An Analysis On Pronunciation Problems Of English Majors

Standard English has a positive influence on English learners. Many English learnersare eager to speak English like native English speakers. People who can communicate withothers in Standard English will be well-understood. However, most English majors students,especially freshmen, have common pronunciation difficulties in the process of learningEnglish. As a result, teachers should make a research on the errors which students will bemost likely to make in advance and analyze the origin of the errors in detail. Thus, teacherscan take precautionary measures to improve the quality of teaching.The thesis reviews and studies some English pronunciation theories which werepublished at home and abroad. Pronunciation test and questionnaire survey are applied by theauthor in this study. Thirty-seven freshmen of English majors in Shanxi Normal University(enrolled in2013) took part in the study. The subjects were required to take a pronunciationtest aiming to test their mastery of English phonemes, consonant clusters, stress and linking,etc. The results of this study show that the subjects have errors both in segmental andsupra-segmental, such as substitution of consonants and vowels, adding and missingphonemes, wrong phrasing, linking and stress errors. In terms of the pronunciation errors, thestudy finds that students are good at pronouncing some consonants such as/d/,/t/,/k/,/z/,/g/,/ts/,/dz/and some vowels like/a:/,//,/i:/etc. For these sounds have nearly the same placeof articulation with certain sounds in Mandarin. However, as for these sounds like//,//,/au/,/i/,/u/,/ε/,/u/,/l/,/θ/,/e/and//, the result is not satisfactory, for these sounds donot exist in Mandarin. Besides，the study also finds out the subjects’stress errors and linkingerrors. In order to find the causes leading to these problems, the author designed thequestionnaire. The feedback of the questionnaire from the subjects’ reveals the causesresulting in the problems, such as the subjects’ dialect influence, personal interest, livingenvironment and their secondary teachers’ level of English pronunciation, which are all related to the subjects’competence in English pronunciation.At the end of the study, some constructive and practical strategies are shown to improveEnglish pronunciation learning and teaching.