On the relationship between perception and production of American English vowels by native speakers of Japanese: A pair of case studies

2002 ◽  
Vol 112 (5) ◽  
pp. 2250-2250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanae Nishi ◽  
Catherine L. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
The Relationship

scholarly journals The acoustic characteristics of non-native American English vowels

Linguistica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Biljana Čubrović
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Language Background ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Native Speech

This study aims at discussing the phonetic property of vowel quality in English, as exercised by both native speakers of General American English (AE) and non-native speakers of General American English of Serbian language background, all residents of the United States. Ten Serbian male speakers and four native male speakers of AE are recorded in separate experiments and their speech analyzed acoustically for any significant phonetic differences, looking into a set of monosyllabic English words representing nine vowels of AE. The general aim of the experiments is to evaluate the phonetic characteristics of AE vowels, with particular attention to F1 and F2 values, investigate which vowels differ most in the two groups of participants, and provide some explanations for these variations. A single most important observation that is the result of this vowel study is an evident merger of three pairs of vowels in the non-native speech: /i ɪ/, /u ʊ/, and /ɛ æ/.

Acoustic analysis of American English vowels by native speakers of Luso‐Portuguese

1998 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 3092-3092
Author(s):  
Patricia N. Schwartz ◽  
Christina F. Famoso ◽  
Adelia DaSilva
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Vowels

scholarly journals Transfer, Similarity or Lack of Awareness? Inconsistencies of German Learners in the Pronunciation of LOT, THOUGHT, STRUT, PALM and BATH

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kautzsch
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
First Year ◽  
Close Approximation ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
British English ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
University Level

The current study presents acoustic analyses of non-high back vowels and low central vowels in the lexical sets LOT, THOUGHT, STRUT, PALM and BATH as pronounced by German learners of English. The main objective is to show that learners of English at university level are highly inconsistent in approximating the vowels of their self-chosen target accents British English (BrE) and American English (AmE). To that end, the acoustic qualities of the English vowels of learners are compared to their native German vowels and to the vowels of native speakers of BrE and AmE. In order to facilitate statements about the effect of increased experience, the study differentiates between students in their first year at university and in their third year or later. The results obtained are highly variable: In some cases the learners transfer their L1 vowels to English, other cases show clear approximations to the target vowels, while other cases again document the production of new vowels neither found in German nor in English. However, close approximation to the target vowels only sometimes correlates with higher proficiency. This might be an indicator of a low level of awareness of systematic differences between the BrE and AmE vowel systems. But the data also indicate that the more advanced learners produce more distinct AmE BATH vowels and BrE THOUGHT vowels than the less advanced learners, which points to a partial increase of awareness resulting from increased experience. All in all it seems that raising the awareness of differences between target accents in L2 instruction is necessary if the envisage goal is for learners to reach near-native pronunciation.

scholarly journals Applying adaptive recognition of the learner’s vowel space to English pronunciation training of native speakers of Japanese

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
William L. Martens ◽  
Rui Wang
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Vocal Tract ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Computer Assisted Language Learning ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Japanese Learners ◽  
Adaptive Recognition

When native speakers of Japanese are taught English as a second language, there are difficulties with their training in pronunciation of American English vowels that can be ameliorated though adaptive recognition of the learner’s vowel space. This paper reports on the development of an online Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environment that provides Japanese learners with customized target utterances of 12 single-syllable words that are synthesized according to an adaptive recognition of the learner’s vowel space. These customized target utterances provide each learner with examples of each of 12 American English monophthongs in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) context in order to sound as if they had been uttered by the learners themselves. This adaptive process was incorporated into a successfully developed tool for Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) which gave more appropriate pronunciation targets to each learner, rather than forcing the learners to attempt to match the formant frequencies of their own utterances to those of the target utterances as produced by a speaker exhibiting a different vowel space (i.e., a speaker with a different vocal tract length).

Intelligibility of American English vowels of native and non-native speakers in quiet and speech-shaped noise

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHANG LIU ◽  
SU-HYUN JIN
Keyword(s):  
Processing Time ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Noise Background ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Native Speech

This study examined intelligibility of twelve American English vowels produced by English, Chinese, and Korean native speakers in quiet and speech-shaped noise in which vowels were presented at six sensation levels from 0 dB to 10 dB. The slopes of vowel intelligibility functions and the processing time for listeners to identify vowels were dependent on speakers’ language backgrounds and non-native speakers’ vowel intelligibility in quiet. These results indicated that noise background affected non-native speakers’ vowel intelligibility more greatly than native speakers, possibly due to the acoustic deviations in non-native speech and lack of listeners’ experience to non-native produced speech.

Acoustic analysis of American English vowels by native speakers of Russian

1998 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 3092-3092
Author(s):  
Lisa Jayne Romano ◽  
Fredericka Bell‐Berti ◽  
Eugenia Lorin
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Vowels

scholarly journals When the Easy Becomes Difficult: Factors Affecting the Acquisition of the English /iː/-/ɪ/ Contrast

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juli Cebrian ◽  
Celia Gorba ◽  
Núria Gavaldà
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Accurate Perception ◽  
L2 Perception ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Similarity Judgements

The degree of similarity between the sounds of a speaker’s first and second language (L1 and L2) is believed to determine the likelihood of accurate perception and production of the L2 sounds. This paper explores the relationship between cross-linguistic similarity and the perception and production of a subset of English vowels, including the highly productive /iː/-/ɪ/ contrast (as in “beat” vs. “bit”), by a group of Spanish/Catalan native speakers learning English as an L2. The learners’ ability to identify, discriminate and produce the English vowels accurately was contrasted with their cross-linguistic perceived similarity judgements. The results showed that L2 perception and production accuracy was not always predicted from patterns of cross-language similarity, particularly regarding the difficulty distinguishing /iː/ and /ɪ/. Possible explanations may involve the way the L2 /iː/ and /ɪ/ categories interact, the effect of non-native acoustic cue reliance, and the roles of orthography and language instruction.

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