1、序号：030论文题目：（英文）A Comparison of Confusable English and Chinese Consonants 论文题目：（中文） 英汉易混淆辅音对比分析答辩成绩：考生姓名：准考证号：身份证号：指导教师：完成日期： 2012 年 9 月 16 日天津市高等教育自学考试英语（本）毕业论文ContentsAbstract (in Chinese) .IAbstract (in English) .III. Introduction .11.1. English and Chinese consonants.11.2. The confusable consonan
2、ts in English and Chinese .3II. A comparison: the confusable consonants in English and Chinese .52.1. Stops: English b, d, and Chinese p, t, k (Pinyin b, d, g).52.2. The English postalveolar fricative and the Chinese retroflex fricative (sh).82.3. The English glottal h and the Chinese velar fricativ
3、e x (h).102.4. The English approximant (r), postalveolar and the Chinese retroflex fricative (r)122.5. The English lateral dark l and the Chinese lateral l (l).152.6. Other confusable consonants.16III. A brief analysis: the reasons for the confusions .173.1. A neglect of the differences in the place
4、s and the manners of articulations of similar consonants.173.2. A neglect of different distinctive features in different languages .183.3. Confusions between IPA, the English phonetic alphabet and the Chinese Pinyin alphabet.183.4. Other reasons.20IV. Conclusion.21Notes .23Bibliography .24I摘要英国英语共有2
5、4个辅音，汉语普通话有22个辅音。英汉两种语言中，有一部分辅音是完全相同的，不存在混淆问题。另一部分辅音属于英语或汉语独有，且语音面貌具有明显的区别特征，不易引起混淆。除此之外，尚有五组辅音，语音面貌近似，但音素并不相同，对于英语学习者而言，容易产生混淆，尤其容易出现以近似的汉语辅音代替英语辅音的错误现象。本文针对数组英汉相似且易混淆辅音，进行有关发音方法与发音部位的具体对比，并引用实证，探讨相关音位的具体区别特征，分析混淆原因，提出学习建议。关键词: 英语辅音；汉语辅音；对比分析IIAbstractThere are 24 consonants in British English, whi
6、le 22 in Mandarin. In these two languages, some consonants are identical, so there are no confusions; some consonants respectively belong to the only language, whose pronunciations are obviously different, which will not lead to confusion. Besides, there are five groups of consonants, similar but no
7、t identical. For English learners, the latter ones are easy to be confused and the mistake of substituting the English consonants with the similar Chinese consonants may take place. This present paper concentrates on the similar consonants in English and Chinese that are easy to be confused, present
8、s detailed comparative analyses on the manners and the places of articulation. With demonstration, this paper discusses the distinctive features of the related phonemes and analyzes the cause of confusion, then put forward corresponding suggestions for English learners.Key words: English consonants;
9、 Chinese consonants; comparative analysis1I. Introduction1.1. English consonants and Chinese consonantsSpeech and writing are the two media or substances used by natural languages as vehicles for communication. Of these two media of language, speech is more basic than writing. Thus the study of soun
10、ds is of great importance in language learning. As two languages belong to different language families, both English and Chinese have its particular features in speech sounds. For Chinese students, there are many fresh phones difficult to learn in English; and for English students who are learning C
11、hinese vice versa. An initial classification will divide the speech sounds in every language into two broad categories: vowels and consonants. For convenience, only the consonants are discussed in this paper.There are 24 consonants in English (Received Pronunciation, hereinafter the same), while 22
12、in Chinese (Mandarin, hereinafter the same). Table 1.1 and table 1.2 show all the consonants in English and Chinese respectively.2Table 1.1.1 A chart of English consonants1Place of articulationManner of articulationBilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar GlottalVoiceless p t
13、k Stop/PlosiveVoiced b d Nasal m n Voiceless f s hFricativeVoiced v z Approximant (w) j wLateral lVoiceless t AffricateVoiced dTable 1.1.2 A chart of Chinese consonants2 (In the brackets there are Pinyin characters)Place of articulationManner of articulationBilabial Labiodental Alveolar Retroflex Co
14、ronal VelarUnaspirated p (b) t (d) k()Stop/PlosiveVoicelessAspirated ph (p) th (t) kh(k)Nasal Voiced m n Voiceless f s (sh) (x) x (h)FricativeVoiced (r)Lateral Voiced lUnaspirated ts(z) t (zh) t (j)AffricateVoicelessAspirated tsh(c) th(ch) th (q)According to these two charts, we can easily find out
15、the six consonants that are identical in English and Chinese: m n f s l; in fact, there are three others: p, t, k, because in English they are 3pronounced as ph, th, kh the same as in Chinese unless they follow the consonant s. In a word, the above nine consonants in English could also be found in C
16、hinese. Otherwise, each of the remaining consonants is special in English or Chinese.Now the paper is to make a brief comparison for these non-identical consonants. We can see, through the two tables, in English some consonants are close to the Chinese ones both in manner and place of articulation.
17、For example, both English b and Chinese p (Pinyin b) are bilabial stops. Besides, they sound similar to each other in words, especially for the beginners, e.g. the English word bar b: sounds like the Chinese character 八 (pa) eight. What is the difference between the two consonants? Why there is conf
18、usion between them? Questions like these will be discussed in this paper.1.2. The confusable consonants in English and ChineseNow we classify the similar consonants from table 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 into groups.(1) Stops: English b, d, and Chinese p, t, k (Pinyin b, d, g)They are six stops. The initial one
19、s in each language are bilabials, the second ones alveolars and the last ones velars. As the two in each pair sound similar, these consonants are often confused.(2) Fricatives: English and Chinese (sh)4They sound similar, thus are often confused, e.g. the initial consonant of the English word she i
20、and that of the Chinese word 谁 ei who sound alike.(3) Fricatives: English h and Chinese x (h)These two consonants are close to each other but not identical. For example, the English word he hi: and the Chinese word 黑 xei black are pronounced with different consonants.(4) English approximant (r), pos
21、talveolar and Chinese fricative (r)The English approximant (r) and the Chinese voiced retroflex fricative (r) are in fact quite different phones but sound alike. Besides, in the English phonetic alphabet is always wrote as r for ease although r is a very different sound in IPA, which has led to more
22、 confusion. The English voiced postalveolar fricative and the Chinese voiced retroflex fricative (r) are identical in manners of articulation but different in places of articulation, as same as the difference between and (sh).(5) English lateral l and Chinese lateral lThese two consonants are identi
23、cal when they are all followed by a vowel. However, when an English consonant l appears in the end of a word, it is pronounced as a dark , different from the Chinese consonants l. Sometimes there is confusion between l 5and .(6) Other similar consonants in English and ChineseThere are other consonan
24、ts, which are not listed, but may cause confusion. For example, the dental fricatives , and the alveolar fricatives s, z.However, in English, a dental or alveolar fricative can distinguish meaning, e.g. the word thing i and sing si are different in meaning. Thus the differences between , and s, z ha
25、ve already been emphasized during junior English class. In view of this fact, here they will not be discussed again; in chapter II, only the listed five groups of consonants are concentrated.II. A comparison: the confusable consonants in English and ChineseIn the previous chapter, five groups of con
26、fusable consonants are listed. In this chapter, detailed comparative analysis for each group is to be presented.2.1. The confusable stops b, d, in English and p, t, k in ChineseIn English there are six stops, represented as / b, p/, /d, t/, /, k/; in Chinese the six stops are written in Pinyin as (b, p), (d, t), (, k). At first sight, a few learners think that the two groups of consonants are ultimately identical. This thought is a terrible mistake. Surely, in
