2005 4

28 2

CELEA JournalBim onthly

Apr2005
Vol
28 No
2

PRONUNCIATION DIFFICULTIES ANALYSIS A CASE STUDY

USING NATIVE LANGUAGE LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND
TO UNDERSTAND A CHINESE ENGLISH LEARNER S
PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS

Gao Lili
Wuhan University

Abstract
The present research a case study analyzes the

IIntroduction

pronunciation proble ms encountered by a Chinese

learner of English on the assu m ption that these
pronunciation errors were syste matic and not
rando mly made and that these errors reflect
interference fro m the different sound syste ms
different rules of co m bining sounds into w ords and
different prosodic patterns of the learner s native
language Data were collected over a prolonged
period of time twelve weeks w hen the present
researcher acted as the subject s pronunciation tutor
for her International Teaching Assistant Oral Fluency
in the Intensive English Program of West Virginia
University Follo wing the Contrastive Analysis
Hypothesis potential pronunciation difficulties for
the subject were listed by co m paring the English
sound syste m to that of ChineseSpeech sam ples of
the subject s pronunciation were taken through oral
readings and spontaneous speech both recorded
m onthly By using Error Analysis the subject s
pronunciation difficulties were diagnosed into seven
types
and three categories were used to analyze these
errors on the basis of her native language linguistic
background These analyses help to establish a clear
understanding of so me characteristic pronunciation
proble ms the subject has had w hich im pede her
co m prehensibility and oral fluency

76

The role of the native language s NL

influences on the target languageTL has been a
controversial topic So m e scholars have claim ed
that NLinterference is the m ost im portant factor
in second language acquisitionSLA and mistakes
m ade by L2 learners can be attributed to their
NLsIt is significant to co m pare the structure of
one s NL with the structure of the TL w hich is
know n as Contrastive Analysis CA in the L2
pedagogy So m e scholars have argued that NL
interference is not an im portant factor in SLA
and that learners difficulties indicate their stage
of language learning and acquisition Error
m aking is a creative construction process
cited
in Odlin 1989 viii and an evidence of the
learner s strategy Tono 1999 w hen building
their co m petence in the TL As a result another
part of L2 pedagogy has been developed w hich is
know n as Error AnalysisEA
In recent years a
m ore balanced view on the significance of NL
interference has been accepted but interference
fro m NLis still considered to interact witha host
of other factors
Odlin 1989 viii
The present research is to investigate the
characteristic
pronunciation
difficulties
encountered by a Chinese learner of English
according to CA and EA to de m onstrate these
proble ms as evidence of cross
linguistic differences

CELEA Journal 60

in phonetics and phonology thus to m ake her

belief that the learner s NL linguistic background
can be obviously seen as one of the extre m ely
im portant factors accounting for these proble ms
The present researcher tries to explore the
following research questions in the study 1Can
CA help to anticipate a Chinese learner s
pronunciation proble ms 2 What are the
characteristic pronunciation difficulties for a
Chinese learner of English And in w hich ways
does Chinese cause pronunciation difficulties to a
Chinese learner 3 What is the relationship
between these pronunciation proble ms with a
Chinese learner s co m prehensibility and oral
fluency

IIResearch Background
Based on
behaviorist psychology and
structural linguistics Fries 1945 and Lado
1957 put forward the Contrastive Analysis
HypothesisCAH by co m paring similarities and
differences between the learner s NL and the TL
They held that positive transference will occur and
language learning will be facilitated w hen the NL
rule is similar to that of TL but if a TL feature
doesn t exist in the learner s NL
learning will be
im pededFor exa m ple
as predicted by the CAH
final voiced stops don t exist in Chinese thus a
Chinese learner will have great proble ms with
w ords with final voiced stops especially for the
beginners w ho tend to add a vowel sound
pronouncing
bukas
buk

However relying on the cognitive code

theory of language learning Corder 1967
Richards1971 and Selinker 1992 m aintained
that in language learning m ore e m phasis should be
paid onlearningthan onteaching
Errors can
be considered to be evidence of strategies that the
learner uses in order to learnThese errors occur
syste m atically rather than rando mly and they
m ainly fall into tw o m ain types interlingual and
intralingualInterlingual errors relate to the NL
and intralingual errors relate with the structure of
English itselfGass Selinker
1994
Therefore
EA accounts for m any errors that CA does notIt
not only classifies errors syste m atically but also
e m phasizes the learners recognition of language
syste ms The big difference between CA and EA
was well de m onstrated by Ulla1996
In order
to im prove language teaching contrastive analysts
viewed the mselves as applied linguists in the
structural tradition of linguistics w hile error
analysts regarded the mselves m uch m ore as
77

learners of psycho
linguistics
p14
So m e research w ork on the basis of CA and
EA was found related to the NL phonetics and
phonology influence on the TL pronunciation
Moulton 1962 m ade a contrastive study of the
pronunciation errors of students learning Germ an
In analyzing English and Germ an Moulton
classified the range of L2 seg m ental involving
sounds errors into four categories phone mic
errors phonetic errors allophonic errors and
distributional errors Moulton s error taxono m y
based on CA helped Germ an teachers to
understand not only how these pronunciation
errors were m ade but also w hy they were m ade
As Moulton concluded only w hen the w hyof
the mistakes has been discovered willit be possible
to design useful corrective exercises
101
1962

Another im portant study conducted by Suter

native speakers of
1976 exa mined 61 non
English on 20 variables suspected of displaying
significant
relationships
to
pronunciation
accuracy The variables that proved to be m ost
strongly related to pronunciation accuracy were
native languages According to his findings the
phonological structures of the Arabic and Persian
languages facilitated the pronunciation of English
to a m uch greater extent than did the phonological
structures of Japanese and Thai and certainly
one s native languages was clearly a very
im portant and very significant predictor of
pronunciation
accuracy p
245
Ada ms
concluded in 1979 that one of the several factors
had caused the foreign speakers
faulty
organization and timing in rhyth m unit could be
the syllable
tim ed nature of their first language
He stated
the speaker s first language habits
can be re m arkably tenacious and in certain
syste ms particularly the early acquired prosodic
syste ms L1 interference can be a m ajor obstacle
to proficiency
p4 Rintell1984 found that
Chinese learners experienced greater difficulty in
distinguishing the e m otional states of speakers of
English than Spanish and Arabic learners He
attributed this to his brief thatChinese is m ore
different fro m the Am erican culture than Spanish
and Arabic with the respect to the social and
linguistic conventions governing the expressions of
e m otion
p262
At the sa m e tim e a nu m ber of well
know n
reference books and textbooks typically dealing
with pronunciation proble ms by speakers of
specific native languages have been published
Killan Watson 1983 gave a co m parison

Pronunciation Difficulties Analysis A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic Background to

Gao Lili

between English and thirteen other languages in

effective oral co m m unication in English to
phonology and gra m m ar and pronunciations
facilitate the m to pass the ITA Speaking Test and
errors were analyzed for ESL teachers to prepare the m for giving oral presentations
Ken w orthy1987used one w hole part of his book
before an audience and in responding to questions
to describe the specific pronunciation proble ms
both during and after the presentation on an
experienced by learners fro m nine different
acade mic context M Wilhelm personal
language groups In one im portant publication co m m unication August 21 2002
The required
textbook was L Grant s 1998 Well Said
Avery Ehrlich 1992 discussed co m m on
proble ms that ESL learners and teachers w ould
Advanced English Pronunciation As an ESL 350
the present researcher at the
encounter followed by valuable tips on correction classroo m observer
sa m e tim e acted as Zhang Ya s twelve
week
They also su m m arized the specific proble ms of
fourteen languages groupsSwan Smith 2001 pronunciation tutorThe tutor and the tutee w ould
m eet twice a week each one hour in 501 Eiesland
new edition gave a practical reference guide to
Hall
teachers w ho have to deal with the specific
phonological proble ms of students fro m twenty
2Data Collection and Data Analysis
three different language backgrounds They
Zhang Ya was taped reading the Diagnostic
expected that the co m parison between English and
Passage DP adapted fro m Prastor Robinett s
the relevant features of the students ow n
Accent Inventory1985
sentence
languages w ould help teachers to predict and
Itis a fourteen
designed
to
diagnose
individual
understand the proble ms their students have passage
pronunciation weakness of students fro m different
Nilsen Nilsen 2002 provided phonetic
language backgrounds Only based on a 14
descriptions and lists of predicted proble ms based
sentences passage reading it was not enough to
on first languages in order to help to minimize
reveal Zhang Ya s pronunciation proble msBetter
difficulties to students fro m different language
results could be if the data analysis could be based
backgroundsMeyers Holt2001suggested that
on natural and inform al conversationsTherefore
the students co m pare their native languages to
an interview of Zhang Ya general assessm ent
English to create a realization and self
awareness
of pronunciation Taylor 1993 Lane 1997 about English learning see Appendix Questions
1
4 and her view towards pronunciation
and Orion 1997 included in their textbooks
useful descriptions about typical pronunciation
9 2 was conducted This part of
Questions 5
proble ms of students fro m different language
interview was also taped as the Spontaneous
backgrounds Good online sources about co m m on
Speech Sa m ple SSS w hich can be hardly
pronunciation errors can be obtained online such
carried out effectively and syste m atically with an
as http
xix
w w w btinternetco m tedpower entire classPrastor Robinett 1985
The
phonohtml and http
w w w speechco m co m DP and the SSS were recorded m onthly because
each repeated recording was not the sa m e as the
directoryhtm
previous one The last tw o SSSs were tenminute
IIIStudy Design
daily
life based conversations between the tutor
and the tutee rather than a controlled interview
1Introduction of the Subject
The subject of this case Zhang Ya
year
old Chinese graduate
fe m ale 1 was a 26
student of the Biology Departm ent of West
Virginia University W VU
She began to learn
English w hen she was in Grade 5 After she
graduated fro m a university in China in July 2002
she ca m e to the United States in August 2002 for
her M
SIn order to pass her ITA Speaking Test
required by the university for all International
Teaching AssistantsITAsshe enrolled in Oral
Fluency ESL 350 offered by the Intensive
English Progra m IEP W VU The prim ary
objectives of ESL 350 include to acquaint
prospective ITAs with the characteristic of
78

Data was coded in the following procedures

First before the recording w ork a listsee IV
Results
1 was m ade of potential pronunciation
difficulties for Chinese speakers referred to
Killan Watson 1983 Ken w orthy 1987
Avery Ehrlich1992
Swan Smith1987and
Nilsen Nilsen 2002
Second under the
guidance of the list
the researcher listened to the
recording
m any tim es and
noted
dow n
pronunciation errors Zhang Ya m adeOn the basis
of analyzing Zhang Ya s native language
background her pronunciation proble ms were
diagnosed into three categories proble ms with
individual sounds e
gim proper articulation of

CELEA Journal 60

vowels and consonants

substitutions of one vowel found in casualca m pusco m patible
consonant for anotherproble ms with co m bining
language
activityandcasually
sounds into w ords e
g with obtrusive vowel
Exa m ple4In the second sentence of the
insertion o mission of endings and contractions
DP Zhang Ya read Where should he live
as
failure in pronouncing consonant clustersand
Similar difficulties due
proble ms with prosodic patterns e
gim proper Where should he leave
to her failure in the distinction between tense
application of w ord and sentence stress misuse of
vowels
i
icould be found in
and lax vowels
linking and pausing wrong intonation at the end
one of her SSSs
of a sentence

T How are you today

Zh Not very wellIhave been suffering fro m
a slipping problem

1 Errors were m ade due to the fact that so me

of these English sounds do not exist in the Chinese
sound system and due to transference fro m the
Chinese sound system
Exa m ple1In Zhang Ya s DP recordings
she had pronouncedthink aboutassink about
three tim es She substituted a voiceless alveolar
fricative
sfor the voiceless interdental fricative
w hich doesn t exist in ChineseThe extre m e
difficulty in this sound for her is well show n in a
conversation at the end of one of the tutoring
progra ms
Zhang Zh
Sank you for your time and
help

Tutor T
What Sank you or thank you

Zh
Oh I a m sorrytapping her head
Sank you Sank you

Here she even can t hear the distinction

between
sand
Not untilthe very end of the
tutoring progra m did Zhang Ya develop a correct
m anner of articulating the tw o sounds
Exa m ple 2For the w ords including a
voiced labiodental fricative
v in activities
private and advantage Zhang Ya s
pronunciations
sounded
like actiwities
priwateandad wantage Her confusion about
v and w was especially extre m e w hen these

tw o sounds happen to be at the beginning of

w ordsFor instance she said westforvest
wery for very warious for various
wisitforvisit
Exa m ple3Zhang Ya had pronounced the
w ord m anner twice as m n in her DP
recordings When the tutor pointed out the
contrast between and and told her to
exaggerate the dropping of the jaw with she
responded very slowly saying
Well I might
not pronounce this ugly sound well all m y lifeItis
too hard for me to talk in the public with m y
m outh open so wideZhang Septe m ber 2002

Her substitution of for could also be

79

T Offering her crackers on the table

Would you like so me
Zh
putting one cracker into her m outh
Mm m it tests really good
Exa m ple5
T How s you sleeping Is it better
Zh Not really I did so me weading on bed
whiteright after I wake woke up at
three o clock
In the above conversation Zhang Ya s
pronounced reading
right as weading
vowel w for
w hite by substituting the se mi
the retroflex
r
When asked to describe her
fa milySee Interview Question 3 Appendix
she
had m entioned the sm all wed m ud wiverred
m ud riverin front of her house several tim es
2 Errors were m ade due to rules of co m bining
letters into sound and sounds into words different
in English fro m that in Chinese
Exa m ple6
T The wordcasualis unfa miliar to you
How do you pronounce it as k sul
Zh Ispell it
uh m m fro m the form of
the spelling For new words I just
pronounce every letter of the word

follow the spelling

you see like our
Pinyin
Zhang Ya s similar pronunciation error had
also occurred twice w hen she read
sitju ei nas
situ ei n

Whenever she m et with pronunciation

difficulty due to the discrepancy between English
spellings and sounds she just pronounce every
letter of the w ord
follow the spelling In
other w ord she unconsciously borrowed the
Chinese rules of co m bining sounds into w ords into
English

Pronunciation Difficulties Analysis A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic Background to

Gao Lili

Exa m ple7Zhang Ya o mitted the

sin
together in to a strea m of speech by identifying the
the tw o w ordsquestionsand proble ms
thought group
Even
in the third tim e recording
she still missed one of
Exa m ple11The first paragraph of the DP
the m Here both
s endings represent the
has five rising tones but Zhang Ya used eleven in
plural form w hich doesn t occur in the Chinese
her first tim e recordingHer over
use of the rising
gra m m ar As an upper
interm ediate level English
tone m ade her sound very funny as a lawyer was
learnerTOFEL 237 and GRE 2100 Zhang Ya
inquiring a witness When asked w hy she had used
has m astered this particular gra m m atical rule
However fro m the phonological point of view so m any rising tones in this paragraph she
explained
because there are so m any co m m as
both w ords contain final consonant clusters
nz
six and question m arksfive
Since sentence
and m z
Her o mission in final consonant clusters
intonationsin Chinese show little variation Zhang
were found not only in the gra m m atical endings of
Ya s sim ple strategy in changing English intonation
the plural but also in possessive third person
patterns relied on reading the punctuations as we
singular asinHe s

She learnsandHe
do in reading in Chinese
begins

IV Results and Discussions

3 Errors were m ade due to the different

prosodic patterns in English fro m that in Chinese

1 The aim of CA was to anticipate the

characteristic errors by a syste m atic co m parison
Exa m ple8Zhang Ya mispronounced the
between the learner s NL and TL to help the
w ords below in the following wayCapitalizations
learner to have a better understanding of how
were used to indicate w here her stress was
these errors arise and to try to prevent the m
placed HIMself COMpatible ADvantage
before they are m ade But could the learner s
ACtivities INteract ADjust APpropriate
errors really be predicated Were these errors
Eventually TRANsition roo m MATE Her stress
really m atch all the errors that w ould be m ade by
strategy in w ords with m ore than tw o syllables
the learner According to Killan Watson
especially so m e co m pounds and w ords with suffixes
1983 Ken w orthy 1987 Avery Ehrlich
was well elaborated by herself
If the word is new
1992 Swan Smith 1987 Nilsen Nilsen
to me I stress the first syllable especially long
2002 typical English pronunciation difficulties
words
Zhang October 2002
for a Chinese learner could be categorized into
Exa m ple9The first sentence of the DP
seven types Consonants such as
v
r
contains 46 syllables with 14 stressed w ordsSince
land
b
p
d
t
k
gin w ord
final
n
Zhang Ya concentrated on pronouncing alm ost
position vowels like
i
ei
every w ord of this sentence very clearly she had
consonant clusters both in the initial and final
uttered the sentence with 21 w ords stressed w hich
position especially
in
contractions
and
was show n as underlined When a student fro m
gra m m atical endings w ord stress especially in
another country co mes to study in the United
producing the longer w ords sentence stress
States he has to find out for himself the answers to
especially in producing reduced syllables
linking
m any questions and he has m any problems to
pausing and thought groups and intonation
think about Obviously she gave alm ost each
variation
syllable the sa m e strength and loudness and the
Pronunciation errors w hich had been m ade
unstressed syllables were not properly reduced at
in Zhang Ya s first DP recording yielded a total
all
of 126 errors The following table presents the
3
percentage and distribution of these seven error
Exa m ple10Here s the transcription fro m
the last sentence of Zhang Ya s recording types
Shouldn t
he try to take advantage
Types of Errors
Nu m bers
Percentage
l
5
3 of the m any social3a nd cultura
a
ctivities3 which are
Consonants
26
20
offered on
ca m pu
s
3 or should he spend all
Vowels
28
22
of his time just studying

The
2
0
1
Consonant Initials
transcribed sentence showed that she had gave too
Clusters
Finals
17
13
m any pauses in her utterance
in other w ord she
Word Stress
12
1
had separated w ords rather than linking the m
80

CELEA Journal 60

Types of Errors

Nu m bers

Percentage

Sentence Stress

16

12

Linking and Pausing

17

13

Intonation

0
6

As the table was show n the m ajority of

errors anticipated were errors actually m ade by
Zhang Ya in her DP recordingsIt was with the
help of these seven types of errors anticipated that
both the tutor and tutee gained a very quick
awareness of the subject s pronunciation proble ms
In
one
of
her reflection
journals
of
pronunciation 4 Zhang Ya wrote
This week m y
tutor pointed out m y problems in and
She
said these two sounds are especially difficult for our
Chinese because we don t have them in Chinese
She suggested me to observe m y Chinese friends
m ouths when they say Thank you
I was so
surprised to find that m ost of us didn t put the tip
of the tongue between the teethIpracticed to say
Thank you I don t like this thing nor that
thing but the other thing
each day Now I
really remem ber the rules of how to pronounce these
two sounds deeply I also observe m y American
classm ates m ouths when they talk with me I
found that one big difference between their m aking
sound and mine is they use their tongue tips so
m uchIseemed to use the flat part of the tongue
m ore Can Isay that English is a language of the
tip of the tongue
Zhang Dece m ber 2002
At the sa m e tim e
for the tutor m ore specific
pronunciation proble m
solving activities have been
used w hich will not be reported in this paper
There is no doubt that a teacher w ho has m ade a
co m parison of the foreign language with the
learner s NL will know better w hat the real
learning proble ms are and can better provide for
teaching the m Lado 1957
Fries 1949
pointed out that The proble ms of the Chinese
students are very different fro m those of the
Spanish speakers
p97and thusitis significant
to design different m aterials for different groups
of learners Different NL backgrounds will have
different errors in learning the sa m e TL
However so m e of the errors anticipated
couldn t be found in Zhang Ya s pronunciation
error categoriesFor exa m ple it was anticipated
that for Chinese speakers Initial consonant
clusters cause proble ms The co m m on error is to
insert a slight vowel sound between the
consonants pronouncing spoon for instance as
sipoonSmith Swan 1987
227
Avery
81

Ehrlich 1992 117 also believed that Chinese

has no consonant clusters in initial or final
positionChinese speakers m ust therefore
learn
to produce a large variety of new syllable types
that contain consonant clusters
It is true that
Chinese has no initial or final consonant clusters
and the basic syllables in Chinese contain an initial
Sheng m u and a final Run m u The final
usually is a vowel sound or a m ain vowel head
vowel with a n or ng ending Thus it sounds
quite reasonable to anticipate that a native speaker
of Chinese without consonant clusters m ay have
so m e proble ms in pronouncing target ite ms that
contain such sequenceLin 2001
Nevertheless
in the present case initial consonant cluster
proble ms have never happened neither Zhang Ya
inserted a vowel nor o mitted one of the
consonants
2 According to this case study a Chinese
learner of English could suffer the characteristic
pronunciation difficulties in three ways
Firstly
if so m e English sounds
like

v do not occur in the Chinese sound

inventory they can be extre m ely difficult for a
Chinese learner especially for an adult learner
because he or she has never exercised his or her
m outh in the peculiar way required in producing
English sound before he or she began to learn
English Avery Ehrlich 1992
Or if so m e
sounds do occur in the Chinese sound inventory
but the different m anners of articulation m ay
greatly affect a Chinese learner w hen he or she
produces its English counterparts
Exa m ple1 tells Zhang Ya s proble m in
and
In Chinese we don t include any sound
involving in placing the tip of the tongue between
the teeth before allowing air to m ove out of the
m outh as the English sound or are
articulated Zhang Ya s im proper use of the
m usculature in the m outh Avery Ehrlich
1992
xv with
and are to such an extent
that these tw o sounds see m ed fossilizedOver and
over again she used the substitution of
sin
so m ething thank you and zin that
the
Zhang Ya error show n in Exa m ple2 isn t
rando mly m ade either The voiced labiodental
fricative
v doesn t occur in m ost Chinese
dialectsAs a result
a Chinese learner could treat
vowel w w hich is a highly used
vas the se mi
initialin Chinese w ords like Wo and Wu

Pronunciation Difficulties Analysis A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic Background to

Gao Lili

Exa m ple 3 reveals not only phonological

spelt out fro m producing l to ao However
interference fro m one s native language to the TL English sound
spelling syste m is m uch m ore
but also cultural interference fro m the NL to the
co m plicated and its spelling patterns often do not
TL On one hand the front back vowel a
represent sounds Therefore a Chinese learner s
special sound to English is lacking in Chinese borrowing strategy could cause pronunciation
thus difficulties will arise w hen a Chinese learner
errors in English
encounters it in English On the other hand a
Exa m ple7shows Zhang Ya s pronunciation
Chinese learner might find it difficult to change
proble m with final consonant clusters Like
the m anner of articulation of this sound even if he
Japanese m ost Chinese w ords have a vowel
or he she has realized the proble m with
With
ending only with the exception of tw o
the traditional Chinese culture background of
consonantal endings n and ng as in Lan and
Any lady w ho has a gracious m anner m ust smile
Chang As a result final consonant clusters in
without showing her teeth
old Chinese saying
gra m m atical endings as in the plural possessive
itis really not easy for Zhang Ya to exaggerate the
and the third person singular can be extre m ely
dropping of her jaw in the public w hen
troubleso m e for a Chinese learner w hose general
pronouncing w ords likebad
sadand m an
strategy in dealing with final consonant clusters
as a native speaker doesInstead
she pronounced
could be o mitting one or tw o of the consonants
all these w ords in such a m odest Chinese way
Another interesting exa m ple of Zhang Ya s
that they sounded likebed
saidandmen

o mitting final consonant clusters due to the

Exa m ple4 shows Zhag Ya s failure in the
interference fro m her NL can be well show n w hen
distinction between tense vowels and lax vowels she said McDonaldas m k dounao
because in
Many Chinese vowels are quite identical with their
Chinese we say Mai
Dang
Lao
English counterparts in terms of m anner and
Thirdly pronunciation errors can result fro m
position of articulation but there are m ore vowel
the transfer fro m the different prosodic patternsin
contrasts in English than in Chinese and so m e of
Chinese fro m thatin EnglishSuch supraseg m ental
the contrasts such as
i
i
eiand
and
errors as in w ords stress linking pausing and
u
and uw hich don t exist in Chinese at all
intonation are well elaborated in the present case
are quite confusing to a Chinese learner
Zhang Ya s w ord stress errors show n in Exa m ple
As show n in Exa m ple 5 Zhang Ya s 8 reflected the transfer fro m her NL As a tone
difficulty in m aking the distinction between
r language the tones of Chinese form an integral
and w doesn t result fro m that fact that the
part of a w ord or a syllable Stressed or tonal
retroflex
risn t included in the Chinese sound
syllables always have one of the four tones the
inventory In Chinese we have the retroflex
first tone high levelthe second tone high
initial r as in the w ord Ri but Chinese r is
risingthe third tone low dipping and the
pronounced differently fro m English
rwith the
fourth tone high falling
What s m ore m any
tip of the tongue curled m uch further back than
Chinese w ords are m onosyllables e
g Bao is a
English
r
full w ord and the stress falls on that syllable w hile
Since Zhang Ya co m es fro m the
southern part of China w here m ost people have
English w ords usually have m ore than tw o syllables
extre m e difficulties in tongue
curled sounds like
and stress can fall on alm ost any syllable of a
zh ch sh r
she sim ply substituted w for
r
w ordTherefore a Chinese learner could be at a
by placing her tongue flatly in her m outh
lose w here to put the appropriate stress on a long
w ord with m ore than tw o syllables
Secondly different rules of co m bining letters
into sounds and sounds into w ords in English fro m
Zhang Ya s pronunciation proble m with
that in Chinese can be one of the sources of a
sentence level stress show n in Exa m ple9 doesn t
Chinese learner s pronunciation proble ms As
lie in stressed w ords but in unstressed w ords and
show n in Exa m ple6the m ore straightforward
reduced syllables When asked to listen to the
sound
spelling syste m
of Chinese can be
standard DP recording by a native speaker she
was puzzled w hy a nu m ber of w ords in the
te m porarily borrowed by a Chinese learner to
deal with unfa miliar w ords in English Chinese
sentence were spoken so quickly and unclearly
Pinyin spelling pronunciation has a one
to
one
and eaten
Chinese learners can be feel easy
correspondence between the sound we produce and
with stressed w ords in a sentence but will have
the spellingFor exa m ple the w ord Lao can be
difficulties with function w ords and unstressed
82

CELEA Journal 60

syllablesIn Chinese each syllable is equally strong

and Chinese doesn t have a reduced equivalent to
English schwaAccordingly a Chinese learner tends
to give each English syllable alm ost the same
strength
length
loudness and pitch

seriously im paired her oral fluency Without lack

of vowel reduction or proper use of weak forms
necessary for English rhyth m
her reading sounded
abrupt angry ada m ant or im patient Grant
1993 98
Her little conception of w here to
divide the utterance into thought groupsExa m ple
Exam ple 10 illustrates Zhang
Ya s
10m ade her utterance sound very choppy and
pronunciation problems both in linking and pausing her too frequent pausing m ade her difficult to be
With a m onosyllabic characteristic Chinese doesn t
understood
even though she had pronounced each
have linking at allA Chinese learner
then
tendsto
w ord clearly A w o m an without her m an is
pronounce words separately rather than joining them
helplessconveys a different m eaning fro m that of
sm oothly into a stream of speech or to pause
A w o m anwithout herm an is helpless
Grant
rando mly in a sentence wherever he or she wantsIn
1993 121
Her failure in using a rising tone in
Chinese punctuation marks such as co m mas the tag question Exa m ple 11accordingly
colons periods and question marks are used to
had conveyed an incorrect inform ation her
indicate where pauses are made between phrases or
listener the speaker was not sure w hether these
sentences Without any help of punctuations in a
changes occurred suddenly or not McNernery
longer sentence a Chinese learner will feel extreme
Mendelsohn1992 declared that supraseg m entals
difficulty in dividing the speech into thought groups are the im portant and central features to
which are usefulsym bolsin English for the listener to
co m m unication w hich control the structure of
understand the speech effectively
inform ation Ada ms 1976 concluded that any
inadequate control of rhyth m
the key m astery of
Fro m Exa m ple11we can see Zhang Ya s
the spoken language w ould cause the ultim ate
intonation shifts were decided by reading the
barrier to fluency and co m prehensibility
p3
punctuation at the end of a sentenceBasically
in
Chinese pitch changes are used to distinguish
V Conclusion
m eanings of different w ords and sentence
So m e researches on CA and ER have been
intonation shows little variationOn the contrary
questioned in the L2 theory and pedagogy
English an intonational language uses various
Indeed Not all the pronunciation proble ms listed
intonation patterns to express different m eanings
will certainly m atch all the errors that will be
In this case it is very difficult for a Chinese
m ade by the learner Neither can a teacher
learner to m aster the characteristic of English
identify all the errors the learner m akes
intonation patterns to convey different m eanings
However CA can offer instructive inform ation
or attitudes of the speaker
for EA and EA can prove CA Bowen Madsen
Under the guidance of CA the
3As Exa m ple12 and6 have show n Hilferty 1985
present research has delineated Zhang Ya s
Zhang Ya s pronunciation proble ms in individual
characteristic pronunciation proble ms by analyzing
consonants either im proper articulation or
her NL linguistic background w hich elucidates
substitutions of one consonant for another didn t
how
one s
NL influences one s
English
actually jeopardize her intelligibility The tutor
pronunciation The aim of this case study is to
can interpret w hat she was talking about according
help pronunciation teachers to understand how and
to the context But her vowel proble ms show n
w hy so m e characteristic pronunciation difficulties
fro m Exa m ple 3 to 5 have caused m ore
to help to im prove Chinese English learners
confusion yet not fatal in co m prehensibility arise
ow n awareness and understanding of their NL
since the tutor can infer w hat she m eant fro m the
backgroundThe role of pronunciation w hich has
context Therefore a
Chinese learner s
been long ignored in the develop m ent of speaking
pronunciation proble ms in seg m entals do not
skills inside the classroo m thus
is encouraged to
crucially affect his or her co m prehensibility
be taken into considerationNevertheless fro m a
However Zhang
Ya s
pronunciation
case study with its limitation on the nu m ber of
proble ms in supraseg m entals seriously im peded her
participants investigated
itis not easy to generalize
co m m unication of m eaning in spoken EnglishHer
whether these pronunciation problems are really
incorrectly w ord and sentence stressing Exa m ple
representative of a wide range of Chinese learners of
EnglishTherefore
further cross
sectionalstudies are
8 and her ignoring the significance of weak
forms and unstressed syllables Exa m ple 9 needed to highlight these pronunciation problems
83

Pronunciation Difficulties Analysis A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic Background to

Gao Lili

am ong Chinese learners of English

Analysis without practice is useless and
im possible to lead to the m astery of a language
Jesperson suggested
Practice w hat is right again
and again cited fro m Francis 1946 viii

Consequently further researches are also

encouraged to explore co m m unicative strategies in
pronunciation teaching with a focus on so m e of the
proble m atic sounds and features associated with
the Chinese language background w hen helping to
develop a Chinese learner s co m prehensibility and
oral fluency in English

Notes
1The subject s name is fictitious to protect
anony mity
2Pronunciation questions 5 to 9 are adapted fro m
Bo wen Mark s pronunciation questionnaire
1992
3The recording is transcribed by using conventions
offered by Sorace Grass and Selinker 1994
201
micropauses2 seconds
3
pauses of a greater length
sound
stretches

sound stretches of3 seconds

or greater

a falling intonation

a
rising intonation w ords or parts of w ords
underlined louder volu me and major stress in
the sentence
4It is a pronunciation self
im proving method
suggested to the tutee by Helen Huntley
the IET
director of WVU and a TESOL expert During
the tutoring program
the subject was encouraged
to write regular reflection journals about her
progress on pronunciation each weekThe journal
includes her weekly specific pronunciation
proble m the short description of a proble m
solving strategy suggested by the tutor and her
reflection about that strategy
5The even tone is used in an une m otional
state ment w hich contains a co m ma
a colon
or a
period The quickly and directly rising tone is
used in an inquiring sentence with a question
markThe falling tone is used in a doubtful and
hesitating sentence or an e m phasized state ment
usually ending in an exclamation mark

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C 1945 Teaching and Learning English as a
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