Perception of Japanese Temporally-Cued Contrasts by American English Listeners

Autor/inn/en	Hisagi, Miwako; Strange, Winifred
Titel	Perception of Japanese Temporally-Cued Contrasts by American English Listeners
Quelle	In: Language and Speech, 54 (2011) 2, S.241-264 (24 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0023-8309
DOI	10.1177/0023830910397499
Schlagwörter	Vowels; Phonology; North American English; Japanese; Auditory Perception; Native Speakers; Auditory Discrimination; Cues; Task Analysis; Familiarity; Contrastive Linguistics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Fonologie; Amerikanisches Englisch; Japaner; Japanisch; Auditive Wahrnehmung; Akustische Wahrnehmung; Akustik; Muttersprachler; Stichwort; Aufgabenanalyse; Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik
Abstract	American listeners' perception of Japanese contrasts of vowel length (e.g., kiro vs. kiiro), consonant length (e.g., kite vs. kitte) and syllable number/length (e.g., kjoo vs. kijoo) was examined. Stimuli consisted of sentence-length utterances produced by a native Japanese talker; five minimal pairs of each contrast type were included. Questions were: a) can American listeners with no Japanese experience discriminate these contrasts, b) are there differences in relative difficulty of the three contrast types, and c) do instructions and other task variables affect performance accuracy? A categorial AXB discrimination task was used in two studies: Study 1 tested the three contrast types presented in separate blocks with detailed instructions about what to listen for; Study 2 tested the contrast types presented randomly intermixed with no specific instructions about the nature of the contrasts. Results indicated that naive American listeners could discriminate all three contrast types well above chance, and that there were no significant overall differences in relative difficulty across contrast types. Performance was significantly poorer in Study 2 where listeners' attention had not been directed to the nature of the contrasts. In both studies, there was significant and large variability in accuracy across different minimal pairs of each contrast type. (Contains 3 notes, 3 tables, and 2 figures.) (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10