French /y/-/u/ contrast in Japanese learners with / without ultrasound feedback: Vowels, non-words and words
نویسندگان
چکیده
This study investigated French /y/ and /u/ produced by one native speaker (NS) and seven Japanesespeaking learners; four of them received lessons on /u/ with ultrasound visual feedback of the tongue shape and position. Acoustic measurements of 10 repetitions of six words (coronal context) are compared to those of isolated /y/ and /u/, and of the non-words /tyty/ and /tutu/, both before and after the ultrasound lessons, in terms of i) Euclidean distance (ED) between /y/-/u/; ii) the distance F2-F3 of /y/; and iii) the distance F1-F2 of /u/. The isolated vowels were closest to NS’s, followed by monosyllabic words, disyllabic ones, and then nonwords. The values of all learners are significantly different from NS’s at the first recording, but those of the learners having received ultrasound lessons approached NS’s after the lessons.
منابع مشابه
Contribution of ultrasound visualisation to improving the production of the French /y/-/u/ contrast by four Japanese learners
It has been widely shown that the vowel system of the first language (L1) has a significant impact on the acquisition of the vowels of second languages (L2). Front rounded vowels are known to cause difficulty to speakers of languages without such vowels, and consequently the realisation of front-back contrast poses a challenge (Flege, 1987; Rochet, 1995; Levy & Law 2010, inter alii). The high f...
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