A Corpus-based Study on Speech Errors in Pronouncing the Fricative // by Chinese Learners of English

Abstract

There were quite a few studies investigating English pronunciation errors of Chinese learners of English. However, studies focusing on one typical sound and its detailed features are still inadequate. Besides, limited studies used speech corpora to investigate this topic due to a lack of available speech corpora. To fill such a research gap, this study uses the corpus L2-ARCTIC to investigate the speech errors of voiceless dental fricative // among four Chinese learners of English, and analyzes the possible reasons for the speech errors. Data are collected by analyzing the speech recordings from the corpus L2-ARCTIC, and the pronunciation errors of speakers are classified into different types. Results show that, in this corpus, the types of speech errors of the fricative // are the substitution and deletion. The sounds that have very close manners and places of articulation are easier to become the error sounds to replace the // sound.