Doctoral Dissertation Research: Perception of place-of-articulation contrasts in English word-final consonants by Japanese adult L2 learners

人们很难与非母语人士沟通，无论是理解他们的语言还是被理解。本研究考察了非英语母语学习者在理解连续言语方面存在的困难。英语词尾辅音在连接的语音中的产生与孤立产生的辅音非常不同；这种现象被称为协同发音。这项拟议的研究将考察日本听者在有意义的句子中识别以/p/、/t/、/k/、/b/、/d/、/g/、/m/、/n/和/ng/结尾的单词以及以/p/、/t/或/k/开头的单词的情况。任务是在听完一个句子后，识别出目标单词的最小三元组(例如，Sip，Sit，Wisk)，例如“他肯定地说了单词”Sip“(或”Sit“或”Wisk“)”(或“Tabling地”或“谨慎地”)。这些句子将以“清晰的演讲”和“快速对话的演讲”两种风格进行朗读。前者用于当以英语为母语的人知道听者可能难以理解时使用；后者用于与朋友交谈时。拟议中的研究将调查相对于以英语为母语的听者，日本听者是否难以识别英语单词中的尾辅音。他们的错误模式是否与英语听者的错误模式不同，以及当句子以清晰的语言风格产生时，他们的表现是否明显更好。正确识别英语词尾发音对日本听众来说是一项挑战，因为日语单词不以词尾辅音结尾，鼻音发音(/N/)除外。词尾鼻音也可能容易混淆，因为日语鼻音的发音是/m//n/或/ng/，取决于下面的辅音。这些数据将对母语人士在英语课堂和工作环境中如何修改他们的语音以改善与非母语人士的交流产生影响。

People have difficulties communicating with non-native speakers, both understanding their speech and being understood. This study examines the difficulties that non-native English learners have in understanding continuous speech. English word-final consonants in connected speech are produced very differently from those produced in isolation; this phenomenon is referred to as coarticulation. The proposed study will examine the identification of words ending with /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, and /ng/ (as in "king") followed by a word beginning with /p/, /t/ or /k/ in meaningful sentences by Japanese listeners. The task is to identify the target word in minimal triplets (e.g., sip, sit, sick) after listening to a sentence, such as "He said the word "sip" (or "sit" or "sick") positively" (or "tauntingly" or "cautiously"). The sentences will be spoken in both "clear speech" and in "fast conversational speech" styles. The former is used when native English speakers know that the listener may have difficulty understanding them; the latter is used when speaking with friends.The proposed studies will investigate whether Japanese listeners have difficulty recognizing the final consonants in English words relative to native English listeners. whether their error patterns are different from those of English listeners, and whether they perform significantly better when the sentences are produced in "clear speech" style. Correctly identifying English word-final stops is expected to be challenging for Japanese listeners because Japanese words do not end in word-final consonants, with the exception of a nasal stop (/N/). Word-final nasal stops are also potentially confusable because the Japanese nasal is produced as /m/ /n/ or /ng/ depending on the following consonant. These data will have implications for how native speakers can modify their speech to improve communication with non-native speakers in English language classrooms and in work environments.