Japanese Students' Shallow and Rapid Respiratory Rhythms on Their Listening and Reading Comprehension in English

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23520737
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Hakodate National College of Technology
• Principal Investigator: OKUZAKI Mariko 函館工業高等専門学校, 一般科目人文系, 教授 (80233451)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): MORIYA Kenji 函館工業高等専門学校, 生産システム工学科, 教授 (90342435)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 日本人 / 浅く速い呼吸 / 深く長い呼吸 / 英語 / 聴解 / 解読

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This paper considers a hypothesis that Japanese students’ shallow and rapid respiratory rhythms due to their hunchback positions interfere their reading and listening comprehension of English, which is delivered on the premise of deep and prolonged respiratory rhythms.
The experimental results suggest 1) the subjects with hunchbacked position have a tendency to read an English sentence back and forth, 2) the subjects in the group of upper TOEIC listening level manage to keep their breathing pace rather short, anticipating sudden rhythmic changes caused by the prosodic features of the English language, and 3) there is no correlation between Japanese students’ respiratory function and oral reading speed in English.

Free Research Field

人文学