Abstract
Stress is one of the key suprasegmentals in English sound system. It plays an important role in intelligibility and comprehensibility. However, stress often poses problems for Chinese EFL Learners. Chinese learners of English often misplace the stress in English words and sentences which subsequently may interrupt the flow of communication and lead to unintelligibility. Therefore, the correct placement of stress is a main concern in EFL speech intelligibility and training, and it is particularly important for Chinese learners of English because they have a drastically different stress system in their native language. There is evidence to suggest that the transfer of native language sound systems is one of the major reasons for foreign language pronunciation errors. This paper examines the differences between Chinese and English stress. Based on such contrastive analysis of English and Chinese stress, experiments are conducted to investigate the reasons for Chinese EFL learners’ pronunciation difficulties in English stress, and finally implications for English pronunciation teaching are drawn.
Highlights
Unlike the children in their native language acquisition, the ESL/EFL learners come to the task of English acquisition with the knowledge of at least one other language
The correct placement of stress is a main concern in EFL speech intelligibility and training, and it is important for Chinese learners of English because they have a drastically different stress system in their native language
It is quite reasonable to say that the nature of a foreign accent is determined to a large extent by a learner’s native language (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992), and the pronunciation errors made by second language learners are the reflections of the sound inventory, rules of combining sounds, and the stress and intonation patterns of their native language (Swan & Smith, 1987)
Summary
Unlike the children in their native language acquisition, the ESL/EFL learners come to the task of English acquisition with the knowledge of at least one other language. Research shows that in learning English Chinese learners are often interfered with by their native language, especially at the level of phonology (Gui, 1978; Fan, 1982; Chen, 1987; He, 2002; Wei, 2003; Zhao, 2006; Gao & Deng, 2009). It is necessary for Chinese teachers of English to realize the impact of Chinese on English pronunciation learning and teaching. As stress contributes to English rhythm and intonation (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992), this paper will, based on the theory of language transfer, focus on the Chinese stress pattern as a source of interference in English pronunciation learning
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