Research on English accent

Author: Yang Yunsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: We often feel awkward or unnatural when hearing foreigners speak Chinese. The reason is mainly that they don’t grasp the four tones of Chinese properly and use them incorrectly. So, do Chinese people speak English with varying accents? The answer is yes, for the same reason—they cannot correctly grasp the stress and intonation of English, failing to stress what should be stressed and failing to reduce what should be reduced, leading to unclear expression and communication difficulties. The purpose of language learning is communication, so cultivating listening and speaking skills is crucial. The Ministry of Education’s "Teaching Requirements for College English Courses" issued in 2004 explicitly states that the teaching goal of college English is to cultivate students’ comprehensive English application skills, especially listening and speaking skills, enabling them to communicate effectively in spoken and written English in future work and social interactions to meet the needs of China’s social development and international exchanges. It is clear that the cultivation of oral English skills for non-English majors has attracted high attention from leadership.
As a language teacher with years of experience, we have tracked and observed the English pronunciation problems of Chinese students, analyzed and summarized the common errors they make in English pronunciation, and felt it necessary for Chinese students to gain a comprehensive understanding of English phonetics and to master English pronunciation both theoretically and practically to improve their overall English proficiency and their ability to use English vividly. Based on this purpose, we have compiled this book.
The features of this book: Comprehensive analysis, detailed data, and clear focus. The book is divided into five chapters:
Chapter 1: Historical Review, focusing on the development and changes of English stress and their causes.
Chapter 2: Lexical Stress, analyzing the differences in lexical stress between Germanic and Latin.
Chapter 3: Suffix Stress Rules.
Chapter 4: Compound Words and Their Stress Issues.
Chapter 5: Rules of English Stress Shift.
This book uses the phonetic notation system of the internationally recognized Webster’s Dictionary to mark word phonemes. It is suitable for English phonetics scholars and other English enthusiasts.