Abdominal enhancement techniques for L2 English phoneme pronunciation: Comparing the effectiveness of the techniques for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers

Production of certain English phonemes relies heavily on effort from the abdominal region, and under-utilization this region by second language speakers can create difficulties pronouncing these sounds. In particular, production long vowel/diphthong sounds requires sustained contraction to maintain length phonemes, voiced fricative consonants a sharp burst expel air lungs adequately voice consonant. Both Cantonese Mandarin have particular problems producing study compared how instruction in techniques effected two learner groups. The focused vowel diphthong sounds, /iː/, /uː/ /eɪ/, consonants, /z/,/ð/, /v/ /ʒ/. A previous author had found improved Chinese learners’ phonemes. learners that were evenly divided between speakers, reanalysed data examine which speaker group benefited more techniques. Results showed major beneficiaries Importantly, also explored, depth, likely reasons for this.