The Effect Of Pronunciation Learning Strategies On The Accuracy Of Chinese Tonal Pronunciation By Korean

Along with an increased interest in the study of human characteristics in modern cognitive psychology, research on second language learning strategies has become an important part of research into second language aquisition. Beginning in the21st century, research results on strategies for learners of Chinese as a second language have been significant. However, those specifically aimed at Korean learners of Chinese are still limited. The aim of this paper is to understand the use of learning stategies by Korean learners and to explore how the use of learning strategies affects the frequency of mistakes in their pronunciation.This paper begins with a review of academic literature on comparative phonetics between Chinese and Korean, phonetic acquisition of Chinese as a second language, and strategies for learning Chinese as a second language. This will serve as a benchmark for the research theory and methodology of the paper. In line with the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) put forth by Oxford in1990and drawing from relevant literature on learning strategies and phonetic acquisition in the field of Chinese as a second language, a questionnaire aimed at Korean students on pronunciation learning strategies as well as a character pronunciation test were designed. The questionnaire and pronunciation test were randomly given to a total of90Korean students studying in China,30from each of three levels of Chinese language proficiency:beginning, intermediate, and advanced. After the results were collected, statistical analysis was done on the frequency of pronunciation errors and pronunciation learning strategies of the90students. In-depth analysis was completed, utilizing SPSS software descriptive statistics, ANOVA variance analysis, Spearman correlation, and other methods.The results of the data analysis showed that the phonetic learning methods of the90students surveyed and tested showed five major learning strategies, ranging from high to low they were:affective strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social strategies. Beginning students surveyed used strategies with higher frequency than advanced students. The characteristics of learners from each different level of Chinese ability can be described as follows:for beginning level Korean students compensation strategies placed first out of the five strategies, while for mid-level and advanced students compensation strategies and affirmative strategies both placed high in usage frequency.After completing the above analysis, this paper does a statistical analysis of the pronunciation tests given to the90Korean students, analyzing phonological errors. The results of the analysis show the initial consonants zh, sh, ch, r, z,l, j, c, f, and x present the most difficulty for Korean learners, while pronunciation mistakes on finals tended to be distributed on "u" type finals (including uang, un, uei) and "u" type finals (including ue, un, iian). As for tones, respondents chosen from beginning-level students exhibited poor mastery of the second tone, while the third tone proved difficult for all levels of learners. Looking at the specific aspects of respondents from the three different language levels, pronunciation of finals and tones did not vary significantly across the different levels. However, the frequency of pronunciation mistakes on initials varied significantly between beginners and intermediate and advanced learners. Through a comparison of the phonetics of Chinese and Korean, negative transference of the learner’s native language as well as phonetic differences can be shown to be the cause of difficult areas in pronunciation.On the basis of the above research, this paper then undertakes a more in depth investigation of the differences between high-scoring and low-scoring students. Quantitative analysis shows statistically significant results on the usage of compensation strategies between high and low-scoring students. However, a significant correlation between pronunciation learning strategies and accuracy of pronunciation of initials, finals, and tones was not found. Variance analysis showed that the sex of the student influenced the strategy used. Among the90respondents, low-scoring male students excelled over female students in the usage of strategies.This paper concludes with a summary of the results of the empirical survey described above. It makes the claim that the teaching of Chinese pronunciation for Korean learners should emphasize difficult areas on the basis of cross-language comparison analyses, and it should give students intensive practice of difficult areas. As well, teachers should encourage students to use appropriate learning strategies. This will help to improve the rather poor current state of Chinese pronunciation by Korean learners.