Relationship between perception and production of English vowels by Chinese English learners

摘要

In previous studies, no consensus has been reached on the existence of significant correlation between perception and production. A large number of empirical studies have been done upon first and second languages from different language families. However, few studies were carried out on the perception-production relation of Chinese English learners. Therefore, in the current study, under the theoretical framework of PAM-L1, 40 subjects with even numbers in two genders, who differ in language proficiency, are invited to participate in the perception experiment and the production experiment, in which discrimination, identification and pronunciation of /I/-/ε/, /ε/-/æ/, /ʊ/-/Λ/ and /Λ/-/ɒ/ contrasts are observed. Results reveal that vowel perception of Chinese English learners is neither statistically correlated nor spectrally related to vowel production. Centroid spectral distances of production is not correlated to the correctness of discrimination, and the L2 perception range proves to manifest no significant relation to the L2 production range for Chinese EFL learners. PAM fails to explain the relation between vowel perception and production because the relation is of great complexity. No perception-production relation is found in the English learning of Chinese learners.