Perception of Japanese accented English segments in words
We studied the perception of segmental boundaries in native English and Japanese accents in terms of foreign
accentedness, intelligibility and discrimination accuracy. Five American English vowels /ɪ, æ, ɑ, ə, ɝ/ and seven consonants /r,
l, v, θ, f, t, k/ were extracted from English and Japanese words produced by an American English-Japanese bilingual speaker, and manipulated, with the acoustic properties shifting gradually from 100% Japanese to 100% American English using segmental foreign accent and
gradation techniques. Perception tests were conducted online with native American English speakers, and groups of Japanese
speakers with either low or high English proficiency. All three groups showed a negative correlation between the degree of foreign
accent and intelligibility. Also, there was a greater reduction in intelligibility due to acoustic deviation from the native norm
in consonants than in vowels. The results suggest that more standard-like accent does not necessarily improve intelligibility,
thus highlighting the importance of FA research in terms of segmental accuracy.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Phonetics and phonology of Japanese accented English
- 2.1Vowel features of English and Japanese accented English
- 2.2Consonant features of English and Japanese accented English
- 2.3Differences in prosodic features between English and Japanese
- 2.4Selecting the test words
- 3.Experimental methods
- 3.1Selecting and recording test word tokens
- 3.2Synthesizing bilingual tokens
- 3.3Participants for the perception tests
- 3.4Tasks for the perception tests
- 4.Results
- 4.1Full overview
- 4.2Consonants
- 4.3Vowels
- 4.4Summary of the results
- 4.5Inter-task correlation
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgment
- Notes
-
References