The study is undertaken to find out the influence of native language transfer on English phonetics in view of Wu dialect. Generally speaking, most existing researches about voice contrast are qualitative studies limited by objective conditions and lack of field investigation and comprehensive analysis. Nonetheless, this study integrated with both qualitative and quantitative methods aims to provide a relatively intact view, including both positive and negative effects. Thus, several suggestions are presented for both teachers and students to improve local English phonetics learning. Meanwhile, it is inappropriate to prejudice against learning Wu dialect blindly.
This paper is structurally pided into 5 chapters. The introduction chapter shows the general description and the overall structure of the thesis. The second chapter, literature review, demonstrates the conceptual understanding of related researches about native language transfer on English phonetics. Chapter three goes on the explicit depiction of the way proposed study is conducted among local high school students. Chapter four focuses on the results of the phonetic test, questionnaire and brief analysis of interview visually showed in tables and charts, including some discussions. This thesis ends with conclusions consisting of major findings, implications, and recommendations.
2. Literature Review源:自'优尔.·论,文;网·www.youerw.com/
2.1 Principal Theory
2.1.1 Language Transfer Theory
In the 1920 s, western linguists adopt the method of comparative analysis, comparing two or more languages, with reference to structures and functions of different languages. In the cross-cultural linguistics, linguists put forward the concept of language transfer in the United States. In his influential book Linguistics across Cultures, Lado (1957) claimed: Inpiduals tend to transfer the forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language. That is to say, in the process of foreign language learning, language as a source of mother tongue will influence the value of the foreign language as the target language. This phenomenon is called "language transfer", and when it produced positive influence, it is called positive transfer; on the contrary, the negative impact is treated as negative transfer.
2.1.2 Wu Chinese
Wu Dialect is said Wu Chinese and also known as Jiangsu or Zhejiang words. The practical user of Wu Chinese has more than one hundred million, accounting for 8.5% of the Han Chinese population. In China, it ranks second. However, in the world, it is the tenth. Regional culture developed nearly one thousand years, such as Kunqu opera, and "yuchuanyuan" (all Wu Chinese as the carrier, so its voice is much more to retain the features of ancient Chinese).
The main phonetic characteristics of Wu Chinese as follows:
1. More intact ancient media, turbidity affricate and turbidity fricative consonant
2. There is no tip of the tongue, zh ch, sh, r initials.
3. In the finals, unit rhyme mother of Wu Chinese is rich and the recover is rare.
4. Before and after the mandarin nasal terminal in Wu Chinese are together to send back not after nasal terminal or simply send into nasal vowels
5. It is common for Rusheng final to exist among Wu Chinese.
6. Generally, there are seven or eight tones in Wu Chinese, and usually they can be pided into Rise-fall、Rise、Fall-rise、Fall& Level tone.
2.2 Domestic and Overseas Research文献综述
In view of the fact that English has become an international language, many European countries have published the English phonetics learning manual according to the phonetic features of the official language or regional dialects. Published in Germany, for example, the handbook of English phonetic learning, has pointed out that the [r] in the German tongue is uvular, but in English it is retroflex. Both two in homologous form is consonant, while they are with great difference in acoustic characteristics. Virtually, many German pronounce is far away from success. And Beverley Collins(2008) has directed and written the handbook of English phonetics teaching in Holland (Sounding Better: A Practical Guide to English Pronunciation for Speakers of Dutch, 2008), carrying on the thorough comparison between the English phonetic system and the Dutch voice system (including the Netherlands low German) to point out the common errors for Dutch. 吴方言母语迁移对英语语音习得的影响(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_67177.html