Acoustic Analysis of the Production of Unstressed English Vowels by Early and Late Korean and Japanese Bilinguals

Lee, Borim; Guion, Susan G.; Harada, Tetsuo

doi:10.1017/s0272263106060207

Cited by 79 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…Normalization. To adjust for formant frequency variation due to individual differences in vocal tract length, raw acoustic values were submitted to the following normalization procedure (for details, see Lee, Guion, & Harada, 2006;Yang, 1996). A mean F3 value for /ae/ elicited from three monosyllabic words in WR (i.e., man, map, ram) was calculated for each talker.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Early Phase of /ɹ/ Production Development in Adult Japanese Learners of English

Saito

Munro

2014

Lang Speech

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Although previous research indicates that Japanese speakers' second-language (L2) perception and production of English /ɹ/ may improve with increased L2 experience, relatively little is known about the fine phonetic details of their /ɹ/ productions, especially during the early phase of L2 speech learning. This cross-sectional study examined acoustic properties of word-initial /ɹ/ from 60 Japanese learners with a length of residence (LOR) between one month and one year in Canada. Their performance was compared to that of 15 native speakers of English and 15 lowproficiency Japanese learners of English. Formant frequencies (F2 and F3) and F1 transition durations were evaluated under three task conditions-word reading, sentence reading, and timed picture description. Learners with as little as two to three months of residence demonstrated target-like F2 frequencies. In addition, increased LOR was predictive of more target-like transition durations. Although the learners showed some improvement in F3 as a function of LOR, they did so mainly at a controlled level of speech production. The findings suggest that during the early phase of L2 segmental development, production accuracy is taskdependent and is influenced by the availability of L1 phonetic cues for redeployment in L2.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Early Phase of /ɹ/ Production Development in Adult Japanese Learners of English

Saito

Munro

2014

Lang Speech

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“…To detect a possible influence of orthography (cf. Lee et al 2006) the set of vowels in pre-stress position was split by their orthographic representation -<o> vs. <a>. While pre-stress <a>-vowels (9 tokens per speaker) differ only slightly, the difference in pre-stress <o>-vowels (8 tokens per speaker) is remarkable.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an instrumental study of the pronunciation of four derivational word pairs, Flege and Bohn (1989) found that Spanish learners of English lack vowel reduction in unstressed syllables in terms of quality and quantity. Lee et al (2006) investigated acoustic properties of unstressed vowels in late Japanese and late Korean bilinguals. Compared with native speakers, less vowel reduction and an influence of orthography was found in the productions of the bilinguals, whose unstressed vowels were scattered wider in the F 1 x F 2 space.…”

Section: Unstressed Vowels In L2 Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unstressed Vowels in German Learner English: An Instrumental Study

Sönning

2014

RiL

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This study investigates the production of vowels in unstressed syllables by advanced German learners of English in comparison with native speakers of Standard Southern British English. Two acoustic properties were measured: duration and formant structure. The results indicate that duration of unstressed vowels is similar in the two groups, though there is some variation depending on the phonetic context. In terms of formant structure, learners produce slightly higher F1 and considerably lower F2, the difference in F2 being statistically significant for each learner. Formant values varied as a function of context and orthographic representation of the vowel.

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“…Second, the mean F3 of this speaker was used as the norm and was divided by the mean F3 for each participant. Finally, the F1 and F2 for each participant were multiplied by the factor obtained from their own F3 (see Lee et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding vowel quality, in addition to the fact that Japanese speakers are likely to be insensitive to the phonetic feature of quality, as mentioned earlier, Japanese does not possess a mid-central vowel that is equivalent to the English schwa; therefore, it is plausible that Japanese learners of English are inclined to mispronounce the English schwa sound in peripheral areas in the acoustic vowel space, reflecting their L1 vowels (e.g., Lee et al, 2006;Sugiura, 2006).…”

Section: Auditory Word Repetitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing

Sugiura¹

2016

The Journal of AsiaTEFL

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This study investigates the effects of immediate repetition of auditory words on L2 pronunciation improvement of English schwa by Japanese EFL learners. More specifically, the study is concerned with how the amount of input (i.e., five or ten repetitions) and stimuli characteristics (i.e., the position of schwa in a word, word familiarity) influences the repetition effect. The study consists of a study and a test phase: In the study phase, participants listened to and repeated words. In the test phase, they repeated spoken stimuli including previously heard as well as new words, both ten minutes and one week after the study phase. The auditory materials consisted of 32 real words. The duration ratio of schwa to a stressed vowel in a word and the quality of the schwa were acoustically examined. A repetition effect was mainly found in the durational aspect. Repeating the stimuli more than five times did not differentiate the effect. One week after the study phase, the effect persisted only for initial schwa, which is weakly represented in the participants' mental representation. The pedagogical implications for L2 pronunciation teaching from the view of language processing are discussed.

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Acoustic Analysis of the Production of Unstressed English Vowels by Early and Late Korean and Japanese Bilinguals

Cited by 79 publications

References 57 publications

The Early Phase of /ɹ/ Production Development in Adult Japanese Learners of English

The Early Phase of /ɹ/ Production Development in Adult Japanese Learners of English

Unstressed Vowels in German Learner English: An Instrumental Study

Using Auditory Word Repetition to Improve L2 Pronunciation of English Schwa by Japanese Learners: From the Perspective of Phonological Processing

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