Vowel epenthesis in Japanese speakers' L2 English
نویسندگان
چکیده
This study investigated how vowel epenthesis, a typical suprasegmental error produced by Japanese learners of English, is realized in their speech production of L2 English. We investigated two aspects: (i) whether loanword epenthesis phonology in Japanese transfers to English speech production, and (ii) how learners’ English proficiency level affects vowel epenthesis. In Japanese loanword phonology, different vowels are inserted in certain phonological environments to maintain Japanese syllable structure. We analyzed speech data from the J-AESOP corpus to examine whether vowel epenthesis in L2 English of L1 Japanese learners resembles the patterns of loanword adaptation in connection with the learners’ proficiency level. The results showed that while fluent learners produced fewer epenthetic vowels, the qualities of the vowels exhibited similar patterns to loanword adaptation, regardless of learners’ proficiency level. This indicates that learners’ L2 proficiency level affected vowel epenthesis in quantitative rather than qualitative aspects.
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