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

人们在与非母语人士交流时有困难，无论是理解他们的语言还是被理解。本研究探讨了非英语母语学习者在理解连续语音时所遇到的困难。英语单词结尾的辅音在连接语音中的产生与在孤立语音中的产生非常不同，这种现象被称为协同发音。本研究将探讨日本听众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（如“king”），后面跟着以/p/、/t/或/k/开头的单词。任务是以最小三元组（例如，sip，sit，sick），例如“He said the word“sip”（or“sit”or“sick”）positively”（or“tauntingly”or“cautiously”）.这些句子将以“清晰的语言”和“快速的会话语言”两种风格来表达。前者是当母语为英语的人知道听者可能难以理解他们时使用的;后者是当与朋友交谈时使用的。拟议的研究将调查日本听众是否难以识别英语单词中的最后一个辅音相对于母语为英语的听众。他们的错误模式是否与英语听力者的不同，以及他们是否在以“清晰的讲话”风格产生的句子中表现得更好。正确识别英语的词尾塞音对日语听众来说是一个挑战，因为日语单词不以词尾辅音结尾，除了鼻音塞音（/N/）。词尾鼻音塞音也可能会混淆，因为日语的鼻音是根据后面的辅音产生的/m/ /n/或/ng/。这些数据将对本族语者如何修改他们的讲话，以改善在英语课堂和工作环境中与非本族语者的沟通产生影响。

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.