Pronunciation Patterns of Japanese Learners and their Implications for Teaching

In order to better teach pronunciation to students, it is necessary to gain a better appreciation of the types of pronunciation patterns and issues that Japanese speakers encounter when attempting to speak in English. To highlight some of these issues, a sample dialogue between two Japanese learners was recorded and analyzed for segmental and suprasegmental features. The analysis revealed that pronunciation issues are mainly due to very different tongue placement as a result of interference from L1 and also due to the absence of certain sound production features in L1 that are required in L2. Carefully guided pronunciation practice may help to gradually shift learners’ pronunciation away from L1 patterns and be more representative of standard L2 pronunciation and sound production. Key terms: phonology, pronunciation, articulation, manner, case study, Introduction Many factors have been blamed for pronunciation difficulties which Japanese learners of English typically encounter. The large number of differences between Japanese and English pronunciation and sound patterns along with the relatively weak emphasis on speaking or production skills when learning English in high school English classes, as well as the adoption of katakana to simulate English sounds, are all important contributing factors for maintaining this problem. Due to the gradual shift in Japanese educational settings away from traditional grammar-translation “yakudoku” teaching methods towards a more communicative method, the issue of English pronunciation by Japanese learners may become more prominent as speaking takes on a more important role in classroom activities and goals. As Celce-Murcia (1996) argues, the issue of pronunciation should not be understood as a need to make learners sound like native speakers but rather to achieve a “threshold level” of speaking ability where their sound production in the L2 is intelligible to most listeners. To help achieve this goal of attaining threshold level, however, it is first necessary to gain a more detailed understanding of exactly how Japanese learners’ pronunciation differs in sound production from standardized pronunciation (such as General American). To this end, both segmental and suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation should be studied and compared phonemically in an attempt to discover how articulation and sound production are managed by the learner and how differences in sound production might be caused by L1 interference or misunderstandings about how certain sounds are created. Provided that the latter argument is indeed correct, a small-scale study of how learners attempt to produce English words and syllables would be a starting point for discovering what needs to be taught in order to help learners improve overall pronunciation. In order to illustrate the types of problems that Japanese learners face in terms of pronunciation, the researcher recorded two Japanese male students performing a scripted English dialogue. Both students were first year Japanese university students in a pre-intermediate English class. They had studied English for 6 years in the Japanese public school Abstract In order to better teach pronunciation to students, it is necessary to gain a better appreciation of the types of pronunciation patterns and issues that Japanese speakers encounter when attempting to speak in English. To highlight some of these issue , a sample dialogue between two Jap n se learners was r cor ed and analyzed for segmental and suprasegmental features. The analysis revealed that pronunciation issues are mainly due to very different tongue placement as a result of interference from L1 and also due to the absence of certain sound production features in L1 that are required in L2. Carefully guided pronunciation practice may help to gradually shift learners’ pronunciation away from L1 patterns and be more representative of standard L2 pronunciation and sound production. Key terms: phonol , r i ti , articulation, man er, case study, Pronunciation Patterns of Japanese Learners and their Implications o Teac ing