osodic aspects of pronunciation may have the most effect on intelligibility forsome speakers. Therefore，the teaching of pronunciation focuses on the aspects ofprosody (e.g. stress, rhythm and intonation) because in daily communication peopleuse the connected speech of a language for communication and not just one singleword.
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2.2 Description of the Differences between Target Language~English and the Mother Tongue~Chinese
It is world-wide known that English language is a West Germanic languagewhich belongs to the IndoEuropean Family while Chinese language is one branch ofSino-Tibetan Family. Obviously, there are many differences between Chinese andEnglish.Minimal phonological units which determine meanings are the key points todecide the number of English phonemes. However，there is no agreement about theexact number of English phonemes between phoneticians from different areas. One ofthe main reasons is because these phoneticians speak different dialects and usedifferent methods to calculate phonemes. One of the American phoneticians -Kenyonproposes that there are 44 phonemes altogether in American English which contains19 vowels and 25 consonants. However，Jones claims that there are 48 phonemes,including 20 vowels and 28 consonants, according to the dialect spoken in southernpart of Britain. This phonetic system later develops into a phonetic system of RP.While according to the contemporary phoneticians A.C, Gimson (1989) and PeterRoach (2002)，there are 44 English phonemes which include 20 vowels and 24consonants. In this thesis，the author will transcribe English vowels and consonantsaccording to General RP systems which adopted by Gimson and Roach.
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Chapter Three Methodology............... 24
3.1 Research Questions............... 24
3.2 Research Design............... 24
3.2.1 Research Subjects............... 24
3.2.2 Research Materials............... 25
3.2.3 Research Methods............... 25
3.2.4 Research Procedures............... 26
3.2.5 Data Collection and Analysis............... 26
Chapter Four Research Findings and Discussions............... 28
4.1 Research Findings Concerning Segments............... 28
4.2 Research Findings Concerning Prosodic Features............... 49
Chapter Five Discussions and Implications ...............56
5.1 Discussions............... 56
5.2 Implications............... 62
Chapter Five Discussions and Implications
In the former chapter, the audio materials have been identified and analyzed byboth traditional way and with the new-developed software. The major problems of thechosen subjects, pronunciation have been presented in the former chapter as well asthe distinctive features of the problems. This chapter will focus on the discussion ofthe research findings with reference to some theories of second language acquisitionand previous English pronunciation studies. In addition，the implications to the furtherlearning and teaching English pronunciation are also been put forward. The distinctive features of problematic pronunciation rising in the research arenot showing by random but due to some certain practical and theoretical reasonswhich need to be careful discussed and investigated. Besides，some factors whichhave influenced the learning of English pronunciation will be showed in their answersto research questionnaire.
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Conclusion
English, as one of the most popular languages in the world, is regarded as moreand more important in China for economy aspects.
