英语论文网

[Abstract] Accurate pronunciation and intonation is not only the element to evaluate the effectiveness of oral communication but also the basic quality of a language learner. However, there are many pronunciation difficulties that have been encountered by Chinese students, resulting from the interference of their mother tongue—Mandarin. As Chinese and English belong to two different language families, they bear lots of differences in sound system as well as the similarities they share. So it is inevitable that students’ pronunciation is easily influenced by their mother tongue, leading to some common pronunciation errors. This paper explores the reasons for those common errors on the basis of negative language transfer by comparing the differences between Chinese and English sound system. Besides, it provides the teachers and the EFL learners some suggestions to eliminate the negative transfer to improve the students’ pronunciation 【摘要】语音过关是英语学习的关键，同时也是难点。正确标准的英语发音、自然得体的语音语调不仅是衡量能否进行有效口语交际的重要尺度，也是作为语言的学习者所必须具备的素质之一。但是，中国学生在英语发音过程中往往会遇到困难。这是由于汉语的普通话和英语属于两种不同的语系，在语音系统上存在很大差别，同时，由于在第二语言学习的过程中普遍存在着的语言迁移现象，学生在发音上容易受他们的母语，即普通话的语音系统的影响，对英语中发音上的一些差别不能辨别，或者在发音过程中倾向于用汉语中一些相似的音去代替，从而形成发音错误和语音偏差。本文根据语言迁移理论，着重探讨了普通话的语音系统对英语发音的负迁移，通过普通话语音系统和英语语音系统在元音、辅音及语调三个方面的对比，分析了中国学生常见的英语发音错误，并针对这些问题提出了一些解决方法。 1.Introduction Language is the most important tool for mankind to carry on communication, while speech is its corporeal outer covering, which relies on the social function of language. Just as the famous American linguist L. Bloomfield pointed out that:“The writing is not a language, but is merely the method to record the language by recognizable symbols. No matter what kinds of words we use to record it, this language will maintain its original form without any change.” In other words, one language may use several kinds of written words for records, but with only a few acceptable pronunciations. It is clear that phonetics is the most basic element of a language as well as the grammar and the vocabulary that are closely related to it .To command a language and to utilize it freely, one should learn its phonetics item first. Learning English is no exception. [1]There are a lot of factors that may influence foreign language l earning. It is generally believed that “during the process of language study，it’s impossible for learner to achieve the target language directly without any interferences or errors.”[2]For an individual learner, one must try to avoid to be influenced by his mother tongue, i.e., the first language, as learner of any language usually produces mistakes, resulting from the influence of their mother tongue, such as difficulty in pronouncing certain sounds. And one of the most difficult tasks associated with learning a foreign language is mastering the phonetic systems of the new language. This paper investigates reasons for those pronunciation mistakes on the basis of language transfer by comparing the differences between Chinese and English sound system.2.The notion of language transfer and its influenceTransfer is a psychological term that is used to describe a situation where one learned event influences the learning of subsequent learning event. That is, a previously learned event can either facilitate (positive transfer) or inhibit (negative transfer) the learning of a second event.Language transfer refers to a situation where the learning of a skill in one language transfers to a second language. Transfer can either have pos