Nativeness versus intelligibility as goal of English pronunciation teaching in China: Changing attitudes in national syllabi and curriculum standards

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the emphasis on intelligibility as a goal in pronunciation teaching rather than near-native or nativelike competence has been reinforced by the increasing use of English as a lingua franca. The insight of the intelligibility principle has greatly impressed researchers in China’s English education, but has “very limited and weak” impacts on English pronunciation teaching and learning in China. English education in China has been systematically conducted from schools to universities under the direction of national syllabi and curriculum standards issued by the Ministry of Education. Using the documentary research method, this paper, the first try of its kind, takes a historical look at China’s national syllabi and curriculum standards for schools issued after 1949, focusing on the conception of the nature and the role of pronunciation and pronunciation teaching, pronunciation goals, teacher’s role, as well as requirements or suggestions about what to teach and how to teach. By tracing the process of developments in pronunciation teaching notions and principles that were and/or are officially advocated in China, the paper reveals two important facts. First, the English national syllabi and curriculum standards have encompassed both the nativeness principle and the intelligibility principle, though implicitly giving dominance to the former one, which in part accounts for the favor for the nativeness principle in formal English education, especially in schools, in China. Second, with the notion of English as a lingua franca adopted in the syllabi and curriculum standards, the intelligibility principle has been gaining more and more weight. Consequently, by elaborating that the two principles are by nature not incompatible, it is proposed that the current curriculum standards go further to take balanced attitudes towards the two principles so as to lead Chinese English teachers and students to set more realistic and instrumental-pragmatic pronunciation goals in line with varying English learning purposes. The findings and the proposal could be adopted by teachers and learners so as to change the school reality and may shed light on future relevant revisions of the current national English curriculum standards, teaching material development, teacher training, and pronunciation teaching methodology research.