Japanese adults can learn to produce English /r/ and /l/ accurately.

نویسندگان

  • J E Flege
  • N Takagi
  • V Mann
چکیده

As is well known, Japanese adults who have just begun to learn English often err in producing /r/ and /l/ because their native language does not possess such liquid consonants. The aim of this study was to determine if Japanese adults eventually learn to produce /r/ and /l/ accurately in words like read and lead. Liquids spoken by 12 native Japanese speakers who had lived in the United States for an average of two years were often misidentified by native English-speaking listeners. Their productions of /r/ and /l/ also received much lower (and thus foreign-accented) ratings than did the native English speakers' liquids. On the other hand, liquids produced by native Japanese speakers who had lived in the United States for an average 21 years were identified correctly in forced-choice tests. This held true for liquids in words that had been read from a list as well as for words that had been spoken spontaneously. The ratings of liquids produced by 10 of the 12 experienced Japanese speakers fell within the range of ratings obtained for the 12 native English speakers. These findings challenge the widely accepted view that segmental production errors in a second language arise from the inevitable loss of ability to learn phonetic segments not found in the native language.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Physical models of the vocal tract with a flapping tongue for flap and liquid sounds

Certain sounds are difficult for children to produce, even if the sounds are in their native language. For example, Japanese /r/ can be difficult for Japanese children to learn. Second language learners can also have difficulty acquiring certain sounds. For example, Japanese speakers learning English often have difficulty with English /r/ and /l/. To address this problem, we have developed two ...

متن کامل

Does Ultrasound Training Lead to Improved Perception of a Non-native Sound Contrast?: Evidence from Japanese Learners of English

Both the perception and production of speech sounds in a non-native language can be challenging to adult second language learners due to long-time experience with their native language. Numerous studies have investigated how the ability to perceive and produce speech sounds can be modified during adulthood. This study explores whether production training using ultrasound as visual feedback can ...

متن کامل

Effects of English /r/-/l/ perceptual training on Japanese children's production

It has been proven that high-variability English /r/-/l/ perceptual training improves Japanese adults’ production. The present study examined whether Japanese children also improve their production for the English /r/-/l/ contrast after perceptual training. The results demonstrated that production was significantly improved, but the improvement did not relate to an improvement in the primary ac...

متن کامل

The Interaction of the Bilingual’s Two Phonetic Systems: Differences in Early and Late Korean-English Bilinguals

One of the basic questions of bilingual research is to what extent the bilingual’s two phonetic systems influence each other, a question that has occupied a prominent place in bilingual research almost from the outset of the field (see, for example, Weinreich, 1953). Recent studies in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) demonstrate that, at least in simultaneous bilingual acquisition, i...

متن کامل

A one-year longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English-speaking setting

The effect of age of acquisition on first- and second-language vowel production was investigated. Eight English vowels were produced by Native Japanese (NJ) adults and children as well as by age-matched Native English (NE) adults and children. Productions were recorded shortly after the NJ participants' arrival in the USA and then one year later. In agreement with previous investigations [Aoyam...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:
  • Language and speech

دوره 38 ( Pt 1)  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 1995