1. Introduction English, the first communicational language in the world, is widely introduced in China. As a Chinese student, I have been learning English from 5 years old. The first basic step of learning a language is learning how to pronounce it. The professor Gimson (1989) pointed out that we can use a language after understanding 50%-90% of the grammar, being able to use 1% vocabulary, but completely knowing the phonetic. Every kind of languages has a different phonetical system. However, the English is Indo-European, and the Chinese is Sino-Tibetan. They are in two totally different phonetical systems, so when Chinese study English, their pronunciation are influenced by their dialect. At present, Chinese teachers teach their students …show more content…
Speakers or writers apply knowledge from one language to another language (Weinreich, 1953) It is also called cross linguistic influence and linguistic interference. There are two language transfers, positive transfer and negative transfer. When the structure of both languages is same, or similar, and it can help a speaker correct his pronunciation, we call this language transfer as positive transfer. On the contrary, if both languages are not in the same structure, and one language is negative to another, leading another language to a wrong way, we call it as negative transfer. One example of negative influence of Chinese to English is “Long time no see.” This sentence is very typical Chinglish, because the word order is in Chinese style（好久不见）. If a native English speaker wants to express it, he might say: “I haven’t seen you for a while”. This is because Chinese and English are in two different language families, and it causes a negative influence to the speaker when he speaks English that we call it as negative transfer. Language transfer not only appears in syntax, but also in phonetic. A speaker replaces a vowel or a consonant using his …show more content…
马川冬 (1997) has pointed out that Si Chuan dialect does not have the phonemes or similar phonemes of the short vowels, /i, u, ɔ/ in English, and the central vowels, /ə, ə: /, are not existed. Therefore, Students usually use /i, u, o, ə/ in dialect to replace /i, u, ɔ, ə / in English. He said students use /a/ in pinyin to replace /æ/, because there is no a similar phoneme in dialect, and to replace the central vowel /ʌ/, as well, for there is no phoneme existed in dialect. According to 罗雪菲(2015), she reported that in Si Chuan dialect, people use other vowels to replace /e/ in Chinese mandarin, like people speaking Si Chuan dialect say 哥(ge) as “go”,and 车(che) as “chei”. This phenomenon causes a negative transfer to people when they speak English, because they even cannot pronounce /e/ right in Chinese let alone English. However, it can help students to pronounce /ei/ in English, which is positive transfer. There also is a problem about semivowels, /j/ and /w/. A semivowel is a sound that sounds like vowel but serve as a consonant. It also is called glide. Students in Si Chuan cannot distinguish /i/ and /j/. /j/ is a semivowel. Many of them often pronounce the word beginning with /i/ as /j/. For example, some students pronounce east/i:st/ as /ji:st/, and this ear / ðis’i ə/ as / ðis’ji ə/. In Si Chuan dialect, words begging
The article “The Nature of Stress in English Language A Study from a Perspective of Rule-Governed Approach, by Sardar Fayyaz ul Hassan, claims that, “Good speech in English involves control of the system of sounds, stress and intonation pertaining to the language” (2). Secondly, Hassan believes in correct accent since it is, “a linguistic feature that creates rhythm in English language” (2). The author’s thoughts say that to speak “good” English, you must follow all the rules. Hassan discusses that, “a native speaker knows intuitively which word or syllable is to be stressed” (6). People who believe in rules like Hassan, will also think those who are not native of English, will not know all the rules. Therefore they will not speak his definition of “good” English. Zanuttini would condemn that Hassan and his followers want, “to live in a homogeneous white bread world”
The way people speak English is primarily affected by where and from whom they learned to speak it. In many cases,
As we mentioned above, one of influences that has made changes in English language over time is foreign
Academic English is important to college and university in academic writing course (Jet Writers Essay Writing Contest 2015). It is required students to reading, speaking and listening, while employing evaluating and sharpen their research and writing skills for college and university environment. At the college and university level is the ever-increasing need for students to focus on language and more specifically, the specialized language found both in substance areas and the Academic Language used in teaching that content. Academic Language as the name implies is importance the kind of writing that we are required to do in college and university. It differs from other kinds of writing such as annotated bibliographies, literature
Some aspects of the Chinese phonological system cause difficulties for English speaker learners. One of the common difficulties is stress and intonation patterns, which are different between Chinese and English. Chinese is a tonal language. It doesn’t only mean that tones make up the Chinese words, but also means that the meaning of the Chinese word determined by the different tones. For American students, they also use stress and intonation patterns similar to tones, even though they did not realize, to express different feeling by variation.
Use of Style Shifting and Codeswitching in the English Language Style shifting in a language and codeswitching between languages are used for many different reasons. In this essay I will examine both the process of style shifting in English and codeswitching between English and other languages. I will look at the functions these processes serve, the reasons for their occurrence and the linguistic changes that occur in these processes. Style Shifting Style shifting is a method of altering your speech to suit a particular situation.
New languages are always overwhelming.English is difficult language to learn, especially if it isn’t practiced often. The english language includes rules that can be frustrating to get a grip of. Many International students face the fear of not being understood or not pronouncing something correct...
The Foreign elements in the English Language English is a West Germanic language brought to Britain by German invaders. The majority of the words used in English today are of foreign origin. English still derives much of its vocabulary from Latin and Greek, but we have also borrowed words from nearly all of the languages in Europe. A large portion of the modern English vocabulary comes from the Anglo-Norman languages. English is considered a ‘’borrowing’’ language.
These days the world has become one village (Atcham, 1962). It is easy to communicate with any person, company no matter where their locality is and at any time in the many linguistic and it can be relating financials, politics, and culture. For instance, make directly contact to others through internet using international language.
The settlement of the British Isles by north Europeans followed by Norman French paints the backdrop to this essay which will focus on the period between the early 15th and 17th centuries, when a 'standard' English evolved. It will show that modern-day English is very different to that first introduced to the British Isles, but by identifying changes through time, its continuity can be demonstrated. Finally, it will suggest that present day English is in a position analogous to that which existed before the Norman invasion, when there were many varieties and dialects, and that this may lead to its decline as a global language, due to decreasing intelligibility.
Have you ever wondered where the names of the different items you use daily came from? Or listened to people talk and find a particular word interesting or odd and wonder why it has become part of our English language? The English language that we speak today has developed as a result of many different influences and changes over thousands of years. The resulting changes to the English language can be split into three time periods that include, Old English or Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and Modern English which is commonly used today
For example, business activities always use English. Some multinational enterprises company require employee to have a high level English skill, so that they can communicate with the partner very easily. Good communication can obtain high benefit in business. Many people of multinational company use English as a world language. You will hear business people use English in many cities. They need to understand English and use English to express thoughts and ideas. Also, English is always used in education. When teacher use English to teach, student can learn a lot of words that can be use in different subject. If student do not learn English as well, they should spend much more time on their study, not only in the knowledge, but also in English. Nowadays, more and more people learn English and English become more important to Chinese. Not only must children learn English from kindergarten but also people who do not understand English cannot work at government (IBJ, 2014). Therefore, English is considered as global
This term refers to the spread of the English language by non-English speakers who have identified the benefits of acquiring it. This is different from the process involving speakers of the language who have migrated and take the language with them wherever they go.
Over the years English inarguably has reached a status of a global language and commonly is characterized as a lingua franca. It has become the language that is spoken by millions of people all over the world; as the mother tongue, as the language used for international communication and as the language learned in the millions of schools.
Palatal Diphthongization: This is the change in the pronunciation of diphthongs. By this sound-change, an “ae” and e in early Old English was changed to a diphthong (“ea” and “ie” respectively) when preceded by certain palatal consonants “c, g, sc” (Baugh & Cable, 2001).