ABSTRACT
It is a common occurrence in China's exam-focused education system to witness highly educated college students perform well in English tests, but still struggle with spoken English, especially at a supra-segmental level. Based on previous research on L1 transfer and on phonetic characteristics of Chinese and English, the present study examined suprasegmental stress and intonation of Chinese English major college students using mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis. In the phonetic experiments, six participants were required to record materials consisting of four sections, followed by a semi-structured interview during which participants were encouraged to refer to their own learning experiences. The study found that learners tend to stress on backward syllables in certain words with higher pitch and intensity in the second and third syllable. As for intonation patterns, L2 learners prefer falling tones in most sentence types and text types while native speakers apply diversified tones. The results justify previous findings by providing more evidence of the impact of L1 Chinese on L2 English suprasegmental acquisition in stress and into-nation patterns. Furthermore, the study suggests that future EFL teaching should manage to apply effective strategies to help EFL learners to overcome negative L1 transfer on supra-segmental features.
