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毕业论文网 > 开题报告 > 文学教育类 > 英语 > 正文

Effects of Chinese and American Accents and Difficulty Levels on English Listening Comprehension中美口音和难度对英语听力的影响开题报告

 2020-05-25 23:38:39  

1. 研究目的与意义(文献综述包含参考文献)

1. Introduction

English is one of the world#8217;s common language and an important tool for international communication. As we all know, English study consists of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, listening comprehension plays a critical part, which takes up as much as 50% of our daily communication. Furthermore, it is the main channel of classroom instruction and the most widely used language skill both at work and at home. Gradually, a growing number of teachers and students pay much attention to improve their listening ability on account of the importance of listening comprehension. According to the previous researches, there exist some factors which influence English listening comprehension, for example, vocabulary, speed, accent and so on. This research will mainly focus on the effects of accents and difficulty levels on English learners#8217; listening comprehension.

1.1 Need for the study

As a ”main ability” and a ”communication bridge”, English listening comprehension has become more and more important in schools and our society. Although the basic English skills include listening, speaking, reading and writing, but in China the four skills have not developed at the same rate. For most students listening and speaking remain the most difficult skills to master. Therefore, to cultivate students#8217; ability of listening is the first and foremost requirement of English teaching in high school in our country (Yu, 2003).

The famous linguist Rivers (1978) once pointed that, in our daily life, listening accounts for 45%, speaking takes up 30%, reading occupies 16% and writing just accounts for 9%. The statistic indicates that effective listening comprehension is one of the guarantees to carry out successful communication and it should be considered as the most important in English learning. Goh (1997) also pointed out a common cognitive problem in the listening process is that the learners are familiar with the words, but they cannot think of the corresponding meaning immediately. Maybe, the reason is that the learners cannot match the sound they have heard with the letters symbols which have been stored in memory, and are lacking in the conversion ability between pronunciation and shape.

In recent years, a lot of studies have been carried out to investigate accents, and most of them are on the effects of foreign accents on native#8217;s listening comprehension (Anderson, 1988), the relationship between accents and reading ability (Guan, 2009), listeners#8217; cognition and reactions to natives#8217; accents or Asian accents (Hosoda, 2007) and the development of phonetic study in language teaching and learning (Lin, 2012; Wu, 2007; Xia, 2009). Particularly, a lot of researchers have found out that empirical studies and analysis of different accents play a critical role in the English learners#8217; listening teaching, but there are fewer findings yielded in analyzing the effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on listening comprehension, which leads to the absence of pointed measures to English learners#8217; listening. As a result, the research needs to be carried out in the prospective of relationship and differences between Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on the listening comprehension.

1.2 Research purpose

In light of the importance of the English listening comprehension for students, together with the important role of the accents in listening process, the author decides to do some research into the effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels among English learners on their listening comprehension.

More specifically, this study intends to find out whether there is any significant difference between Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels among English learners. In addition, hopefully the findings of this study are valuable to English learners on English listening comprehension by offering them some useful suggestions.

2. Literature review

Listening comprehension, as one of the receptive skills, is the foundation to develop other language skills in English learning. Because of its importance and necessity, there have been plenty of related studies. Meanwhile, foreign accents have also drawn quite a lot of attentions from the academic circles. Therefore, in this research the effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on English listening comprehension for English learners will be analyzed. Generally in this chapter, literature is reviewed in three parts, first on the definitions of phonetics and listening comprehension, second on the related studies concerning the accents, difficulty levels and listening comprehension, and third on the existing problems in the previous studies.

2.1 Definitions

2.1.1 The definition of phonetics

Phonetics is an essential part of language. According to Wikipedia, phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or in the case of sign languages#8212;the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiologic status.

The field of phonetics is a multilayered subject of linguistics that focuses on speech. It looks at speech sounds from three distinct but related points of view: articular phonetics, auditory phonetics and acoustic phonetics respectively. Now there are many variants of English accents, which possess their own pronunciation characteristics.

2.1.2 The definition of listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is a complex process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. What the listener wants to achieve is an adequate understanding of what the speaker means (Brown, 1990). In human communication, listeners not only listen to others, but also have to comprehend what others talk about. That is what is called listening comprehension. Listening comprehension includes the auditory perception and all sorts of cognitive competence in attaining the goal of understanding.

However, different people give different definitions about listening. According to Michael Rost (2002), every definition of listening has some unique aspects. The definition of listening can be understood in four orientations, the receptive, the constructive, the collaborative and the transformative. Michael#8217;s definition of listening is that listening is experiencing contextual effects. In Underwood#8217;s (1989) understanding, listening is ”the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear”. In simple way to students, listening means catching what the speaker says.

From the description above, the author concludes it as follows: different accents influence understanding in listening comprehension process. Despite the multilayer and complexity of phonetics and listening comprehension, however, the research intends to find a connection between accented speech and listening comprehension.

2.2 Related studies concerning the accents, difficulty levels and listening comprehension

In the past twenty years, the research for English accents has been a hot issue in the field of psychological linguistics. Most related researches (Huang, 1995; Wang, 2008; Cargile, 1997) mainly focused on the development of phonological awareness and the relationship between phonological awareness and reading, spelling, attitudes, etc. Meanwhile, many researches have also proved that there is correlative relationship between the reading comprehension and the phonological awareness for children (Beth, 2008; Guan, 2009).

Eisenstein and Berkowitz (1981) showed clearly that English learners more easily understood their native-accented English than either foreign-accented English. Obviously, learners had a distinct advantage in listening comprehension and intelligibility when the speaker shared the listener#8217;s accent. Wilcox (1978) had also demonstrated this argument, who concluded that Singaporean learners of English found speakers of their own accent background easier to understand than speakers from different accent backgrounds.

Otherwise, more persuasive evidence has confirmed those previous findings that familiar accented speech is easier to understand. Tauroza and Luk (1997) argued that familiarity with a certain foreign accent was a significant point to listening comprehension. Gass and Varonis (1984) also found that familiarity with a foreign accent was a key factor in listening comprehension, in addition to the listener#8217;s familiarity with the speaker, with nonnative speech in general, and with a given topic.

In addition, some researchers (Goh, 1999; Brindley, 2002; Bacon, 1992) had studied the effect of materials#8217; difficulty on listening comprehension. Zheng (2010) also had mentioned that topic familiarity and different difficulty levels affected listening comprehension. In his study, participants were arranged to listen to news reports respectively from China Daily(at the easy difficulty level) and Voice of America(at the difficult difficulty level). According to the result of a paired-sample T test, the researcher found that news reports in China Daily were significantly easier to understand than listening materials in Voice of America. Brindley (2002) had also found that the difficulty had its effect upon the listening comprehension.

Through the previous related studies, to a certain extent, we can see that accents or difficulty levels do make effect on English reading or listening comprehension; meanwhile, most research subjects are children, and little study is done with the adult learners of English as a foreign language. So the author intends to research the relationship and effects between accents and difficulty levels on listening comprehension and took the non-English majors as the main subject to explore the contribution of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels to the listening comprehension.

2.3 Problems in the previous studies

In the past few decades, more and more scholars come into notice the necessities of studying the effects of the accents on listening comprehension. However, there still exist some problems in the previous studies.

Firstly, from the previous studies, we could easily learn that researches into the effects of accents on listening comprehension are relatively scarce and fewer findings have been yielded, compared with those on phonological awareness or listening comprehension. In addition, some researches had only studied the effect of difficulty levels on listening comprehension, not mentioning that the effect between accents and difficulty levels on English learners#8217; listening. Furthermore, there is much fewer researches referring to the relationship between the Chinese and American accents on English listening comprehension.

Secondly, some studies focused on the development, the theoretical analysis of different English accents (Li, 2009; Zhang, 2004), lacking practical measures. In addition, there have been no clear findings to the effect of accents on listening comprehension. Some prefer to the native accent which is rather easily understood, some tend to that familiar accented speech (native and nonnative) and others are not very clear.

In brief, there are still many insufficiencies in the previous studies, which promote the current study to the effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on listening comprehension.

References

Anderson, H. J., amp; Koehler, K. (1988). The effect of foreign accent and speaking rate on native speaker comprehension. Language Learning, 38, 561-613.

Anderson, H. J., Johnson, R., amp; Koehler, K. (1992). The relationship between native speaker judgments of nonnative pronunciation and deviance in segmentals, prosody and syllable structure. Language Learning, 42, 529-555.

Bacon, S. (1992). Authentic listening in Spanish: how learners adjust their strategies to the difficulty of the input. Hispania, 75, 398-412.

Beth, M. P., Jeanine, C. M., Christopher, J. L. (2008). Successful Phonological Awareness Instruction with Preschool Children, Early Children Special Education, 3, 175-178.

Brindley, G., amp; H. Slatyer. (2002). Exploring task difficulty in ESL listening assessment. Language Testing, 19, 369-394.

Brown, G. (1990). Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman press.

Cargile, A.C. (1997). Attitudes toward Chinese-accented speech: An investigation in two contexts. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16, 434-443.

Chreist, F. M. (1969). Foreign Accent. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 43-45.

Eisentein. M. R., amp; Berkowitz, D. (1981). The effect of phonological variation on adult learner comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 4, 75-80.

Gass, S., amp; Varonis, E. M. (1984). The effect of familiarity on nonnative speech. Language Learning, 34, 65#8211;89.

Guan, J. S. [关靖斯], 2009, 大学生英语语音意识与阅读能力相关性研究. 哈尔滨:理工大学,31-33。

Goh, C. (1997). Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners. ELT Journal, 4, 69-74.

Goh, C. (1999). How much do learners know about the factors that influence their listening comprehension. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4, 17-39.

Hosoda, M., E. F. Romero., amp; J. N. Walter. (2007). Listeners#8217; cognitive and affective reactions to English speakers with standard American English and Asian accents. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 104, 307-326.

Huang, H. S., Hanley, J. R., (1995). Phonological Awareness and Visual Skills in Learning to Read Chinese and English, cognition. Oxford: University of Liverpool, UK, 1, 73-77.

Li, Q. [李琼],2009,英美澳英语差异漫谈. 襄樊学院学报 (30): 53-57。

Lin, S. R. [林韶蓉],2012,我国英语语音研究与教学现状分析与建议. 福建农林大学学报(2):95-98。

Li, S. W. [黎素薇], 2010, 英语语言能力与听力水平相关度研究. 湛江师范学院学报(5):142-146。

Michael, R. (2002). Teaching and Researching Listening. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Munro, M. J., amp; Derwing, T. M. (1995b). Processing time, accent, and comprehensibility in the perception of native and foreign-accented speech. Language and Speech, 38, 289-306.

Rivers, W. M., amp; Mary, S. T. (1978). A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language . New York: Oxford University Press.

Rod, E. (1999). Understanding Second language acquisition. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Tauroza, S., amp; Luk, J. (1997). Accent and second language listening comprehension. RELC Journal, 28, 54-71.

Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. New York: Longman Press.

Wang, W. Z. [汪文珍],2008,英语语音. 上海:上海外语教育教学出版社。

Wilcox, G. K. (1978). The effect of accent on listening comprehension: A Singapore study. English Language Teaching Journal, 32, 118#8211;127.

Wu, Z. Q. [吴泽琼],2007,试论英汉语语音差异对英语听力的影响及解决办法.当代教育论坛学科教育研究 (07):72-76。

Xia, P. Z. [夏鹏铮],2009,英语语言对英语听力的影响及实证分析. 考试周刊 (7):68-71。

Yu, L.[于璐],2003,学习策略与听力理解. 中国英语教学(4): 3-11。

Zhang,Y. [张毅],2004,谈标准英语、中国英语和中国式英语. 集美大学学报(5):94-98。

Zheng, H.M. [郑慧敏],2010,基于中国日报和美国之音新闻英语听力材料的听力理解对比研究. 上海:上海交通大学(硕士论文)。

Phonetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetics

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

3.Research methodology

3.1 Research questions

This study mainly investigates the effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on English learners#8217; listening comprehension. To be specific, it addresses the following three research questions:

1. Is there any main effect of Chinese and American accents on English learners#8217; listening comprehension?

2. Is there any main effect of difficulty levels on English learners#8217; listening comprehension?

3. Is there any interaction effect between accents and difficulty levels on English learners#8217; listening comprehension?

3.2 Listening materials and tasks

Passage. Firstly, ten CET-6 model listening materials were tested by Readability Analyzer, such as the length and difficulty of the text. Then, a pretest (if the answer is correct, the listener will be given 1 point) was conducted to further test their difficulty levels among 25 English majors from Nanjing Tech University. In this pretest, students listened to the 10 passages and finished 4 multiple choices after each passage. Then 4 listening passages were chosen out as two groups. Group one consists of two which belong to the difficult level, including 260 and 288 words; group two is made up of the other two of the easy level, including 258 and 279 words.

These four passages were recorded respectively by two experienced university English teachers who have taught English for about 20 years#8212;one in standard American accent and the other in standard Chinese accent. Moreover, the recording was at normal speed and quite clear without any background noise. Each passage should be finished recording in about 2 minutes in order to minimize the effects of different speaking rates on English listening comprehension.

Here are the results of listening materials by Readability Analyzer and in the pretest in standard American accent.

Table 3.1 The result of four listening materials by Readability Analyzer

Passage 1

Passage 2

Passage 3

Passage 4

Number of Sentences:

15

13

14

14

Words Per Sentence:

17.07

20.69

18.14

18.86

Characters Per Word:

4.38

4.81

4.73

5.72

Flesch Reading Ease:

68.56

53.74

58.52

20.42

Fog Scale Level:

10.89

13.63

13.71

18.6

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level

7.94

10.9

9.6

15.1

Table 3.1 above shows a general description of the number of sentences, words of per sentences, characters of per word, flesch reading ease, fog scale level and flesch-kincaid grade level in each of these four listening materials.

As statistics in Table 3.1 and Note indicated, the fog scale levels of the first two materials (Passage 1=10.89; Passage 2=13.63) are slightly lower than those of the next two materials (Passage 3=13.71; Passage 4=18.6). However, the data are not fully consistent during flesh reading ease, fog scale level and flesch-kincaid grade level. There are some probable reasons, such as the absence of speciality for Readability Analyzer, occasionally and inaccuracy of results. As a result, a pretest would be conducted to further test these listening materials#8217; difficulty levels.

Table 3.2 Descriptive statistics for the pretest of four materials in standard American accent

Passage 1

Passage 2

Passage 3

Passage 4

70

58

41

40

M

2.8

2.32

1.64

1.6

(Note: ”∑” refers to the summation of 25 ESL learners#8217; listening scores; ”M” refers to the mean score of these 25 learners#8217; total results.)

Table 3.2 has showed the summation and the mean score of 25 English majors in the pretest. According to statistics above, the summations and mean scores of the first two passages are higher than those of the next two passages.

Table 3.3 Pared-samples T test of four materials at the same difficulty level in the pretest

t

df

p

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

E1-E2

1.901

24

.069

1.262

.252

D1-D2

.153

24

.880

1.306

.261

(Note: ”E1-E2” represents the comparative analysis between the two easier passages; ”D1-D2” represents the comparative analysis between the two more difficult passages.)

Table 3.3 above shows an overall description of the t-value, degree of freedom, p-value, standard deviation and standard error mean of four listening passages at the same difficulty level.

As statistics in Table 3.3 indicated, there is not a significant difference between the two easier passages (p=.069gt;.05). Meanwhile, there also does not exist a clear difference between the two more difficult passages (p=.880gt;.05).

Table 3.4 Pared-samples T test of four materials at the different difficulty levels in the pretest

t

df

p

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

E1-D1

4.418 **

24

.000

1.313

0.263

E1-D2

4.243 **

24

.000

1.414

0.283

E2-D1

3.180 **

24

.004

1.069

0.214

E2-D2

2.823 **

24

.009

1.275

0.255

(Note: ”E*-D*” represents the comparative analysis between the two passages at different difficulty levels. * plt;0.05; ** plt;0.01.)

Table 3.4 above also shows an overall description of the t-value, degree of freedom, p-value, standard deviation and standard error mean of four listening passages at the different difficulty levels in the pretest.

As Table 3.4 shows, the pared-samples T test finds there exist extremely significant differences during these four groups at different difficulty levels (plt;.01).

The tables shown above can be summarized into mainly as follows. First of all, according to the result tested by Readability Analyzer, four listening materials in table 3.1 can be divided into two levels: the first two materials are easier and the last two are more difficult. Then, according to table 3.2-3.4 in pretest, there is no significant difference between the listening materials at the same difficulty level, while the pared-samples T test finds there exist extremely significant differences during those four pairs at different difficulty levels.

Task. Two different tasks were related to the listening materials. The first task involved multiple-choice related to the best answer according to the listening passages in Chinese accent for class 1. The second task involved the same listening materials in American accent for class 2.

Participants/Subjects. The experiment was arranged to 110 freshmen of non-English majors, coming from two parallel classes in Nanjing Tech University. According to their final English performance and the average scores of two classes, these 110 freshmen were in similar English level and arranged into two groups.

1) Group 1 ( N = 55 ): Listening comprehension once plus four choices. Participants in group 1 were asked to listen to four passages once in Chinese accent at normal speed and then answer four multiple-choice questions for each passage.

2) Group 2 ( N = 55): Listening comprehension once plus four choices. Participants in group 2 were asked to listen to four passages once in American accent at normal speed and then answer four multiple-choice questions for each passage.

3.3 Data collection

All 110 participants were assigned into two groups: group one would take the test in American accent and group two in Chinese accent. The test paper consists of four passages, including two easy passages and two difficult passages. Each passage is about 2 minutes long with four multiple-choice questions. At the end of each passage, listeners would be given 40 seconds to finish the four questions. During the test, the instructor in each classroom would strength the monitoring and enforce the discipline. After the test, all the participants#8217; test papers were collected to make a subsequent analysis.

3.4 Data analysis

The scoring criterion to this test was one point for each question. If the answer was correct, the listener would get one point; if not, zero was given. Then calculating the scores of each passage and summarizing all the data sets. Finally all the data sets were submitted to SPSS 17.0 for statistical analysis and a mixed ANOVA was conducted to analyze the correlation of all the data sets and find the main effects of Chinese and American accents and difficulty levels on English listening comprehension.

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