Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech

Idemaru, Kaori; Wei, Peipei; Gubbins, Lucy

doi:10.1177/0023830918773118

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…This study complements research showing that pitch accent is a robust predictor of degree of perceived foreign accent in L2 Japanese speech ( Idemaru et al, 2019 ). It also offers a different perspective on the acquisition of L2 prosody from research on stress or tone.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Accuracy and Stability in English Speakers’ Production of Japanese Pitch Accent

Muradás-Taylor

2021

Lang Speech

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Standard Japanese uses pitch accent to distinguish words such as initially-accented hashi “chopsticks” and finally-accented hashi “bridge.” Research on the second language acquisition of pitch accent shows considerable variation: in accuracy scores in identification, in different dominant accent types in production, and in the unstable accent types of repeated words. This study investigates pitch accent production in English-speaking learners of Japanese, asking how accuracy and stability vary (a) with amount of Japanese experience and (b) between learners. Two groups of learners (13 less experienced; 8 more experienced) produced 180 words in three contexts (e.g., ame “rain,” ame da “it’s rain,” and ame ga furu “rain falls”). Three Japanese phoneticians identified the accent types of the words that the learners produced. The results showed no difference in accuracy or stability between the two groups and little inter-learner variation in accuracy: all had low accuracy. Although some learners had relatively high stability, they did not maintain accent type contrasts across contexts. These results suggest that first language English speakers do not encode pitch accent in long-term memory, raising questions for future research and language teaching.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Accuracy and Stability in English Speakers’ Production of Japanese Pitch Accent

Muradás-Taylor

2021

Lang Speech

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“…This focus was adopted in order to provide pedagogical implications tailored to ESL practitioners in particular (teachers, students, and assessors). More importantly, there is evidence that the relative importance of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness greatly varies in accordance with different L1‐L2 pairings, resulting in different phonetic features and interlanguage issues (Idemaru, Wei, & Gubbins, 2019). Following Plonsky and Brown’s (2015) conceptual framework, the current study could be considered a focused meta‐analysis in that it only included those studies directly relevant to the aims and context of the study.…”

Section: Study 1: Listener Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Characterizes Comprehensible and Native‐like Pronunciation Among English‐as‐a‐Second‐Language Speakers? Meta‐Analyses of Phonological, Rater, and Instructional Factors

Saito

2021

TESOL Quarterly

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The current study presents two meta‐analyses to explore what underlies the assessment and teaching of comprehensible and nativelike pronunciation among English‐as‐a‐Second‐Language speakers. In Study 1, listener studies (n = 37) were retrieved examining the influence of segmental, prosodic, and temporal features on listeners’ intuitive judgements of comprehensibility and nativelikeness/accentedness as per different listener backgrounds (expert, mixed, L2). In Study 2, training studies (n = 17) were retrieved examining the effects of segmental, prosodic, and temporal‐based instruction on ESL learners’ pronunciation. The results showed that (a) comprehensibility judgements were related to a range of segmental, prosodic, and temporal features; (b) accentedness judgements were strongly tied to participants’ correct pronunciation of consonants and vowels; and (c) instruction led to larger gains in comprehensibility than in nativelikeness. Moderator analyses demonstrated that expert listeners were more reliant on phonological information. Greater effects of instruction on comprehensibility than nativelikeness became clearer, especially when the treatment targeted prosodic accuracy. The findings suggest that ESL practitioners should prioritize suprasegemental practice to help students achieve comprehensible L2 pronunciation. The attainment of nativelike pronunciation, by contrast, may require an exclusive focus on the refinement of segmental accuracy, which is resistant to the influence of instruction.

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“…atypical measurable acoustic characteristics of the speech signal, and accents in perception, i.e. listeners' identification of accents as non-native [1][2][3]. Although these factors are probably related, they are not identical, and the focus of the current study is solely on accents in production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…By the No Contribution hypothesis, accents are caused by non-native realizations of linguistic features other than pauses. These non-native realizations might for example concern phonemes, word stress patterns or prosody [2,39]. Besides that, non-nativeness might be signaled by atypical gestures or turn-taking behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-native speaker pause patterns closely correspond to those of native speakers at different speech rates

2020

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When speaking a foreign language, non-native speakers can typically be readily identified by their accents. But which aspects of the speech signal determine such accents? Speech pauses occur in all languages but may nonetheless vary in different languages with regard to their duration, number or positions in the speech stream, and therefore are one potential contributor to foreign speech production. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether non-native speakers pause 'with a foreign accent'. We recorded native English speakers and non-native speakers of German or Serbo-Croatian with excellent English reading out an English text at three different speech rates, and analyzed their vocal output in terms of number, duration and location of pauses. Overall, all non-native speakers were identified by native raters as having non-native accents, but native and non-native speakers made pauses that were similarly long, and had similar ratios of pause time compared to total speaking time. Furthermore, all speakers changed their pausing behavior similarly at different speech rates. The only clear difference between native and non-native speakers was that the latter made more pauses than the native speakers. Thus, overall, pause patterns contributed little to the acoustic characteristics of speakers' non-native accents, when reading aloud. Non-native pause patterns might be acquired more easily than other aspects of pronunciation because pauses are perceptually salient and producing pauses is easy. Alternatively, general cognitive processing mechanisms such as attention, planning or memory may constrain pausing behavior, allowing speakers to transfer their native pause patterns to a second language without significant deviation. We conclude that pauses make a relatively minor contribution to the acoustic characteristics of non-native accents.

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Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech

Cited by 17 publications

References 64 publications

Accuracy and Stability in English Speakers’ Production of Japanese Pitch Accent

Accuracy and Stability in English Speakers’ Production of Japanese Pitch Accent

What Characterizes Comprehensible and Native‐like Pronunciation Among English‐as‐a‐Second‐Language Speakers? Meta‐Analyses of Phonological, Rater, and Instructional Factors

Non-native speaker pause patterns closely correspond to those of native speakers at different speech rates

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