Phonetic Training Based on Visualized Articulatory Model

The study employed EMA (electromagnetic articulography) in recording and analyzing the articulatory features of vowels.A visualized 3D articulatory model was then used in our phonetic training.The results of two experiments were reported in the paper.In the first experiment EMA was employed to record the articulatory features of English vowels produced by Chinese EFL learners, an American speaker and a British speaker.Vocalic differences between EFL learners and native English speakers were discussed with their respective EMA articulatory graphs.Corrective feedback from the perspective of physiological articulation was provided regarding EFL learners' problematic vowel production, such as/æ/、/I/、/ʊ/, which had low intelligibility rate.In the second experiment a comparative study was conducted with one group using visualized 3D articulatory model in the phonetic study of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), and the other group employing audio files in the IPA study.It was found from the two tests that the group which employed 3D articulatory model had achieved higher scores, indicating that visualized sources are more helpful than audio files in students' phonetic study.The current paper aims to promote the application of visualized phonetic training in EFL phonetic classes.