C. Language Transfer

Odlin, 1989; Hayes, 2003; Wu, 1987

Positive transfer : learners use the patterns or the sounds of their first language to help themselves learn and speed up their acquisition of the second language.

(ex) Chinese subjects from Mainland China pronounce the English /ei/ and the Chinese ㄟ are the “most identical” vowels.

Literature Review

Negative transfer : carries the usage, the patterns, and the sounds of the first language to a new language and leads to inappropriate forms of errors.

(ex) an Arab student says, “I left my car in the barking.”

Literature Review

D. Interlanguage Larry Selinker (1969) While learning a second language, the L2

learner will create a separate linguistic system which may preserve some features of their native language and mixed with their target language.

(ex) Japanese people often say /l/ instead of /r/ in English as there isn’t a /r/ sound in Japanese.

Literature Review

E. Perception and Production

Perception refers to a person’s ability to comprehend contrastive phonemes.

Production refers to the ability to articulate the various phonemes.

Flege (1993)

Learners of a second language must first be able to perceive the sounds of the second language in order to produce the sounds.

Literature Review

Participant

Group Number MajorAverage years of

learning English

I 20vocational high

school6.55

II 20 Chinese major 9.65

III 20 English major 11.2

p.s The reason for recruiting group II was to avoid the negative language transfer from Southern Min.

Procedure

Method – Contrastive Analysis

A. Questionnaire

1. Biographical data : personal information, and languages used in their daily life.

2. Language learning experience data : their native language, second language, and personal attitudes toward English and Mandarin.

Method – Contrastive Analysis

B. Mandarin Perception Test – ㄝㄟㄛㄡ (ex) 一樣請打 O ，不一樣請打 X ( 讀 ) 月 夜 _______

羅 樓 _______

C. English Perception Test - /e/ /ei/ /o/ /ou/

(ex) test 勾選 /e/ 或 /ei/ ( 聽 )

Method – Contrastive Analysis

D. Mandarin Production Test (ex) 誰 違 約 陪 姊 姊 上 街 買 茄 子、椰子 及 杯 水。

E. English Production Test (ex) Eight men stay in bed, get up late, and sell

pepper and paper in May.

p.s The production tests were recorded on a recorder. The tests were evaluated by three English judges and three Mandarin judges.

Data Analysis

Data Analysis

Results and Discussion

RQ 1: Does the pronunciation of vowels in a native language interfere or help the pronunciation of vowels in second language?

The perception of the vowels in Mandarin did not significantly interfere in English learning.

RQ 1

Mandarin production really interfered / helped English production. People who spoke Mandarin well could also speak English well.

Results and Discussion

RQ 2: Do people who predominantly speak Southern Min have more difficulty and thus make more mistakes than people who predominantly speak Mandarin in distinguishing these two pairs of English vowels /ei; e/, and /ou; o/?

RQ 2

No significant difference.

RQ 2

No significant difference.

Results and Discussion

RQ 3: Are the abilities of distinguishing among the two pairs of vowels in perception and production interrelated? Can learners adequately pronounce sounds which are not well perceived, or is a good perception a prerequisite to accurate pronunciations?

RQ 3

No significant difference.

RQ 4

/ei/ and /e/ in

Group II were

significantly

different.

Any questions?

Thank you~