Difficulties in the Production and Perception of English Vowels

• Main Authors: CHIN, YUEH-HSI, 金玥璽
• Other Authors: CHEN, MEI-CHEN
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76865123769210328988

碩士 === 國立屏東大學 === 應用英語學系碩士班 === 103 === The present study was basically a qualitative-oriented research to identify the articulating and listening problems of eleven American English (AE) vowels for Taiwanese eighth graders. It aimed to examine the relationship between production and perception of English vowels. Gender differences were probed under this sound pronunciation and discrimination framework. A vowel articulating test followed by a vowel discerning test was administered to 42 eighth graders (M=21, F=21). In addition, individual interviews were given to further explore the learners’ vowel learning difficulties and to triangulate the data obtained from the oral and aural tests. The results showed that (1) the junior high students had more difficulties pronouncing and perceiving the central vowels and the front vowels than the back vowels, (2) they were mostly confused with /ʌ-ɑ/, /e-ɛ/, and /i-ɪ/ in both production and perception tests, (3) all the inaccuracies in the production of /i, u, o/ were caused by the participants’ ignoring the length and tensity of the vowels, (4) inappropriate substitutions were the major error pattern found in /ʌ-ɑ /, /i-ɪ/, /e-ɛ/, /u-ʊ/, and /o-ɔ/, (5) there was no significant relationship between the production and perception performances in these vowels, (6) significant gender differences were found more in the production performance than in the perception performance; the male learners, in particular, produced the long and tense vowels of /u, i, e/ significantly better than the female ones, and (7) in the interviews, the students’ awareness of certain vowel learning difficulties was quite consistent with what was found in the tests. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies were given to conclude the study.