The Influence Of Field-dependence And Field-independence On The Acquisition Of English Pure Vowels

Field cognitive style,as an important branch of cognitive styles,is a key factor affecting second language acquisition(SLA).There have been many studies on the effects of field cognitive style on reading,vocabulary and writing,but the research on the influence of field cognitive style on English phonetics is still blank.Phonetics is one of the basic elements of mastering a language.As the material shell of a language,it plays an important role in language acquisition.Therefore,this study combines quantitative and qualitative research methods,and utilizes English pure vowels as its research contents to study the impact of field cognitive style on English monophthong acquisition.In order to better clarify the relationship between the two,this research designed a word-list covering all English pure vowels as the research material,and selected 32 senior high school students to participate in the perceptual and productive experiments.Subsequently,through descriptive statistics of the test results,Independent Samples T-Test,and Pearson Correlation Analysis,it was found that the field-dependent and field-independent students showed significant differences in the perception and production of English pure vowels,which is specifically expressed by the following two points.First,there is a significant positive correlation between field-dependence and the production of English pure vowels.Second,there is a significant positive correlation between field-independence and English monophthong perception.Therefore,field cognitive style will influence the acquisition of English pure vowels.The above research findings are of paramount significance for English phonetic teaching.Based on the above conclusions,this study proposes some suggestions for teachers and students according to the different characteristics of students with field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles in cognitive activities,learning behaviors,and interpersonal communication.First,from the perspective of teachers,teachers should provide field-dependent learners with a cooperative learning environment that allows them to take advantage of the natural language environment.Whereas,as for field-independent people,teachers can help them acquire the pronunciation by demonstrating pronunciation or clarifying pronunciation rules.Secondly,from the students’ perspective,field-dependent students should actively seek opportunities for communication and improve pronunciation through continuous speech input and output;while field-independent students can use the speech acoustic analysis software Praat to convert their pronunciation into visualized information so as to find out their pronunciation errors and correct them in time.