The Negative Transfer Effect of Jianghuai Dialect in Huai’an on Local Students’ English Pronunciation

Abstract

In English pronunciation learning, the difference between Chinese dialects and English will interfere with the acquisition of pronunciation. Students often transfer the pronunciation characteristics of dialects to English pronunciation, which affects the learning and application of English pronunciation. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of dialect on English phonetic acquisition. On the basis of systematically summarizing the theory of negative transfer of Chinese and dialects to English acquisition, this paper takes the students of a junior high school in Huai’an as samples, and investigates the negative transfer effect of Jianghuai dialect on the phonological transfer of local students’ English. On the one hand, negative transfer effect of Jianghuai dialect on local students’ English vowels pronunciation manifests in the following aspects: no distinction between long and short vowels, tightness and length are indistinguishable, incomplete pronunciation of English diphthongs. On the other hand, negative transfer effect on consonant pronunciation is obvious, including unable to distinguish between [n] and [l], lacking rhyme [v] and initial “r”, no interdental fricatives [θ] [e]. The research results can help junior high school students to overcome negative transfer and provide scientific guidance for English phonetic teaching in Huai’an.