Abstract: Stereotyped as simple oral pronunciation training, pronunciation teaching is actually a process to guide the learners to achieve phonological acquisition of different phonetic forms. As a prerequisite for the successful acquisition of a foreign language, pronunciation teaching is one of the key links in foreign language teaching. This paper begins with a discussion of the main differences and similarities among phonology, phonetics and pronunciation teaching. Phonology is primarily concerned with the conceptual system of phonological symbols and phonetics mainly deals with the physical manifestation of these conceptual symbols. While the phonological concept of “a sound” may well be taken as a continuous “range of quantitative variations in phonetic values”, any value within which can be treated as that sound, the most representative one is the peak value of that range and its representativeness or typicality decreases gradually from the peak to the ends of both sides. The purport of pronunciation teaching is to help learners progress gradually from non-typical or non-representative interval values (or even some wrong values) to the most representative or typical peak value in their sound production and perception, and enable them to acquire the ability to distinguish phonetic values from different ranges, i.e., the phonological ability of sound production and perception. The fact that many of the beginners will often return to their original state soon after they receive the correction of their pronunciation reflects to some extent that a person’s oral pronunciation is in fact largely dependent on his underlying phonological awareness or ability. After identifying some of the major problems that exist in the current foreign language pronunciation teaching in China, the paper points out explicitly that the poor pronunciation of the non-native speakers mainly lies in the problem that the unstressed are often not unstressed enough in pronunciation. Therefore, in our pronunciation teaching, emphasis must be laid on the relation between the individual sounds and the overall natural flow that is composed of these sounds, and the relation between the individual stereotyped sound gesture and the general trend of elastic sound wave in our speech. Hence, the paper demonstrates in detail that our pronunciation teaching aims not merely to improve the learners' foreign language pronunciation, but more importantly to help the learners increase their phonological awareness, set up a system of inner phonological concepts of the language they intend to acquire, and truly grasp the actual pronunciation of the target language. 

Keywords: phonology; phonetics; pronunciation teaching; phonological awareness.

摘要： 语音教学不是通常人们所认为的那种单纯的口头语音训练，而是指导学习者进行由表及里的音系习得过程。语音教学事关外语习得的成功，是外语教学的关键环节之一。本文首先从语音学、音系学与语音教学的关系入手，系统说明这三者的基本概念及其区别所在。音系学研究的主要是语言的概念符号系统，而语音学则主要是针对这些概念符号系统的物理体现形式。音系学中所说的“音”，实际上是一个连续性的“音值的量变区间”。其中，音值区间内的任何一个值，原则上都可用以指代表这个音值区间的音，但最能代表这个音的值应该是这个音值区间的峰值，峰值两边的值，其代表性或典型性则是逐渐递减的。语音教学就是帮助学习者要在发音与听音两个方面从不具典型性或代表性音值区间值（甚至非音值区间值）逐渐过度到最具典型性或代表性的音值区间峰值的过程，从而获得辨别不同音值区间的音的能力——即说与听的音系能力。初学者在纠正发音后发音不够稳定，常常又回到纠音之前的状况，一定程度上反映了一个人的语音表现其实深受其潜在的音系意识或能力的影响。接着，文章在列举出当前我国外语语音教学所存在的问题的基础上，明确指出非母语者发音不好，主要是发音时往往轻音不轻的问题，语音教学中一定要处理好“音”与“流”、“态”与“势”之间的关系。然后，文章具体阐释了外语语音教学不仅要纠正学习者的发音，更重要的是培养学习者形成并建立所学语言的音系概念和意识，帮助他们获取所学语言的音系能力，从而真正掌握所学语言的实际发音。

关键词: 音系学, 语音学, 语音教学, 音系意识