The Negative Transfer of Chinese upon English Vowel Learning

Zha Yifan

【Abstract】Rod Ellis claims that no theory of L2 acquisition is complete without an account of L1 transfer，which arouses much interest of phonetic linguists to probe into the Transfer Theory. In this paper，the negative transfer of Chinese upon English vowel learning is dwelled upon. The author carries out the study by examining the recording of some Chinese natives，and with the help of the computer-based Praat analysis，the author comes to the conclusion that to a large extent，Chinese has exerted a negative influence upon English vowel learning in terms of English monophthongs and diphthongs，which may contribute to English teaching as L2 in China.

【Key words】 negative transfer； monophthong； diphthong

1. Introduction to the Transfer Theory

Psychologists have long-time been concerning the effects of one learning task on the subsequent one. “The observation that prior learning effects subsequent learning leads to the hypothesis of transfer， which Ellis refers to as ‘perhaps the single most important concept in the theory and practice of education ” . As for transfer， Ellis offers a definition： “the hypothesis that the learning of task A will affect the subsequent learning of task B.” In language study， task A and B can be replaced by two different languages that are learned subsequently. People tend to transfer the old habits in their already-learned languages to the new one. Thus if the newly-learned language has a sharply different structure， there would be a negative transfer.

2. Objectives of the Study

In the process of English learning， Chinese natives are surely to come across some obstacles on the way， resulting from the great differences between English and the mother tongue. It is widely acknowledged that Chinese people are very likely to produce “Chinglish”， which is manifested not only in lexicon， syntax， but more in pronunciation. The Chinese pay little attention to stress， pause and have great difficulty in learning liaison， which all lead to awkward sounds. Being aware of the differences between Chinese and English， the author hold the view that it is highly necessary to carry out a study on the negative transfer from Chinese to English in pronunciation. In this paper， under the guidance of Transfer Theory， the author probes into the foundation of all sounds—vowels， with the expectation to unveil the fundamental reasons for the difficulties Chinese natives encounter in English learning， so as to help promote Chinese peoples English pronunciation in L2 teaching.

3.Discussion about Chinese Vowels

Technically speaking， Chinese has no “vowel” and such components are referred to as finals. Accordingly， English has monophthongs and diphthongs， while Chinese has simple finals and compound finals. A detailed observation of this distinction led to the following discovery： first， English has both short vowels and long vowels， but Chinese does not； second， a few English diphthongs share much similarity with Chinese compound finals， such as [ei]， [ai]， [?u] and [au]， yet they sound not exactly the same， and the Chinese compound finals sound more like simple ones.

Even though in Chinese Pin Yin， there is no such long note as that in English phonetic symbols， does the Chinese language truly have no distinction between long and short vowels？ Whether the Chinese substitutes simple finals for compound ones？ With these doubts， the author chose a few words with four different tones in Chinese or bearing the Chinese compound finals. Two subjects who barely have any knowledge of English were tested. The vowel length was timed and the contour of vowel formants was carefully examined to answer the above questions. The time of simple finals with different tones is showed in the table （the upper is from a female， and the lower is from a male）：

According to the above result， on a broad basis， there is no sharp contrast among simple finals with different tones. Strictly speaking， however， one can still notice some fine distinctions among them， such as the finals with the second and fourth tones are likely to be shorter than those with the first and third tones. The author hereby made a guess that Chinese speakers also have some awareness of short and long vowels， yet not strong enough， and on the basis of the data， the time ratio of the short vowels to the long is between 1 to 2 and 3 to 4.

In view of the second doubt， the contour of the vowel formant was later examined. The contour of the formant of diphthongs was supposed to be varied， not an unchanged line with the same F1 and F2 all along. The observation verified the presupposition. Many a Chinese compound final display very much similar features with simple finals in terms of the contour of formant. Here are some examples：

（a） the formant of [ei] in “分配fēn pèi”

（b） the formant of [?u] in “演奏yǎn zòu”

Seeing the great similarity between Chinese compound finals and simple ones， the author could not help thinking of the Chinese influence upon English vowel learning， for in English， a few diphthongs are much the same as the Chinese ones in the perspective of sound and morphology. To test the transfer of Chinese influence， the author carried on the following experiment.

4. Methodology

In the light of the vowel status in Chinese， two hypotheses were proposed： one is that Chinese speakers are likely to confuse English long vowels with the short ones due to the “gap” in Chinese； another is that Chinese speakers may pronounce English diphthongs as Chinese compound finals， similar to monophthongs， which sound not native after all. As for the first hypothesis， the author decided to time short and long vowels and observe the formants of them to see if there was less time difference in Chinese-speakers pronunciation than the natives. The second hypothesis would be testified on the basis of the contour and trend of formants， coupled with the time ratio of the first vowel to the second vowel in the compound finals.

First of all， the author referred to the on-line English resources to find standard phonetics teaching materials. The English native selected was a young American girl from Princeton University， which ensured the precision of the pronunciation. The next step was to design the test paper， that is， to select the appropriate words from the audio bearing the test vowels. The author avoided choosing “wood” as a test word for [u]， considering that the initial consonant [w] would disturb the timing of [u]. Also， the author preferred to choose short words so as to save the effort in the later stage to separate the target sound from the others. After all， sixty-five test words were picked up， about three words for each vowel and some other words spreading randomly.

Then， the author got down to screening out the subjects from her female acquaintances， considering that the speaker in the audio is female. The ideal test-takers should not come from English major background and have a large difference in voice frequencies. As for the reasons， first， the author would like to get as real corpus as possible， so she chose those who were highly possible not to take English accent-reduction classes； second， according to Professor Xu Yulong， the absolute values of formant may vary from one speaker to another， and the fundamental frequencies of males and females are different. Therefore， it is nonsense for us to pick two subjects speaking different languages to compare the absolute frequencies of vowel formants. The right way is to compare the comparative ratio of the formant frequencies of different vowels， or to compare mean frequencies of the formants of similar vowels. As for the specific experiment， the author intended to take the later choice at first， so she picked out three females majoring in Gardening （with family name Huang）， Korean （with family name Liu） and English （with family name Cai） in their undergraduate study and their voice frequencies were varied from one to another， Huang being the highest and Liu the lowest. Unfortunately， the recorded standard English pronunciation lacked fidelity some way or another due to the conversion so that the voice frequency was not reliable. Hence the author gave up the later choice and took the alternative. The study was carried out smoothly and next the author will exhibit what she has found.

5. Research Findings

a. Negative Transfer of Chinese upon English Monophthongs

To begin with， the author would like to talk about the side effects Chinese simple finals exert on English monophthongs. The focus of this point is on the question whether Chinese speakers mix up English long vowels with the short ones. The standard time and the mean time of subjects for each long and short vowel are showed in the table below.

It is clearly manifested that the average time for Chinese people to speak English vowels is longer than the natives. In addition， according to the comparative ratio， the standard ratio of the time of short vowels to the long is about 1 to 2， while the subject ratio is about 2 to 3， obviously higher than the standard. This reminded the author of the experiment data in the previous chapter， the time ratio of the Chinese “short vowels” to “the long” being between 1 to 2 and 3 to 4. It seems that there lies in an internal relationship between the vowel time in Chinese and the English vowels pronounced by Chinese subjects. The time Chinese subjects allocate to English short and long vowels is much determined by that of “short and long vowels” in Chinese. Hence， the first argument has been substantiated， that is， under the influence of mother tongue， the Chinese are less aware of the difference between English long and short vowels.

Granted， Chinese finals“l(fā)ong-short gap” poses a challenge upon the subjects when pronouncing similar vowels， but generally speaking， the subjects still show the difference between long and short vowels： the long vowels take longer time than the short ones. The only exception， also a most surprising finding， is that the time for [a：] and [?] are nearly the same （the highlighted part）. That propelled the author to further examine the formant value of the vowels， which is more convincing than the timing method. In light of the data， the F1 value （Hz） for [a：] is 1105 and the F2 value for [a：] is 1620， and those for [?] are 993 and 1703 respectively. Hence one may find effortlessly that for the subjects， there is little distinction between the two vowels.

In addition， another interesting point in the experiment is worth discussing here in terms of English monophthongs. It is noticed that all the three subjects tended to make the same mistake in pronunciation， that is， to confuse [i] with [e] or [ei] .

[i]→[e， ei]/ （C）__（C）

For example，Cai pronounced “stiff， this” as：

Judging from the formant， one may mistakenly regard the vowel as a diphthong， and through hearing from the record， one would be very much likely to judge the vowel as [ei]. Obviously， the subjects could not tell the difference between these two vowels in pronunciation.

The reason for this is still unfathomable. A possible explanation could be that some consonants or consonant clusters are absent in Chinese， such as [?]， [z]， [st] in “this， easy， stiff” and that some consonant-vowel collocations in English are different from those in Chinese， such as in Chinese， [f] will not be followed by [i]. Consequently， the negative transfer of Chinese lays obstacles on the way of Chinese peoples English pronunciation.

b. Negative Transfer of Chinese upon English Diphthongs

From the auditory perspective， the Chinese compound finals are very much like simple vowels， and therefore the contour of Chinese compound finals was predicted to be very much like the simple ones. This presupposition has been verified in the previous chapter. However， will it exert negative effects on the English vowel pronunciation？ With a meticulous observation， the author found that these mispronounced English diphthongs could be divided into two groups. One group includes vowels whose formants display the characteristics of monophthongs， and another group consists of vowels whose formants seem to be all right for diphthongs.

The following spectrum is the epitome of the first group.

[au] in “mouth” from Huang：

The formants of the two diphthongs are very much similar to that of a monophthong and one can hardly tell the turning of the two vowels in hearing. Thus the pronunciation is probably affected by the Chinese transfer.

The examples of the latter group are：

[e?] in “therefore” from Liu：

According to the formants of the above words， the diversion of the trend of F1 and F2 and the pronunciation are proper for diphthongs. Nevertheless， the latter vowel in the diphthongs is not pronounced to the full， sounding rather weak. And there exists an obvious discrepancy with the formant of the standard pronunciation. It seems that the natives time allocation of the two vowels is equally the same as shown in Praat.

To make the argument more objective， the author adopted the timing method to compare the difference between the standard and the subjects pronunciation.

We can see from the table that when the native pronounce diphthongs， they are more likely to treat the two vowels equally， while the Chinese subjects give much importance to the former vowel， but neglect the latter one， making it much weaker to hear. As it is mentioned， “Though /ei， ai， ao， ou/ in Chinese and /ei， ai， au， ?u/ are both strong vowels gliding to a weaker one， the former glides faster than the latter and does not get to the weaker vowel， making the double phoneme a whole； the glide in English is more evident， the two phonemes are comparatively independent.”

6. Summary

With the help of Praat analysis， we may safely come to the conclusion that Chinese do exert a negative influence upon English vowel learning. The Chinese people tend to lengthen the vowel and confuse the short with the long vowels. Besides， they still have a great difficulty in acquiring the right pronunciation of English diphthongs， for the compound finals in Chinese are usually pronounced as simple ones.

To be sure， there is still space for polishment. As to the major measurement tool in the study， Praat contributes a lot， yet the timing method on Praat is not accurate enough. Therefore， it affects the precision of the experiment result， especially the ratio relation. Hopefully， this thesis can bring some revelations for further study in this field and draw more attention to the vowel pronunciation in L2 teaching.

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