1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Acquisition of Rhythmic Patterns in English by Native Speakers of English and Japanese Learners
| Project/Area Number |
08610529
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
言語学・音声学
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| Research Institution | Juntendo University |
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Principal Investigator |
SUDO Michiko Juntendo Univ., Dept.ofSports and Health Science, Associate Professor, スポーツ健康科学部, 助教授 (60226587)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MATSUNO Kazuhiko Univ.of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (90029679)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1996 – 1997
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| Keywords | perception / production / second language acquisition / rhythm / prosody / English articles / weak forms / acoustic features |
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of the present study was to find out how rhythm in English influences the perception and production of English by Japanese learners. As one of the aspects of rhythm, we wanted to investigatethe perception and production of stress-related variants. We selected one of the frequently-used weak forms-articles-and examined their perception and production. We compared the influence of acoustic features-the closure period of the preceding consonants and the duration of articles-on the perception of English articles for Japanese learners of English, with that of native speakers of English. Perceptual experiments were conducted using speech stimuli in which the durational characteristics were manipulated by a speech-wave editing program. We found that the Americans and the Japanese behaved very differently with respect to the perception of durational features in their perception of articles. Furthermore, we found that Japanese depend to a much greater degree on secondary features, as compared to native speakers. Native speakers depend on these durational features only when the primary feature of the article does not override these secondary features. In the case of Japanese, it is likely that the difficulty in the perception of the consonant element contributes to their excessie dependence on temporal features. Also, it was shown that the production pattern of these features by each of the subject groups is related to their characteristic perception pattern.
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Research Products
(6 results)
