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

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00606
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: The 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
• Keywords: articulatory setting / speech rest position / tongue / ultrasound / English / Japanese / Chinese / bilingual

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.

Free Research Field

Articulatory phonetics

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。