Analysis of the acquisition in voicing contrast and perception of spoken Japanese by Chinese learners

我提出了一个假设，即中国学习者听日语的能力较差是由于他们的语言和社会文化规范的负迁移。在本研究中，我考察了讲普通话不存在爆破辅音发音对比的中国人与讲上海话的中国人，并对比了他们习得日语爆破辅音的有声-无声区别与他们对日语口语的感知之间的关系。我指出了以下结果。说普通话的人比说上海话的人更难获得对有浊音和无浊音爆破辅音特征的感知。特别是带有/t/， /d/， /k/的音节很难习得。与说上海话的人相比，说普通话的人听日语的能力也很差。以/t/， /d/， /k/开头的音节对于说普通话的人来说是困难的，这些音节占我在听力水平测试中使用的语篇中所有音节的三分之一。汉语语音负迁移似乎是导致汉语学习者听力水平不高的原因之一，因为大多数中国人说的是普通话标准汉语。在日常生活中沉浸在日语口语中，听力好的学习者在爆破辅音和口语的感知上都比听力不好的学习者有更大的进步。缺乏日语演讲的接触往往会使学习者在听日语演讲时感觉很差。在情境5、情境6或情境5中，学习者之间存在差异的原因应该是沟通行为、教育情境、学习者周围的社会文化规范，而不是来自情境1的负迁移。

I set forth the hypothesis that Chinese learners' poor proficiency for listening to Japanese speech is due to negative transfer from their language and their socio-cultural norm. For this research, I examined Chinese who speak mandarin which does not have a voicing contrast in plosive consonants and Chinese of Shanghai dialect with that contrast about the relationship between their acquisition of the voiced-voiceless distinction of Japanese plosive consonants and their perception of spoken Japanese. I pointed out the following results.1. It is more difficult for Mandarin speakers than Shanghai speakers to acquire the perception of the distinctive features of voiced-voiceless plosive consonants. Particularly, syllables with /t/, /d/, /k/ are hard to be acquired.2. Mandarin speakers are also poor at listening to Japanese speech, compared with Shanghai speakers.3. The syllables with /t/, /d/, /k/ which are difficult for Mandarin speakers are one third of all the syllables in the discourse which I used for the listening proficiency test.4. Negative transfer from Mandarin phonology seems to be one of the causes of Chinese learners' poor listening proficiency since most Chinese speak this mandarin standard Chinese.5. Immersed in Japanese speech in their daily life, learners who feel good at listening make more progress both in the perception of plosive consonants and speech than the other learners who do not.6. Poor exposure to Japanese speech tends to make learners feel poor at listening to Japanese speech among them.7. As a cause of the difference among circumstances shown in 5,6, or learners in 5, communication behaviors, educational circumstances, socio-cultural norms surrounding learners should be considered, not negative transfer from L.1.