and so on是什么意思【A,Comparative,Study,on,English,and,Chinese,Sound,Systems】

　　Abstract: This paper compares different features between English and Chinese sound systems in terms of phonetics and phonology to help teaching and learning English pronunciation.
　　Key words: phonetics, phonology, comparative study
　　Chapter I Introduction
　　Learning the proper pronunciation has always been a headache to many beginners of a second language. Since English and Chinese belong to different language families, English to the West Germanic branch of Indo-European family and Chinese the Sino-Tibetan family, they differ in numerous ways both phonetically and phonologically. This paper is going to compare and analyze the different features of English and Chinese.
　　Chapter II Differences between English and Chinese sound systems
　　By comparing the sound systems of the two languages, this chapter is going to point out some of the differences between English and Chinese sound systems.
　　2.1 Phonetic differences between English and Chinese
　　2.1.1 Consonantal differences
　　Since English and Chinese belong to different language families, their pronunciations are of great divergence. Consonants of the two languages differ in many ways like proper sounds, number and the changing of sounds in different positions and environments.
　　2.1.1.1 Distinctive consonants
　　Both English and Chinese have their distinctive consonants. English has 28 consonants, while Chinese has only 22 consonants, among which there are 5 voiced consonants and 17 voiceless consonants.
　　According to the state of the vocal cords, English consonants can be classified into voiced and voiceless consonants. If it causes the vocal cords to vibrate when a consonant is produced, it is a voiced consonant; otherwise it is a voiceless consonant.
　　There are 22 consonants in Mandarin Chinese, among which there are 17 aspirated consonants: b[p], p[p?], d[t], t[t?], g[k], k[k?], z[ts], c[ts?], j[??], q[???], zh[??], ch[???], f[f], s[s], x[?], sh[?], and h[x](Sun Ying, 2008:112). They include three pairs of stops, three pairs of affricatives, and one pair of fricatives. The five voiced consonants are m[m], n[n], ng[?], l[l] and r[?].
　　The interdental fricatives [θ] and [?], the palatal fricative [?] and the labiodental fricative [v] are distinctive consonants of English, while j[??], q[???], and x[?] are the ones that are proper to Chinese.
　　2.1.1.2 Allophone: the variations of a sound unit
　　A phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound that can distinguish meanings in a language or a dialect. An essential property of a phoneme is that it functions contrastively (Yule, 1996:54). When a sound is substituted for another one and the change of meaning is realized, then the two sounds represent different phonemes.