[l] and [n] alternations among Sichuan English speakers： An exploratory study.docVIP

[l] and [n] alternations among Sichuan English speakers： An exploratory study 　　【Abstract】The alternation of [l] and [n] is one of the phonological features that distinguish Sichuan English speakers from other Mandarin English speaking groups. This study aims to explore whether the alternation is random， or if it is not， what are the conditions that influence the alternation. The data are from 12 college graduates， who are asked to read a word list as well as a short story containing target sounds. Results show that the alternation is not random. The more frequent direction is [l] changing into [n]， and sounds on the right changing into the one on the left. 　　【Key words】[l] and [n]； Sichuan English 　　Introduction 　　In the beginning of the movie My Fair Lady， Professor Higgins impresses everyone with his ability to tell a person’s birthplace by the way they speak. He attributes this ability to the “science of speech” （Cukor， 1964）， which in fact refers to the phonetic features that speakers from different places have. Not only can people’s first language be evidence of their hometown， their second language can also give a clue. One intriguing observation is that native Sichuan dialect speakers tend to have distinctive ways of articulating [l] and [n] when speaking English. To date， few literature is available to account for the rules underlying the alternation. 　　As for whether [l] and [n] are interchangeable in Sichuan dialect， the opinions vary. Some scholars suggest that [n] in Sichuan dialect functions as [n] and [l] in Standard Mandarin （Wang 1994， Zhou 2001）， and Wang （1994） states that [n] in Sichuan dialect is different from the nasal consonant [n] in Standard Mandarin. Instead， it is a nasalized [l]， namely， [l?]. However， Ma & Tan （1998） points out that [l] and [n] both exists in Sichuan dialect， and they are in free variation. Besides， one of the participants interviewed， who is a native speaker of Sichuan dialect， maintains that [l] and [n] are two d