2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Why English sounds fast to the ears of Japanese? --- A study on English rate perceived by Japanese speakers
| Project/Area Number |
24520645
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Foreign language education
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| Research Institution | Mejiro University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
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| Keywords | 速度知覚 / 単語親密度 / 語彙アクセス |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This research aims to search for reasons why English sounds fast to Japanese speakers even though there is no significant difference in rate between English and Japanese. I focused on the relationship between perceived rate and 1) language specific phonetic characteristics of English, which is typically different from those of Japanese, namely, pause distribution, stress-timed rhythm, consonant clusters, and reduction, and 2) word familiarity, or lexical access speed.
Experiments were conducted to examine if those factors affect English rate perceived by Japanese speakers. The results suggested that slower lexical access deriving from their underdeveloped vocabulary is the major reason why Japanese speakers perceive English as fast rather than language specific phonetic characteristics of English.
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| Free Research Field |
実験音声学
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