Katsura Aoyama

Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: the case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/

Abstract Previous research has demonstrated that English /r/ is perceptually more dissimilar from Japanese /r/ than English /l/ is for native Japanese (NJ) speakers. It has been proposed by the Speech Learning Model that the more distant an L2 sound (phonetic segment) is from the closest L1 speech sound, the more learnable the L2 sound will be (in: W. Strange (Ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross-language Research, York Press, Timonium, MD, 1995, p. 233). This hypothesis was evaluated in this study by investigating whether NJ speakers will have more success acquiring English /r/ than /l/. A longitudinal study examined the perception (Experiment 1) and production (Experiment 2) of English /l/, /r/, and/w/ by NJ adults and children who were living in the US at the time of testing. The results suggested that there was greater improvement for English /r/ than English /l/ among the NJ children. The NJ childrens discrimination of /l/-/r/ and /r/-/w/ was significantly better at the second testing (T2) than 1 year earlier (T1). The NJ children also showed greater improvement from T1 to T2 in producing /r/ than /l/. The results are taken as support for a hypothesis of the Speech Learning Model (in: W. Strange (Ed.), Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross-language Research, York Press, Timonium, MD, 1995, p. 233) that degree of perceived phonetic dissimilarity influences L2 learners’ success in acquiring L2 phonetic segments.

Perception of Syllable-Initial and Syllable-Final Nasals in English by Korean and Japanese Speakers.

In both Korean and English, /m/ and /n/ contrast syllable-initially and /m/, /n/ and /&rhookn;/ contrast syllable-finally. In Japanese, /m/ and /n/ contrast syllable-initially while nasals do not contrast syllable-finally. Experiment 1 of this study investigated Korean and Japanese speakers’ perception of English nasals to examine how learners’ L1 influences the perception of L2 segments. The Japanese speakers had considerable difficulty distinguishing /&rhookn;/ from /n/ syllable-finally. Final /m/-/&rhookn;/ and /m/-/n/ were not particularly problematic for the Japanese speakers, although these contrasts do not exist in their L1. Experiment 2 examined the perceived relation between English /m/, /n/ and /&rhookn;/ and Japanese categories to investigate why final /n/-/&rhookn;/ was especially difficult for the Japanese speakers. In order to examine which Japanese categories are used to represent final nasals in English, Japanese speakers were asked to write English words used in Experiment 1 with the Katakana orthography. It was found that syllable-final /m/ was assimilated to one Japanese category, (see PDF for character), whereas two or more categories were used to classify /n/ and /&rhookn;/. There was a relatively high degree of overlap in classification between /n/ and /&rhookn;/ since both /n/ and /&rhookn;/ were classified with (see PDF for character) /N/ and yH (see PDF for character). The three final contrasts, /n/-/&rhookn;/, /m/-/&rhookn;/ and /m/-/n/ were classified as one of the assimilation types of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), based on the results from Experiment 2. The syllable-final /m/-/&rhookn;/ and /m/-/n/ contrasts were classified as Uncategorized-Categorized (UC), and the syllable-final /n/-/&rhookn;/ contrast was classified as Both Uncategorizable (UU). PAM expects discrimination to be very good for UC, but poor for UU if the two non-native categories are relatively similar to each other. The results from Experiment 1 for the Japanese speakers were consistent with the PAM prediction.

Cross-Linguistic Tendencies and Durational Contrasts in Geminate Consonants: An Examination of Guinaang Bontok Geminates

In Guinaang Bontok, there is a phonological contrast between singletons and geminates in all consonants (/ptk?bdgmnnlswj/) (Reid 1963, 1973; Thurgood 1997). All phonological geminates except for the oral voiced stop geminates are phonetically long consonants (Reid 1963), allowing a phonological distinction which is primarily based on phonetic duration for nasals, fricatives, liquids, glides and voiceless stops. In a cross-linguistic examination of geminates (Thurgood 1993), there were more languages listed as examples for having stop and nasal geminates than for glide geminates, and it was suggested that alveolar was the cross-linguistically preferred place of articulation for geminate consonants. In this study, it was hypothesized that the cross-linguistically less common length contrasts, such as the length contrasts in glides, were phonetically less clear than the more common ones, such as contrasts between short and long stop and nasal consonants. Similarly, it was hypothesized that contrasts in the cross-linguistically common place of articulation (i.e. alveolar) is phonetically clearer than less common contrasts (e.g. velar). In order to test these hypotheses, duration measurements were conducted on single and geminate consonants in Guinaang Bontok. The average durational contrast between short and long glides was smaller than the contrast in stop and nasal consonants. The hypothesis was therefore partially supported.

A psycholinguistic perspective on Finnish and Japanese prosody : perception, production and child acquisition of consonantal quantity distinctions

List of figures. List of tables. Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction. 2. Background. 3. Preliminary survey: Frequencies of long vowels and geminate consonants in Finnish and Japanese. 4. Discrimination boundary between the single and geminate consonants. 5. Discrimination boundary between the single and geminate consonants: A cross-linguistic study. 6. Acquisition of the nasal quantity contrasts. 7. Discussion: Overall cross-linguistic comparison. 8. Summary and conclusion. References. Appendix I: Waveforms and spectrograms for the words hana and hanna. Appendix II: Sample pictures and questions. Appendix III: Data from experiments 1 and 2. Appendix IV: Data from experiments 3 and 4. Appendix V: Data from experiments 5 and 6. Appendix VI: Data from experiments 7 and 8.

Phonological Changes during the Transition from One-Word to Productive Word Combination.

We investigated developmental changes during the transition from one-word to two-word production, focusing on strategies to lengthen utterances phonologically and to control utterances suprasegmentally. We hypothesized that there is a period of reorganization at the onset of word combinations indicated by decreases in both filler syllables (Fillers) and final syllable lengthening (FSL). The data are from a visually impaired child (Seth) between 1; 6.21 and 1; 10.26. Seth produced many Fillers until 1; 9 when their number decreased for about two weeks after which they changed in nature. FSL was observed until 1; 8, but diminished at 1; 9. These two regressions coincide with the onset of word combination.

Acoustic characteristics of American English /ɹ/ and /l/ produced by Japanese adults and children

This study investigated the acoustic properties of American English /ɹ/ and /l/ produced by native Japanese (NJ) and native English (NE) speakers. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in production reported in Aoyama et al. (2004) acoustically. Aoyama et al. evaluated productions of /ɹ/ and /l/ in 64 NE and NJ adults and children (16 participants each in 4 groups) using intelligibility ratings. The data were collected twice to study the acquisition of English by the NJ adults and children. In this study, four acoustic parameters (duration, F1, F2, and F3) were measured in 256 tokens each of /ɹ/ and /l/. The results showed that some aspects of acoustic parameters changed significantly over the course of one year in NJ speakers’ productions, and that the critical acoustic parameter, the F3 frequency, decreased from Time 1 to Time 2 in both NJ adults and children. However, almost all of the acoustic parameters differed significantly between NJ and NE speakers at both times of testing. The...

Acoustical analysis of English /r/ and /l/ by native Japanese adults and children

This study investigated the acoustic properties of American English /r/ and /l/ produced by native Japanese (NJ) and native English (NE) speakers. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in production reported in Aoyama et al. (2004) acoustically. Aoyama et al. evaluated productions of /r/ and /l/ in 64 NE and NJ adults and children (16 participants each in 4 groups) using intelligibility ratings. The data were collected twice to study the acquisition of English by the NJ adults and children. In this study, four acoustic parameters (duration, F1, F2, and F3) were measured in 256 tokens each of /r/ and /l/. The results showed that all of the acoustic parameters differed significantly between NJ and NE speakers at both times of testing. Some aspects of acoustic parameters changed significantly over the course of one year in NJ children’s productions. Lastly, the formant values in NJ speakers’ productions indicated that their productions of both /r/ and /l/ resembled NE speakers’ productions...

The acquisition of quantity contrasts in Guina-ang Bontok:

This study reports on the acquisition of quantity contrasts in Guina-ang Bontok, an indigenous language spoken in the Philippines. Four-year-old and 5-year-old children’s perception and production of quantity contrasts were examined using a pair of names that contrast in the quantity of the medial nasal. Frequencies of the quantity contrast were also calculated using stories in Guina-ang Bontok. The results indicated that even though the overall frequency of geminate consonants was very low in Guina-ang Bontok, children clearly differentiated the single and geminate nasals in both perception and production. Guina-ang Bontok children’s perception and production data resembled those of Finnish children although the frequency of the geminates was much lower in Guina-ang Bontok than in Finnish. Possible explanations for this are provided.

Persian speakers of English: Acoustics of vowel epenthesis

This study results from the need to develop further understanding into the process of vowel epenthesis which is often observed with second language learners. The purpose of this study was to examine the epenthetic vowels produced by Persian speakers of English to determine the acoustical characteristics and to ascertain if these vowels were acoustically different or similar to the main vowels. Past research indicated that at times the vowels could be copies of the main vowels but at other times they were different. However, no acoustical data were provided in regards to the acoustical characteristics of the epenthetic vowels (durations, F1, and F2 frequencies). Twenty Persian speakers of English took part in the study. All participants arrived in the United States after the age of 22. All of the participants demonstrated limited English proficiency on a standardized measure. The results indicated that the epenthetic vowels produced were qualitatively different from the main vowels in terms of duration, F1...

A longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English immersion setting.

The effect of age of acquisition on first‐ and second‐language vowel production was investigated. Eight English vowels were produced three times in two different words each by 16 native Japanese (NJ) adults and children as well as 16 age‐matched native English (NE) speaking adults. Productions were recorded shortly after the NJ participants’ arrival in the United States and then 1 year later. In agreement with previous investigations [Aoyama et al., J. Phonetics 32, 233–250 (2004)], children were able to learn faster, leading to higher accuracy than adults in a year’s time. Based on acoustic measurements, NJ adults had more accurate production at Time 1 but made no changes across time. The NJ children, on the other hand, showed significant differences from NE children’s productions for /ɪ/, /e/, /ɑ/, /ʌ/, and /U/ at Time 1, but produced all eight vowels in a native‐like manner at Time 2. A follow up examination of NJ children’s productions of Japanese /i/, /a/, /u/ revealed significant changes for Japanes...