The effects of attention and training methods on the perception of American English vowels by native speakers of Japanese

• Project/Area Number: 25370448
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: Nozawa Takeshi 立命館大学, 経済学部, 教授 (30198593)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
• Budget Amount: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥520,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥120,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
• Keywords: アメリカ英語 / 母音 / 鼻音 / 訓練 / 同定 / 弁別 / 日本語話者 / attention / training / coda nasal / vowel / identification / discrimination / 英語 / 知覚訓練

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The accuracy with which native Japanese listeners identified and discriminated American English vowels and coda nasals was assessed before and after training. The listeners were divided into four groups, each of which received a different type of training. Two of the four groups were vowel-oriented; one of these groups received vowel identification training (VI), while the other received vowel discrimination training (VD). The other two groups were nasal-oriented. One of the nasal-oriented groups received nasal identification training (NI), and the other received nasal discrimination training (ND).
The results revealed that the VI group made more gains in its ability to identify vowels than the other groups after training. No　group made significant gains to discriminate vowels regardless of the training they received. All the four groups made a significant improvement in identifying and discriminating nasals, and no significant difference among the groups was observed.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] EFFECTS OF ATTENTION AND TRAINING METHOD ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF AMERICAN ENGLISH VOWELS AND CODA NASALS BY NATIVE JAPANESE LISTENERS (2015)
  • Author(s): Takeshi Nozawa
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, UK: the University of Glasgow. ISBN 978-0-85261-941-4 Volume: 1 Pages: 1-5
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Presentation] The Effects of Prenasal Raising/Tensing of American English /ae/ on the perception of American English vowels by native Japanese listeners (2016)
  • Author(s): Takeshi Nozawa
  • Organizer: New Sounds 2016: 8th International Conference on Second-Language Speech
  • Place of Presentation: Aarhus, Denmark
  • Year and Date: 2016-06-10
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Effects of training methods and attention on the identification and discrimination of American English coda nasals by native Japanese listeners (2015)
  • Author(s): Takeshi Nozawa
  • Organizer: 170th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
  • Place of Presentation: Jacksonville, FL, USA
  • Year and Date: 2015-11-06
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Effects of Attention and Training Method on the Identification of America English Vowels and Coda Nasals by Native Japanese Listener (2015)
  • Author(s): Takeshi Nozawa
  • Organizer: ICPhS2015 (18th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences)
  • Place of Presentation: SECC Glasgow, Scotland, UK
  • Year and Date: 2015-08-09
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] The identification of American English Vowels by native speakers of Japanese before three nasal consonants (2014)
  • Author(s): Takeshi Nozawa
  • Organizer: The 168th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
  • Place of Presentation: Indianapolis (USA)
  • Year and Date: 2014-10-27
• [Presentation] 英語の母音・鼻音の知覚訓練の波及効果 (2014)
  • Author(s): 野澤 健
  • Organizer: 近畿音声言語研究会
  • Place of Presentation: 関西学院大学梅田キャンパス(大阪)
  • Year and Date: 2014-10-04