The auditory analysis of Japanese rhythm units and the physiological factors affecting their production

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This research has two objectives.(1) To determine what the differences are, between native speakers of Japanese and learners of Japanese, in their rhythmic timing points. And how they differ in terms of the peak values in the air pressure and the airflow.(2) To determine the differences in the peak values of the air pressure and the airflow of words spoken by native speakers and the learners, where the latter have an unique characteristics in terms of duration.In Experiment 1,6 Japanese words were selected to investigate the relationship between the rhythmic timing points and the peak values in the air pressure and the airflow. The informants, consisting of native speakers of Japanese, Chinese and Spanish, were asked to repeat the words ten times to the sound of the metronome. The words were recorded using the Aerophone of KAY Elemetrics Co. The results have suggested that the air pressure has some kind of influence/role over forming of rhythmic timing points.In Experiment 2, we have hypothesized that Japanese words have specific temporal organization consisting of rhythm units. Based on this hypothesis, 18 words with different rhythm types were selected, i.e., 6 words for the 121, 212, and 122 rhythm types respectively. These words were recorded using the same apparatus as in the Experiment 1 to measure the peak values of the oral air pressure and the airflow of each word. The informants were 3 native speakers of Japanese, 2 Chinese learners, and 1 Spanish learner of Japanese.The results have shown that the peak value of the air pressure fall on the third unit of each word for the Chinese learners, which is quite different from other informants. At this stage, however, we could not arrive at any definite conclusions suggesting that the differences. in the air pressure and the airflow could have been one of the main factors yielding the characteristic temporal realizations of learners speech.