English stops appear in the word-initial or word-final. They can compose consonant clusters, along with other consonants. Consonant clusters also appear in the word-initial or word-final. Recent research shows that Korean-Chinese EFL learners have difficulties in learning both English syllable structures and stops. In particular, their pronunciation of English stops demonstrates Korean phonetic characteristics. Through the study of stops in the word-final in English and in Korean we find that stops in the word-final in English are released and partially aspirated, and that those released and partially aspirated sounds are allophones of stops. In English, neither aspirated nor unaspirated distinguishes meanings; but either voiced or voiceless does distinguish meanings. Stops in the word-final in Korean are unreleased and unaspirated. In Korean both aspirated stops and forced stops are unreleased in the word-final. In Korean either aspirated or unaspirated and the degree of tense distinguishes meanings.

This thesis contrasts stops in the word-final in English with those in Korean. It summarizes similarities and differences of word final stops between English and Korean. In order to study the characteristics of the English pronunciation of stops in the word-final position by Korean-Chinese College students, a case study was designed. The results display unreleased stops, epenthesis and substitution in the pronunciation of English stops in the word final position. The results show that when they generated English stops in the word-final position, Korean-Chinese College students transferred a native language constraint ranking system.

The second chapter contrasts stops, syllable structure and stops in the word final position in English with those of Korean, at phonemic and phonetic level. The third chapter studies characteristics of English stops in the word final position by Korean-Chinese students. It includes both a case study and OT analysis of the statistical results. The fourth chapter summarizes the characteristics of the pronunciation of English stops in the word-final position by Korean-Chinese students.

Key words: stops; aspirated/unaspirated; released/unreleased