A Study Of Influence Of Lu’an Dialect On The Acquisition Of English Two-consonant Clusters With Post-initial /r/

Initial consonant clusters are one of the most difficult aspects in the acquisition of Chinese EFL learners. Lu’an dialect is one kind of dialects in South China and people there have their own way of speaking. On these occasions, students from Lu’an tend to speak Lu’an-style English, and have problems in their English pronunciation. They tend to migrate deep-rooted mother tongue habits into their English pronunciation, causing non-standard English pronunciation. Based on the theories of Contrastive Analysis(CA),and Markedness Differential Hypothesis(MDH), also with the help of speech analyzer-Praat and data analyzer-SPSS, this paper analyzes the differences and similarities of the phonological systems between Lu’an dialect and English through empirical and experimental methods. The research objects in this paper are limited to a specific type of consonant clusters, which are two-consonant clusters with post-initial /r/.With a specific study on mispronunciation of consonant clusters by Lu’an dialect EFL learners, the pedagogical implications in English phonological teaching are displayed.There are 14 Lu’an students(8 males, 6 females) taking part in this experiment.Sentences pronounced by participants containing two-element initial consonant clusters ending with /r/ phoneme are recorded through some instruments. One native speaker’s pronunciation is also recorded and compared with those of the participants. The data obtained from the experiment is analyzed and discussed from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, with the help of the detailed explanation of the native speaker on non-perceptions.Through analysis on the results of the experiment, it is concluded that:(1) /θr/ and/?r/ have relatively low percentages of correct acquisition and /tr/ and /dr/, on the contrary,have relatively high percentages of correct acquisition; in each group of initial consonant clusters, especially in the groups of /tr/-/dr/ and /kr/-/gr/, the initial consonant clusters beginning with a voiced consonant are acquired worse than those with a voiceless one;when they pronounce the consonant clusters, the formants, intensity, pitch of each cluster are not accordant with those of the standard pronunciation; the girl pitches of consonant clusters are much higher than those of the boys; there is no obvious difference between each member of the group according to the data analysis by chi-square test. When aconsonant exists only in English and is empty in Lu’an dialect, learners tend to use their familiar sound to replace it;(2) The reasons for this phenomenon mostly lie in the influence of Lu’an dialect. The fact that there is no /r/ and /f/ phonemes in Lu’an dialect phonology stops Lu’an EFL learners from acquiring initial consonant clusters accurately.The influence of Mandarin also plays an irreplaceable role in the mispronunciation.Because of the principle of markedness, EFL learners tend to articulate these consonant clusters in the way that they are familiar with.