Negative Transfer of Hanzhong Dialect in English Pronunciation

李云梅

Negative Transfer of Hanzhong Dialect in English Pronunciation

李云梅

Negative Transfer refers to the interference of the previous knowledge with new learning. In learning foreign language, pronunciations are frequently influenced by dialects. This thesis will analyze the negative transfer of Hanzhong dialect in English pronunciation to help learners overcome the difficulties of pronunciation in learning foreign language.

dialect pronunciation negative transfer

一、Introduction

When learning foreign language, people’s pronunciation are always influenced by their dialect. Dialect is a language variety which has its own characters of a certain community, region and society. Hanzhong dialect is a typical one which has its own phonetic, local vocabulary. This thesis will analyze the negative transfer of Hanzhong dialect on English pronunciation. It is hoped that learners can overcome the difficulties in pronunciation.

二、Analysis of Hanzhong Dialect

Hanzhong, located in the south of Shaanxi, is known as “the birthplace of Han people. Because of the special geographical position, language in this area has its own character. Hanzhong dialect is somewhat different from Standard Mandarin, as it is a Southwest Mandarin dialect of northern language family. Southwestern Mandarin, also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin, is a primary branch of Mandarin Chinese spoken in much of central and southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Kweichow and so on.

三、Negative Transfer of Hanzhong dialect in English pronunciation

Negative Transfer refers to the interference of the previous knowledge with new learning. It plays a significant role in language acquisition. Hanzhong dialect has its own special pronunciation ways, which produces its own influence on the English learning process.

（1）Confusion of the Nasal Sound [n]and Approximants[l]

The Sound [n]and [l]is a big problem for students in Hanzhong city. Most of students in Hanzhong can not distinguish [n]vs [l], and they usually pronounce Chinese character “ 那”/na/ as /la/, “ 惱”/nao/-/lao/. Affected by their dialects, they confuse [n]with [l]in English. E.g., they pronounce the phrase “last night” [lɑ:st na?t]as [nɑ:st la?t];“name” [ne?m]- [le?m]and so on.

（2）Confusion of the sound /s/ versus /?/

There is no retroflex consonant in Hanzhong dialect. People in this area pronounce Chinese character “就是”as “zou si”, “ 成 功” - “cen gon”. This results in the confusion between the sound /s/ and /?/ when they pronounce English consonant. E.g., they pronounce the word “share” as /se?/,“show”- /sou/.

（3）Confusion of Ex-nasal and Back Nasals

Students in Hanzhong city can not distinguish the exnasal and back nasal consonant of Chinese syllables. E.g., they usually read the word 崩 /beng/ -/ben/, 能 /neng/-/len/. Therefore, when they pronounce English sounds, they are always influenced by the dialect to mix up the ex-nasal and back nasals sounds of English such as “ring”, “sing”, “hang”, and the like.

四、Conclusion

Differences in pronunciation between English and Chinese becomes a barrier in learning English for they can usually cause the negative transfer of pronunciation from Chinese to English. In this paper, the author studies on this problem, and proposes some suggestions to reduce negative transfer. it’s necessary for students remove the inf l uence of dialect to second language, and correct the monosyllabic word according to the local characteristic of dialects. It’s also necessary for teachers to take some measures to eliminate the negative transfer so as to help learners overcome diff i culties of pronunciation in learning foreign language.

西安翻譯學院）

[1]Rod Ellis. Understanding Second Language Acquisition[M]. Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Education Press,2011.

[2]Terence Odlin. Language Transfer: Cross-linguistic Influence in Language Learning[M].Cambridge University Press,1989