A phonetic and phonological approach to children's functional speech disorders and adults' foreign accents

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26284058
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Ueda Isao 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科(言語文化専攻), 教授 (50176583)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 松井 理直 大阪保健医療大学, 大阪保健医療大学 保健医療学部, 教授 (00273714) ; 斎藤 弘子 東京外国語大学, 大学院総合国際学研究院, 教授 (10205669) ; 田中 真一 神戸大学, 人文学研究科, 准教授 (10331034) ; 郡 史郎 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科(言語文化専攻), 教授 (40144539) ; 安田 麗 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科(言語社会専攻、日本語・日本文化専攻), 講師 (60711322)
• Research Collaborator: KANEKO Risa 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科, 大学院生 ; DAVIS Stuart インディアナ大学, 教授
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 言語学 / 音声学 / 音韻論 / 機能性構音障害 / 音韻獲得 / 外国語訛り

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The present project addresses itself to delimiting the possible range of phonological system by observing deviant speech in developing phonological structures. Firstly, we focused on functional speech disorders of children. The research result showed that some phonological features‘overridden’ in normal development are still dominant. Next, we scrutinized how Japanese speakers control voicing distinction. We utilized electro-palatography and glottography and found how devoicing and airstream are controlled.
Secondly, in adults’ foreign language acquisition, we had foreign language learners of German and Russian and observed how they handled word-final devoicing. An acoustic analysis showed that some subjects’ production was closely related to English, which is their second language. We also looked into Japanese and Italian and how they adopt loanwords from each other. It was found that the adaptation is strictly governed by the prosodic constraints of the native language.

Free Research Field

言語学