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- Title
Think or Sink: Chinese Learners' Acquisition of the English Voiceless Interdental Fricative.
- Authors
Rau, D. Victoria; Hui-Huan Ann Chang; Tarone, Elaine E.
- Abstract
This study investigates the production of the English interdental fricative [θ] by Chinese learners of English, using a variationist framework. Twenty-seven Chinese participants were asked to evaluate the acceptability of four possible substitutes for the variable (th) and to perform four oral production tasks. The results indicated that immediate phonetic environment and speech style accounted for the accurate production of [θ]. Learners who had good control over the pronunciation of [θ] used monitoring strategies, whereas those who had lower production accuracy depended on phonetic salience strategies. Lexical frequency slightly facilitated accurate production of [θ]. In addition, speakers from both Taiwan and China rated [s] as the most acceptable substitute for (th), confirming that they make up a single English-as-a-foreign-language speech community.
- Subjects
LANGUAGE acquisition; CHINESE language education; FRICATIVES (Phonetics); ENGLISH language education; ORAL communication; FOREIGN language education
- Publication
Language Learning, 2009, Vol 59, Issue 3, p581
- ISSN
0023-8333
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00518.x