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Volume 11. Issue 4
Article 6

Title
Chinese Phonotactic Patterns and the Pronunciation Difficulties of Mandarin-Speaking EFL Learners

Authors
Hui-Ling Huang & James Radant

Bio Data: 
Dr. Hui-ling Huang is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Foreign Language at National Yunlin University of Science and Technology since 2002. Her research field is on children's literature and English teaching, particularly storytelling in the teaching of English phonology, discourse intonation and cross-cultural communication.

James Radant has an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin Madison. He has been a lecturer in the Department of Applied Foreign Languages at Yunlin University for 12 years.

Abstract
To draw EFL teachers’ attention to pronunciation difficulties resulting from L1 phonotactic constraints, this study examined the hypothesis that certain syllable structures could cause more mispronunciation than segmental sounds for Mandarin-speaking EFL learners. A 145-word reading passage was developed with a total of 30 target sounds, which included the problematic syllable structures that exhibited Mandarin phonotactic constraints and the most troublesome segmental sounds identified in other studies. 146 college students were tested and the results validated the hypothesis, which demonstrated that the successful pronunciation of individual sounds does not automatically transfer to successful pronunciation at the word level. It is suggested that apart from the teaching of segmental sounds and word stress, teachers need to be informed of the relation between L1 phonotactic constraints and English mispronunciation. Mandarin speaking non-native EFL teachers’ cross-linguistic ability may allow them to implement unique pedagogical tactics that address the particular needs of their students to enable them to cope with such aspects of non-segmental pronunciation difficulties.

Key words: phonotactic constraints, pronunciation difficulties, suprasegmental sounds, syllable structures, Mandarin,

Introduction
The test-driven English instruction in Taiwan does not give much attention to learners’ speaking ability let alone their pronunciation. Although good pronunciation is not equal to good speaking ability, it contributes to the intelligibility of oral communication since listeners rely on distinguishable vowels and consonants and appropriate intonation contours to understand speakers’ talking (Brown, 1989; Munro & Derwing, 1997). The trend of language proficiency testing has been moving toward a more communicative and practical direction and now often includes speaking proficiency testing, which has long been included in the IELTS. Testing speaking proficiency is gradually being integrated into almost all of the standardized language tests today, such as TOFEL and TOEIC, even the most test-driven learners now realize the need for good or at least intelligible pronunciation. Knowing that poor or unintelligible pronunciation might influence their speaking performance, language learners may start to pursue a higher level of intelligibility in order to better express themselves. Accordingly, the teaching of English pronunciation has moved beyond the teaching of segmental sounds; suprasegmental parts of English pronunciation have been included in some of the more recent textbooks (Gilbert, 2005; Miller, 2006; Zerna, 1999). However, while tackling pronunciation difficulties, mispronunciation stemming from L1 phonotactic constraints (sound combinations that may not happen in a language) is still an important missing piece in much pronunciation instruction. This part of suprasegmental instruction in fact may rely on non-native EFL teachers’ cross-linguistic ability to make pedagogical changes. In order to draw teacher’s attention to this point, this study tested a hypothesis that certain English syllable structures that violated Chinese phonotactic rules could cause more pronunciation difficulties than segmental sounds for Mandarin-speaking EFL learners.

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