A Study On The Influences Of Yuxian Dialect Accent In Shanxi Upon The Acquisition Of English Pronunciation

As the physical outer cover of a language, phonetics is one of the most essential components of human language. Many linguistic studies and a great amount of foreign language teaching practice show that each person tends to be interfered by the habits of native language-speaking during learning the pronunciation of a foreign language and moreover, these interferences may keep them from learning native-like pronunciation. Therefore, it is one of the most important tasks in the field of linguistic studies to investigate the influences of the native language on the learning of foreign language pronunciation.In China, although Chinese Putonghua is regarded as the standard language and is widely popularized, there are many dialects areas where the local dialects are the most significant medium for local people. Therefore, the influences resulting from habits of dialect-speaking cannot be neglected at the time the influences of Chinese Putonghua upon the learning of English pronunciation are focused on in the study of foreign language learning. The hometown of the author. Yuxian in Yangquan County of Shanxi Province, is just one of these dialect areas. Due to the limitation of many aspects, like its geographical position and under-developed teaching resources, English learning in Yuxian is weak enough. Particularly, when the leaning of English pronunciation in Yuxian is taken into consideration, the local students’performance of English pronunciation is far from satisfaction. For these reasons, the author of the present research is expecting to provide some suggestions to the learning and teaching of English pronunciation in Yuxian by investigating the specific influences of Yuxian dialect upon the learning of English pronunciation and by exploring causes of these influences.Based on Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and the theory of Language Transfer, the present study is conducted by focusing on three research questions:1) What are the influences of Yuxian dialect on the learning of English pronunciation?2) What are causes of the influences of Yuxian dialect on the learning of English pronunciation?3) What can English teachers and English learners in Yuxian do with the influences of Yuxian dialect on the learning of English pronunciation? By way of recording English pronunciation by students in Yuxian and the perception analysis on collected English pronunciation, it is found that there are both positive and negative influences of Yuxian dialect upon local students’English pronunciation. First of all, the habits of dialect-speaking facilitate the pronunciation of English/z/and/v/by local students. Secondly, the pronunciation of English/i:/,/eu/,/η/,/∫/,/3/,/t∫/,/r/and/w/by students in Yuxian are negatively influenced by their habits of dialect-speaking. Thirdly, since the errors in the pronunciation of English/d3/by students in Yuxian are similar to those made by other English learners in China, the negative influences caused by habits of Yuxian dialect-speaking are not obvious. Finally, for the reason that there are more negative influences of Yuxian dialect on local students’ English pronunciation, the degree of negative influences of Yuxian dialect on local students’ English pronunciation is taken into consideration. The order of different degree of negative influences caused by negative transfer of habits of dialect-speaking on the pronunciation of English sounds from the most one to the least one is/w/,/η/,/r/,/i://3/,/ey/,/∫/and/t∫/. Moreover, based on the theory of Language Transfer and information collected in the questionnaire investigation and interview, the study makes a detailed discussion on causes of influences of Yuxian dialect on local students’ English pronunciation by focusing on three aspects, namely, students’habits of dialect-speaking, the learning of English pronunciation in Yuxian and the teaching of English pronunciation in Yuxian, during which problems and shortcomings involved in these three aspects are summarized. At the end of the research, corresponding counterparts for the learning and teaching of English pronunciation in Yuxian are provided.