Details

An Investigation of Mandarin Chinese Speakers’ Pronunciation of English Initial Consonant Clusters

Sample Paper
One individual research report on a topic of: Pronunciation comparison of Hong Kong accent English and China accent English: based on Hong Kong International kindergarten students

This paper is to analyze the segmental phonological features of recorded speech.

Approximately 3000 words

Structure of the research paper:

1. Abstract
   Literature Review
2. Methodology
3. Word list reading.
4. Sentence list reading.
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Replacement
8. Conclusion
9. References
10. Appendix A: Word List (two-member onsets)
11. Appendix B: Sentence List
12. Appendix C
13. Appendix D
14. Appendix E

Points to note

Be specific:

• individual sound(s) (e.g. /n/ vs /l/ ) or initial consonant cluster (e.g. /pl/)

segmental:

• primary stress (e.g. OBJect vs obJECT)
• rising / falling tone for items in a list pausing to convey meaning
• explain the phonological features with knowledge and professional language (e.g. phonology-related terminologies for the segmental features
• IPA transcriptions to show the proper pronunciation and the problems, etc.).

Strategies / activities: be specific

(e.g. a task sheet.), avoid being general or, related to the phonological features identified

Clear description of the strategies

clearly state the procedure of the activity/task (can be in bullet points) / attach task sheets, etc.

justify the choice of the proposed strategies

how can the strategy / activity help the learner learn & practise the target feature

1. of task(s) ?? quality > quantity

• indicate the number of words used at the end of the assignment, excluding the references and appendices.

• uses the American Psychological Association (APA) citation system.

http://www.apastyle.org

2016 Suggested Readings:

1. McDowell, H. J.,& Lorch, M. P.(2008). Phonemic Awareness in Chinese L1 Readers of English: Not Simply an Effect of Orthography. TESOL Quarterly, 42(3), 495-513.
2. Deterding, D, Wong, J., and Kirkpatrick, A (2008). The Pronunciation of Hong Kong English. English World-wide 29 (2): 148-175
3. Oladipupo, R. O. (2015). A comparative study of connected speech features in Nigerian English & Received Pronunciation. English Today, 31, 21-29.
4. Jenkins, J. (2002). A sociolinguistically-based, empirically-researched pronunciation syllabus for English as an International Language, Applied Linguistics 23(1), 83-103.
5. Wang, M. J., & Chen, H-C. (2009). Pedagogical practice and students’ perceived effectiveness of web-based automated speech evaluation. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 6(4), 217-243.
6. Saito, K. (2011). Examining the role of explicit phonetic instruction in native-like and comprehensible pronunciation development: an instructed SLA approach to phonology. Language Awareness, 20(1), 45–59.