errors Of College English Majors

Many English learners are eager to speak standard English which is intelligible to native English speakers and those who learn English as their second language or foreign language. When people communicate with others in English, standard pronunciation can enhance better understanding among interlocutors. However, some college English majors, especially in the first year of their higher education, have difficulties in pronouncing English properly. As a result, they are laughed for their wrong pronunciation and their passion for speaking English is deeply affected. Teachers can find many pronunciation errors in oral English tests and English speech contests, which reveals some problems with English pronunciation teaching. So it is necessary to analyze college English majors’ pronunciation errors and figure out some solving strategies accordingly.The thesis summarizes and analyzes some theories in pronunciation teaching provided by many scholars home and abroad. In this study, questionnaire survey and case study are applied by the author. Forty-two college English majors (freshmen enrolled in2011) in the English Department of Handan College participate in the study. The subjects are required to fill out some personal information and answer fourteen questions. And then a pronunciation test is done to investigate the subjects’mastery of English phonemes, consonant clusters, incomplete plosion, stress, liaison, intonation, etc. There are five hypotheses in this study:two hypotheses are proved, another three hypotheses are denied.The result of this study shows that the subjects have many errors both in segmental and supra-segmental units. And the study also reveals that the subjects’dialect and their secondary school teachers’level of English pronunciation are obviously related to the subjects’competence of English pronunciation. At last, some helpful solving strategies are put forward to improve English majors’English pronunciation.