Acoustic Examination of Acquisition of Second Language Prosody and Modeling of Second Language Prosody Acquisition

本研究探讨了日语和英语的第二语言韵律习得。在日本人的英语话语中，大多数日本人在非重读音节中不会略读元音。然而，以英语为母语的人说日语时，元音的重音往往更长，音调也更高。说英语的人也明显倾向于在一个短语中使用单词重音，这导致了降级。这种短语语调与日语母语者的日语短语语调明显不同；尤其是当一个短语由所有非重音单词组成时，这些单词的语调只是自然地减弱。

This study investigated acquisition of second language prosody between Japanese and English. In Japanese speakers' English utterances, most Japanese speakers did not reduce vowels in unstressed syllables. However, for English speakers' utterances in Japanese there was a tendency for accented vowels to be longer as well as higher pitched. English speakers also showed a clear tendency to use word accents in a phrase, which caused downstep. This phrase intonation was distinctly different from Japanese phrase intonation by native Japanese speakers ; especially when a phrase consisted of all non-accented words whose phrase intonation simply showed natural declination.