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Articulatory settings of English, Japanese, and Chinese bilingual and trilingual speakers

Research Project

Project/Area Number 20K00606
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Review Section Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
Research InstitutionThe University of Aizu

Principal Investigator

WILSON Ian  会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 教授 (50444930)

Project Period (FY) 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2023)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
Keywordsarticulatory setting / speech rest position / tongue / ultrasound / English / Japanese / Chinese / bilingual / frequency of occurrence
Outline of Research at the Start

For a given language, its "articulatory setting" is the default position of the tongue, lips, and jaw just before speaking and between utterances. It has interested phoneticians for centuries, and this knowledge is important for creating articulatory models of the vocal tract and for language teachers and learners who always look for an easier way to modify pronunciation. This research will measure the articulatory settings of bilingual and trilingual speakers of English, Japanese, and Chinese, propose accounts for those differences, and develop software to teach them to language learners.

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To anyone listening to a foreign language, it is obvious that different languages use a different set of sounds. What is not obvious is the fact that each language (and possibly each dialect) also has a different rest position (or "articulatory setting") of the tongue. We used ultrasound to observe the tongue's rest position in Japanese and Chinese speakers who spoke English as a second language. The COVID pandemic started at the same time as this research grant, making it difficult to collect new speech data for the fist two years. However, after taking precautions against COVID, we invited top-level researchers to the phonetics lab, submitted two journal papers (one in press and the other under review), and prepared to host Ultrafest XI in June 2024, an international conference devoted to the use of ultrasound for speech research.

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

調音設定は、声道における言語固有の潜在的な受動筋活動を示すため重要です。この知識は、声道の調音モデルを作成する研究者や、調音設定を基準に舌の動きを測定する人々にとって重要です。発音を簡単に修正する方法を常に探している言語教師や学習者にとっても重要です。まだ検証されていませんが、舌の潜在的な筋活動を全体的に変更するだけで、個々の音を別々に修正するよりも大きく発音を変えることができるかもしれません。声道の受動筋活動の重要性は、NASAの宇宙飛行士の宇宙旅行前後および旅行中の母音空間に関する研究ですでに明らかにされています。これは確かに発話の調音にとって重要なものです。

Report

(5 results)
  • 2023 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report ( PDF )
  • 2022 Research-status Report
  • 2021 Research-status Report
  • 2020 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (6 results)

All 2024 2023 2020

All Journal Article (2 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 1 results,  Peer Reviewed: 1 results) Presentation (4 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 1 results,  Invited: 3 results)

  • [Journal Article] Ultrasound pronunciation training: Pretest-posttest production and discrimination results2024

    • Author(s)
      Noriko YAMANE, Kunyang SUN, Jeremy PERKINS, Ian WILSON, and Xiaofeng TAN
    • Journal Title

      Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech

      Volume: 6 Pages: 1-34

    • Related Report
      2023 Annual Research Report
    • Peer Reviewed / Int'l Joint Research
  • [Journal Article] Using ultrasound to visualize the tongue during speech 超音波による発声中の舌の可視化2024

    • Author(s)
      Ian WILSON
    • Journal Title

      日本音響学会講演論文集

      Volume: 2024 Pages: 1293-1296

    • Related Report
      2023 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] Using ultrasound to visualize the tongue during speech 超音波による発声中の舌の可視化2024

    • Author(s)
      Ian WILSON
    • Organizer
      Acoustical Society of Japan - 2024 Spring Meeting 日本音響学会 第151回 (2024年春季) 研究発表会
    • Related Report
      2023 Annual Research Report
    • Invited
  • [Presentation] Inter-speech posture changes associated with Lombard speech2024

    • Author(s)
      Julian VILLEGAS, Daichi ISHII, and Ian WILSON
    • Organizer
      Ultrafest XI
    • Related Report
      2023 Annual Research Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] Teaching and Researching Articulation Using Ultrasound 超音波を用いた調音の指導と研究2023

    • Author(s)
      Ian WILSON
    • Organizer
      Fukushima Association of Medical Technologists 2023 Regular General Meeting 第54回福島医学検査学会
    • Related Report
      2023 Annual Research Report
    • Invited
  • [Presentation] Articulatory Settings: An Overview and Some Japanese Data2020

    • Author(s)
      Ian WILSON
    • Organizer
      第115回国立国語研究所コロキウム (115th NINJAL Colloquium)
    • Related Report
      2020 Research-status Report
    • Invited

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Published: 2020-04-28   Modified: 2025-01-30  

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