Production of English Liquid Consonants in Coda Position by Native Mandarin Chinese Speakers

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/mk61rj34g

Abstract

The study examined the production of English liquid consonant codas (/ɹ/, /l/, and /ɹl/) by native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Data was collected from videos of four native Mandarin speakers reading English passages on public online video platforms, and analyzed through close transcription, F3 trend, and F3 values. The study found that native Mandarin Chinese speakers have difficulty pronouncing /ɹ/, /l/, and /ɹl/ sounds at English syllable coda positions and exhibit different productions. The speakers showed a higher accuracy in pronouncing the /ɹ/ sound at syllable coda positions, particularly when the preceding vowel is /ə/, compared to the /l/ sound at syllable coda positions, and /ɹ/ sound at syllable coda positions with other preceding vowels. The study also investigated language transfer phenomena in Second Language Acquisition and identified conditions that trigger language transfer and the qualities in the speakers’ first language (L1) that are preferentially transferred to the second language (L2). These findings have implications for English learning and teaching, as well as for future research that examines the correlation between the production of English liquid consonant codas by native Mandarin speakers and the environment of these sounds.

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