A Study of the Pitch Accent of the Eastern Tokyo Metropolitan Region based on Speech and Listening surveys

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13203
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02070:Japanese linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Nihon University
• Principal Investigator: HAYASHI Naoki 日本大学, 経済学部, 講師 (70707869)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: アクセント / 首都圏東部域 / あいまいアクセント / 埼玉特殊アクセント / 音響的特徴 / 発話調査 / 聞き取り調査 / Web調査

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study aims to clarify the actual condition of "ambiguous accents" from multiple surveys, mainly in the eastern Tokyo metropolitan area, which has been pointed out as an area of "ambiguous accents" in the past.
The results of a Web-based Listening survey revealed that two features, descending drop-in pitch and relative peak position, mutually affect the naturalness and discrimination of accents. In addition, speaker classification using cluster analysis identified two types of speakers: those who listen to the slight differences in features and those who listen to the large differences in features. This was not clearly pointed out in previous studies, and was considered to suggest that there is diversity in the tendency to listen to accents in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Free Research Field

日本語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的・社会的意義は，1) 対面調査が困難な時期において，Webを介した音声提示調査という比較的新しい調査方法を実施し，その方法を詳細に記述したこと，2) 首都圏におけるアクセントの聞き取り傾向の多様性と，その特徴を明らかにしたこと，以上2点にまとめられる。