Kexuan Wu

University of Oklahoma, USA

Abstract

This case study aimed to investigate the influences of Chinese speakers’ Southwestern dialects, which do not distinguish alveolar nasal /an/, /en/, /in/ and velar nasal /ang/, /eng/, /ing/ sounds, on their English pronunciation in words of these sounds. The study also explored whether Chinese speakers who spoke more standard Mandarin would have more accurate English pronunciations. The findings of the study revealed that most Chinese Southwestern dialects speakers could not perform velar nasal sounds in Chinese Mandarin, which also influenced them to perform velar nasal sounds in English. This study also found that Chinese Mandarin speakers showed more advantages in the English pronunciation of velar nasal sounds than Chinese Southwestern dialect speakers. There is a significant, positive, moderate correlation between the Mandarin Proficiency Test and IELTS Speaking Pronunciation, suggesting that Chinese speakers who achieved a higher level on the Mandarin Proficiency Test also achieved a higher level on IELTS Speaking Pronunciation overall. Furthermore, this study provides insights into researching the influence of diverse dialects on English pronunciations among English as a Second Language speakers.

Keywords

English pronunciation, Chinese dialects, alveolar nasal sounds, velar nasal sounds