Impacts of areal environment on English-as-a-foreign-language learners’ perceptions and practices in pronunciation learning

Areal environment is generally believed to impact second-language (L2) pronunciation attainment, yet how it influences perceptions and practices in L2 pronunciation learning is under-researched, which is the focus of this study. Four groups of 166 English-as-a-foreign-language learners in Hong Kong and mainland China having received English/Chinese-as-a-medium-of-instruction (EMI vs. CMI) education completed a questionnaire survey. One-way ANOVA tests revealed that the participants differed in both perceptions and practices, and there were more differences between the Hong Kong and mainland groups than between the EMI and CMI groups. In perceptions, the Hong Kong groups showed fewer needs to improve, greater independence, more neutral attitudes to nativeness, and greater confidence than the mainland groups; while the Hong Kong EMI and CMI groups did not differ much, the mainland EMI group differed from the mainland CMI group. In practices, all four groups primarily used British and American accents as pronunciation models, had similar training experiences, and relied on native accents, but differed in channels of learning and efforts invested. Our findings suggest that the public domain influences pronunciation learning more than the educational domain, whose influence becomes evident only when there are limited L2 resources in the public domain.