Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
of English
Feifei Han, University of Sydney
Increasingly Chinese students are pur- Problems in segmental aspects are primarily
suing their studies abroad in English speaking concerned with the articulation of single
countries, such as the USA, the UK, Australia, phonemes or combinations of phonemes in
and New Zealand. Despite the fact that they both vowels and consonants. In supraseg-
have studied English as a compulsory subject mental areas, Chinese learners are found to
for a number of years and have passed multi- have problems with stress and intonation. In
ple English proficiency tests, many still find it the following paragraphs, these problems are
is difficult to communicate well in spoken presented by contrasting the phonology of
English. One of the major obstacles for oral Chinese and English. Additionally, possible
communication is undoubtedly English pro- causes are identified and detailed examples
nunciation, which hinders many Chinese stu- are provided to illustrate problematic pro-
dents’ ability to be understood by native nunciation.
speakers or English learners from other lan-
guage backgrounds. Problems with vowels
Not only do Chinese and English dif- Depending upon the types of rhythm
fer in phonemes, but the two languages are presented in pronunciation, a language can
also different in terms of the combination of be classified as either stress-timed or syllable
phonemes. In Chinese, each syllable com- -timed (Ladefoged, 1982; Ohata, 2004). In a
monly starts with a consonant and ends with stress-timed language, the production of
a vowel, whereas in English a syllable can stressed syllables takes the majority of time
start with a consonant cluster and can end for completing a sentence. On the other hand,
with either a vowel or a consonant. Due to in a syllable-timed language, each syllable
this phonotactic distinction between the two receives an equal amount of time for produc-
languages, Chinese learners face difficulties tion. To be more specific, to articulate an
when producing words ending with conso- English sentence, the amount of time for
nants. completion of the sentence depends largely
on how many stressed syllables are in the
Chinese learners tend to add a vowel sentence, as “the intervals between stressed
after a stop consonant, such as after [p], [b], syllables in speech are either equal or at least
[t], [d], [k], and [g], as these consonants only more nearly equal than the intervals between
appear in the initial spot in a Chinese sylla- the nucleus of each successive syllable and
ble. For instance, Chinese students tend to next” (Matthews, 1997, p. 355). In contrast,
pronounce “hot” as /ˈhɔtə /, “good” as / the time taken to generate a Chinese sentence
ˈgʊdə /, and “map” as /ˈmæpʊ/. An observa- depends upon the total number of syllables,
tion of Chinese students’ pronunciation and all the syllables contribute to the recur-
shows a tendency to add [ə] after [t], [d], [k], ring pattern of rhythm in a sentence. Often
and [g], whereas they tend to add [ʊ] follow- one can hear Chinese learners devote equal
ing [p] and [b]. This might be because there time to each syllable when speaking English,
28 ORTESOL Journal
and as a result using a syllable-timed rhythm the intonation of the two languages. Both Chi-
to produce English can make speakers sound nese and English use final rising-falling intona-
strange to English speakers. tion in sentences such as propositions, impera-
tives, and wh-questions. However, in Chinese
Stress problems the final rising-falling intonation is also applied
to yes-no questions. In contrast, English uses a
Another sharp distinction between final rising intonation in a yes-no question. Un-
Chinese and English in terms of the supraseg- der the influence of the mother tongue, Chinese
mental aspects of their phonological systems learners normally speak a yes-no question with
has to do with tone and stress in the two lan- rising-falling intonation. Such a situation is
guages. Chinese is a tonal language, which especially common among learners at elemen-
means that a high-low pitch pattern is associ- tary levels. Under intensive training and drills
ated with a Chinese morpheme permanently. from English teachers, students are very likely
In Mandarin Chinese, the same syllable can to get used to using rising intonation in yes-no
be pronounced in four different tones; these questions. However, they sometimes over-
tones are the high-level tone, high-rising tone, generalize to include wh-questions as well. In
low-rising tone, and high-falling tone. English fact, the most difficult types of questions, in
is a stress accent language, which marks a terms of using appropriate intonation, for Chi-
stressed syllable by lengthening the vowel in nese learners is alternative questions. Chinese
that syllable. A change of stress in a word can learners either use falling intonation for both of
even alter the part of speech of that word. The the choices in those questions or speak with
feature of stress in English poses a great chal- rising intonation for the two choices when gen-
lenge for Chinese learners of English. Learn- erating alternative questions. Through practical
ers tend to ignore stress when first learning training and repeated corrections made by Eng-
how to pronounce a new word. Even with a lish instructors, most Chinese learners are able
known word, learners generally appear uncer- to overcome this problem and articulate all
tain when marking the stress in multi-syllabic types of questions with proper intonation when
words. Some Chinese learners try very hard to they reach the intermediate level and above.
memorize the stress of a particular word,
while unaware that shifting the stress could Implications and conclusion
alter the word’s part of speech. For example,
Chinese learners often say, “He broke the / The current study presents contrastive
ɾɪˈkɔ:d/” as opposed to “He broke the / analysis of phonological systems between Chi-
ˈɾɛkɔ:d/. In order to overcome difficulties nese and English and detailed examples of po-
caused by the differences between a tonal lan- tential problem areas in English pronunciation
guage and a stress accent language, teachers among Chinese learners. The above infor-
of English learners, such as Chinese speakers, mation is valuable as it helps to raise aware-
need to explain the differences explicitly and ness for English instructors of weaknesses in
emphasize the importance of stress in English Chinese learners’ pronunciation. Teachers
pronunciation. could explain some of the major differences
between the phonological systems to students,
Intonation problems and they could also utilize the above infor-
mation to design teaching materials, classroom
Although there are some similarities activities, and practical pronunciation drills to
between Chinese and English in terms of into- address these areas (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, &
nation contour, differences can be found in Goodwin, 1996; Kelly, 2000).
30 ORTESOL Journal