Findings of Phonological Fossilization of College Students and Corresponding Implications

中圖分類(lèi)號(hào)：G76

Xie Yingying Nanjing Technical College of Special Education Najing Jiangsu 210038

Abstract： This thesis is to classify the Phonological fossilized errors made by the college students through the empirical experiment， and to summarize some implications for oral English teaching.

Key words： Phonological fossilization； Implication； Input； Output

Phonological Fossilization

Phonological fossilization refers to the repetition of phonological errors which result from the incorrect acquisition of pronunciation of the second language， usually affected by the native language. Through the analysis of the collected data，it has been found out that the fossilized pronunciation primarily appears on the vowels and consonants， stress and intonation as well.

the Result of Oral Test on Phonological Fossilization

First， the most common problems with vowels are identified as the following： some long vowels and short vowels are not distinguished， even confused in pronunciation， for example， around 80% of the subjects always pronounce [i：]， [u：] as [i] and [u] respectively； some vowels， especially diphthongs are wrongly articulated and can not be pronounced to the full. Take some vowels as examples. The diphthongs [ei] is produced as[e]， [?] as [e]， and [au] becomes [?].

The second problem with segmental features of speech sound is discovered to exist on the consonants. Note the typical problem with the interdental fricatives [θ] and [e]： [θ] in three becomes [s]； [e] in northern is [z] or [ds]， as it is in there， them and either. That’s to say， [s] is often mistakenly substituted for [θ] while [e] is wrongly pronounced as [z] or [ds]. About 77% of subjects make such mistakes. Besides， 80% of subjects cannot clearly pronounce the nasal phoneme [?]， and it is often substituted by [n]. The difficulty in these two consonants articulation is much common with the learners from the southern China. The wrong pronunciation of some phonemes， mentioned above， as [θ] and [e] may be the occurrence of fossilization in common in Chinese learners of English by resorting to the phonemes from the Chinese language which are apparently similar to those English phonemes. Moreover， around 15% of the subjects tend to add a weak [?] behind some plosives as [k]， [t]， which is also influenced by their Chinese language.

According to the oral tests， another cause leading to phonological fossilization is stress. Stress is one of the principal suprasegments and can be divided into two types： word stress and sentence stress （Yu Liming， 2004：112）. Speaking of word stress， it's concerned with syllables. Polysyllabic words have stress while monosyllabic words have not got word stress. Then how to position the stress of a word has become a pains-taking problem with the Chinese learners of English， because Chinese belongs to a special language with tones and has no word stress， In the experiment， more than 50% of subjects cannot make fight word stress of English， for example， the words exciting， aboriginal， expect， spectacular and the like are produced with the wrong stress when they are used as different part of speech. Sentence stress differs from word stress in two aspects： “monosyllabic word may take sentence stress； polysyllabic words may have the stress on their different syllables in a sentence” （Yu Liming， 2004：114）.Generally speaking， content words receive more sentence stress than function words. Compared with problems of word stress， only about 10% of the subjects have sentence stress problems.

A typical fossilization in suprasegmental features occurs in the intonation. Chinese is a tone language and tone makes the necessary component of a syllable and serves to distinguish between different words， for example， [m?i] and [mài].However， an English word in a sequence has to be controlled by intonation. Sometimes different intonations to the same word may convey the various intentions， attitudes and feelings of a speaker. For example： the answer “Yes.” said with a falling tone to the question “Are you Mr. Blake？” is to close the question， which means approval. But it means “Yes， but why do you ask？” Or “Yes， but who want to know？”， which open another question by using a rising tone. In the sense， intonation may convey connotative meaning. The subjects are found to have problems with reading a sentence in right intonation. Anyway， there are comparatively less such phonological fossilization problems than others （about 20% of the subjects have such problems）

Increasing the Quantity and Improving the Quality of Second Language Input

Language input is critical in language acquisition. Teachers are expected to offer correct and abundant input of second language so that learners can be exposed to the largest extent to the target language. By doing so， learners are given the opportunities to learn idiomatic second language. Here， language input not only refers to the class language of teachers but also the teaching materials including audio and video materials. All in all， learners should better be put in a natural target language environment. If the language input is not correct， it is easy to be transferred to learners， and the transfer of inappropriate training can lead to fossilization of their interlanguage. On the other hand， if the input is not abundant enough， it may be difficult for learners to make qualitative progress.

Increasing the Quantity of Oral Output

Oral communication includes two aspects—listening and speaking， which are two relative behaviors in oral communication. In order to develop oral skill， we should develop skill of listening as well as speaking. One good way is to take part in English corner for 2 hours or so once a week. The purpose of English corner is to make students provide prepared oral output. There is a fixed topic in English comer every week， which usually is relevant to the content in their course book. Before coming to English comer， the students can make adequate preparation for vocabulary， sentence structures， expressions and opinions. Because of adequate preparation and familiar topic， most students can not only say something during their oral communication but also express their opinions fluently and obtain a feeling of achievement. Some other students also hold speech contest， which activates the environment. In English corner the students should also write down new words and expression they obtain from it and then look up the new words and expressions they meet. In this way students can accumulate oral words and expressions gradually and make a solid foundation for the later successful oral communication.

Bibliography

Selinker， L. Interlanguage [J]. International Review of Applied Linguistics， 1972，（10）.

俞理明（Yu Liming）：《語(yǔ)言遷移與二語(yǔ)習(xí)得一回顧、反思和研究》，上海：上海外語(yǔ)教育出版社，2004。