An Empirical Study on Cantonese Upper-intermediate ESL Learners’ Production of English Word-final Plosives

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine the pronunciation problems encountered by Cantonese upper-intermediate ESL learners when they are producing English word-final plosives. The primary goal is to identify the basic error pattern and uncover influencing factors. Empirical data were collected in a controlled speech production experiment. Based on the transcription of speech data, the researcher classified the word-final plosives that are not fully retained into four types, namely devoiced, unreleased, deleted and others. The data indicate that the subjects performed much better in the production of voiceless word-final plosives and they are prone to substituting voiced plosives with voiceless ones. It is also found that the subjects tend to omit the release stage of English word-final plosives. In addition, the word-final plosives were totally deleted or pronounced as other irrelevant phonemes in a few cases. It is suggested that the errors of devoicing and unreleasing can be largely attributed to the interference of Cantonese. In light of the findings, remedial teaching programs can be designed and implemented to facilitate Cantonese ESL learners’ overcoming of these problems.