Mother Tongue Transfer On L2 English Monophthongs Acquisition:A Comparative Study Between Mandarin L1 And Diglossia L1 Speakers In Xi’an

Phonetics is the soul of language,which is also the key foundation of mastering language.Gimson(1970),a British linguist,pointed out that for the second language learners,a good mastery of a language requires 50% to 90% of the grammar and 1% of the vocabulary,contrastively,it requires comprehensive grasp of the phonology,which plays a more decisive role.Correct pronunciation and sound recognition are basic to carry out all kinds of social activities.Every language concludes a particular phonetic system,and pronunciation rules under the analysis of linguists.Commonly,learners will transfer the pronunciation of mother language into second language.Mandarin Chinese and English belong to different language families,which are Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European languages.Chinese can also be divided into the standard Chinese,and local dialects,which are complex and unique.Previous studies mainly focused on the transfer from Mandarin Chinese,other than Chinese dialects,to English,but considering the different features of Mandarin Chinese and Chinese dialects,there must be fairly large differences on the language transfer perspective respectively.Therefore,more focus,in not equal,should be given to the impacts of transfer from Chinese dialects.Xi’an dialect is sub-branch of Northern Mandarin dialect,which is widely used by people in Xi’an district.From the linguistic perspective,there are great similarities as well as differences between Xi’an dialect and English.This study,with the acoustic method applied,aims to discuss the language transfer in English monophthongs by L1-based Mandarin Chinese and L1-based diglossia(Mandarin Chinese and Xi’an dialect)speakers in Xi’an district to figure out their characteristics of English pronunciation.The subjects are 20 freshmen students,18 from Xi’an Aeronautics University and 2 from Northwest University,who are divided into two groups,L1-based Mandarin Chinese and L1-based diglossia group.The study makes a comparison of English monophthongs between these two groups in contrast with American speakers,which aims to explore the characteristics of the pronunciation of two group speakers in Xi’an district.The study records 11 English monophthongs using Adobe Audition,and Praat to textgrid and extract the formants of each vowel produced by all the qualified subjects in Xi’an district.All data collected will be processed and analyzed in line with the research question.It aims to present differences and similarities between speakers of L1-based Mandarin Chinese and diglossia in contrast with American speakers and positive and negative transfer from Xi’an dialect.The results of data analysis show as follows from perspectives of front vowels,central vowels and back vowels.For the acquisition of front vowels,/?/ by L1-based diglossia groups is more accurate,which is the positive language transfer from Xi’an dialect.The phoneme /e/ produced by two groups,the tongue position are lower and more forward in contrast with American speakers.For the phonemes /i/ and /i:/,the tongue position tends to be higher and more backward by diglossia group and Mandarin group in contrast with American speakers.For the acquisition of central vowels,compared to the American speakers,Mandarin and diglossia group have the similar tongue position,which is lower and more forward.For the acquisition of back vowels,/a:/ by Mandarin and diglossia group have the similar tongue position with American speakers.It seems more difficult for the diglossia speakers to pronounce /?:/ and /?/,and easier for Mandarin group speakers to pronounce /u:/ and /u/.