An Acoustic Study On English Vowels Produced By Qingyang Learners And The Effects Of Multimodal Teaching On Vowels Acquisition

English phonetic system consists of segmental and suprasegmental phonemes.At the segment level,the pronunciation mechanism of vowels determines the sound quality of vowels and the difference between them mainly depends on the position of the tongue in the mouth.The position of the tongue is difficult to perceive because of the lack of accurate parameters.Besides,in language teaching,vowel errors are not only universal,but also difficult to articulate because learners and teachers lack in-depth understanding of the essence and causes of errors.Qingyang is located in the east of Gansu province and Qingyang dialect belongs to the northern dialect branch of the seven major dialect regions.The specific phonetic system and pronunciation rules of Qingyang dialect would make local English learners transfer the pronunciation habits of dialects into English,which will cause the interference of dialect on the comprehensibility of second language.At the same time,the studies on Qingyang English learners’ vowel production are all based on traditional phonetic experiments,and few studies involve the acoustic characteristics of Qingyang English learners’ vowel production.With the support of Speech Learning Model and the method of experimental phonetics,this study investigated the acoustic characteristics of 11 monophthongs and 7 diphthongs produced by Qingyang English learners as well as the 5 target similar vowels between Qingyang dialect and English phonetic system to explores the possible influence of Qingyang dialect on English vowel pronunciation.Beyond that,multimodal phonetic teaching is implemented aiming at the errors and causes of Qingyang learners vowel production.First of all,32 Qingyang English learners(16 males and 16 females)who used Qingyang dialect for daily communication in two parallel classes of Grade 2 in a high school located in Qingyang were selected.Then,the first formant and the second formant of English vowels and Qingyang dialect vowels produced by Qingyang English learners were collected.The similarities and differences between Qingyang English learners and native speakers’ English vowel production were also obtained.Secondly,the paired sample T-test was used to analyze the acoustic data produced by Qingyang English learners on five similar vowels in order to find out whether the learners will directly substitute English vowel with dialect vowel.Finally,one of the two parallel classes was named as the experimental class to implement multimodal phonetic teaching,and the other class as the control class to implement traditional phonetic teaching,so as to explore the effect of the two teaching methods on high school students’ vowel acquisition.The results are as follows:1.Male and female subjects have three characteristics in common in the production of monophthongs.1)Qingyang English learners have no significant differences with native speakers in tongue position and height when they uttered vowel /(?)/ and /(?)/.2)Qingyang English learners can’t distinguish /i:/-/i/ and /u/-/u:/.3)Qingyang English learners have lower and more forward tongue position in vowel /(?):/ and /(?)/.In other monophthongs,male and female show different deviation in tongue position and height.As for diphthongs,male and female show the same performance in five aspects.1)Qingyang English learners’ pronunciation of vowel/(?)(?)/ is closer to native speakers;2)students confuse /ei/ and /ai/.3)/(?)(?)/ is produced in monophthongization.4)/(?)(?)/ stated by QYELs appears lower and more forward in both components.5)/a(?)/ is high and forward in the start and low and forward in the final component.In other diphthongs,the performance of male and female is different.2.There is a direct substitution phenomenon in similar vowels /i & i:/-/i/,/(?)/-/(?)/,/u/-/u/,/(?)/-/(?):/,/ei/-/ei/,/au/-/ou/ after comparing acoustic data of English vowels and Qingyang dialect vowels produced by Qingyang English learners,for instance,(English /i:/-Dialect /i/: Male F1t=2.1,p=.051>.05,F2 t=-.6,p=,510>.05;Female F1 t=0.3,p=.051>.05,F2 t=-.6,p=.510>.05.English /i/-Dialect /i/: Male F1 t=1.9,p=.075>.05,F2 t=-0.4,p=.665>.05;Female F1t=-4.1,p=.763>.05,F2 t=-.6,p=.510>.05.English /ei/-dialect /ei/ Male F1 t=2.0,p=.057>.05,F2 t=-1.9,p=.075>.05,F1’ t=-0.5,p=.579>.05,F2’ t=-0.5,p=.614>.05;Female F1t=-0.6,p=.503>.05,F2 t=-1.0,p=.309>.05,F1’ t=-1.1,p=.919>.05,F2’ t=1.0,p=.971>.05).3.There is no significant difference in vowel /e/,/(?):/,/(?)/,/(?):/,/u/,/a:/,/a(?)/,/(?)(?)/ and /e(?)/production between Qingyang English learners in experiment class and native speakers through a three-month comparative phonetic teaching experiment,such as(/e/: Male F1 t=-0.42,p=.670>.05,F2 t=-0.6,p=.398>.05;Female F1 t=0.1,p=.876>.05,F2 t=-1.3,p=.205>.05;/(?):/Male F1 t=1.1,p=.306>.05,F2 t= 1.4,p=.197>.05;Female F1 t=1.4,p=.185>.05,F2 t= 0.3,p=.704>.05./ei/ Male F1 t=0.7,p=.470>.05,F2 t=1.4,p=.198>.05,F1’ t=-0.5,p=.579>.05,F2’ t= 0.5,p=.426>.05;Female F1 t=0.6,p=.508>.05,F2 t=1.2,p=.252>.05,F1’ t=1.7,p=.115>.05,F2’ t= 2.3 p=.053>.05).There was no significant difference in vowel /e/,/(?):/,/a:/,/e(?)/ and /a(?)/ between male and female subjects in the control class and native speakers.such as(/e/: Male F1 t=0.9,p=.378>.05,F2 t= 2.3,p=.052>.05;Female F1 t=0.8,p=.422>.05,F2 t=-0.6,p=.554>.05./(?):/ Male F1 t=-0.3,p=.741>.05,F2 t= 1.5,p=.167>.05;Female F1 t=0.9,p=.379>.05,F2 t= 1.5,p=.165>.05./ei/ Male F1 t=07,p=.476>.05,F2t=1.2,p=.263>.05,F1’ t=1.6,p=.142>.05,F2’ t= 1.5 p=.154>.05.Female F1 t=0.6,p=.535>.05,F2 t=0.6,p=.562>.05,F1’ t=1.2,p=.252>.05,F2’ t=1.7,p=.129>.05).Therefore,the improvement of vowel pronunciation in the experimental class is greater than that in the control class.The results show that: First,there are systematic differences in English vowel production between Qingyang English learners and native speakers and there are relatively obvious gender differences in vowel production.Qingyang dialect phonetic system has obvious negative transfer on Qingyang English learners’ vowel production.Second,it can be summed up by the substitution phenomenon that the smaller the difference between the two languages phonetic system,the more difficult it is to learn and distinguish.At last,the results of teaching experiments show that multimodal phonetic teaching has feasibility and effectiveness,which have a positive impact on the accuracy of high school students’ English vowel pronunciation.Therefore,in view of the systematic differences in vowel production between Qingyang English learners and native speakers,teachers should make full use of multimodal discourse resources,create an ideal learning environment and atmosphere,and stimulate students’ English pronunciation learning motivation.Teachers can use corpus analogy,take the results of empirical research as the guidance to carry out targeted teaching and special training and testing.They can not only use the visualization technology platform of sound analysis to try,make and correct errors repeatedly but also give timely feedback.