Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:25:54.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 7 - Changes in the First Year of Immersion

An Acoustic Analysis of /s/ Produced by Japanese Adults and Children

from Part II - Segmental Acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

By
Katsura Aoyama
Edited by
Ratree Wayland
Ratree Wayland
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Get access

Summary

This chapter reports preliminary results of an acoustic analysis of fricatives in American English produced by native Japanese-speaking adults and children. The data were from 16 native Japanese (NJ) adults and 16 NJ children as well as 16 native English-speaking (NE) adults and NE children. All 64 participants were tested twice, one year apart to study NJ adults’ and children’s learning of English. Their production of /s/ in the word ‘six’ was acoustically analyzed. Noise duration (absolute and normalized), fricative intensity, and center of gravity (CoG) were measured. For duration, the NJ adults’ /s/ was longer than the NE adults’ /s/ in both absolute duration and normalized duration. The CoG values were greater in the NE adults’ and children’s /s/ than in the NJ adults’ and children’s /s/. Noise amplitude was greater in the NE speakers’ /s/ than in the NJ speakers’ /s/. These results suggest that the NJ speakers’ /s/ was slightly more back than the NE speakers’ /s/ productions and that the NE speakers’ /s/ was more sibilant than the NJ speakers’ /s/. In addition, the noise amplitude increased significantly over the course of one year in the NJ children’s productions.

Keywords

JapaneseChildrenAdultEnglish/s/productionFirstYearImmersion
Type
Chapter
Information
Second Language Speech Learning
Theoretical and Empirical Progress
 , pp. 213 - 227
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Guion, S. G., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Yamada, T. (2004). Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: The case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/. Journal of Phonetics, 32, 233–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Yamada, T. (2019a). An acoustic analysis of American English liquids by adults and children: Native English speakers and native Japanese speakers of English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146(4), 2671–2681.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Yamada, T., & Akahane-Yamada, R. (2019b). Acoustical analysis of English voiceless fricatives by native Japanese adults and children (/f θ s/). Paper presented at the 130th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Louisville, KY.Google Scholar
Aoyama, K., & Guion, S. G. (2007). Prosody in second language acquisition: An acoustic analysis on duration and F0 range. In Bohn, O & Munro, M. J. (Eds.), Language experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 281–297). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Aoyama, K., Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Yamada, T., & Akahane-Yamada, R. (2008). The first years in an L2-speaking environment: A comparison of Japanese children and adults learning American English. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 46, 61–90.Google Scholar
Best, C. T. (1995). A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception. In Strange, W (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 171–204). Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Best, C. T., & Tyler, M. D. (2007). Nonnative and second-language speech perception: Commonalities and complementarities. In Bohn, O.-S. & Munro, M (Eds.), Language experience in second language speech learning: In honor of James Emil Flege (pp. 13–34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2019). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version 6.0.52) [Computer program]. Retrieved from www.praat.org/Google Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1987). The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 233–277). Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G. (2003). The vowel systems of Quichua-Spanish bilinguals age of acquisition effects on the mutual influence of the first and second languages. Phonetica, 60, 98–128.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G. (2005). Knowledge of English word stress patterns in early and late Korean-English bilinguals. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 503–533.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Pruitt, J. C. (2000a). An investigation of current models of second language speech perception: The case of Japanese adults’ perception of English consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2711–2724.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., Liu, S. H., & Yeni-Komshian, G. H. (2000b). Age of learning effects on the duration of sentences produced in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 205–228.Google Scholar
Guion, S. G., Flege, J. E., & Loftin, J. D. (2000c). The effect of L1 use on pronunciation in Quichua-Spanish bilinguals. Journal of Phonetics, 28, 27–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guion, S. G., Harada, T., & Clark, J. J. (2004). Early and late Spanish-English bilinguals’ acquisition of English word stress patterns. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 207–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jongman, A., Wayland, R., & Wong, S. (2000). Acoustic characteristics of English fricatives. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 108, 1252–1263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ladefoged, P., & Johnson, K. (2015). A course in phonetics (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Lee, B., Guion, S. G., & Harada, T. (2006). Acoustic analysis of the production of unstressed English vowels by early and late Korean and Japanese bilinguals. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 487–513.Google Scholar
Li, F. (2012). Language-specific developmental differences in speech production: A cross-language acoustic study. Child Development, 83, 1303–1315.Google Scholar
Li, F., Edwards, J., & Beckman, M. E. (2009). Contrast and covert contrast: The phonetic development of voiceless sibilant fricatives in English and Japanese toddlers. Journal of Phonetics, 37, 111–124.Google Scholar
Maniwa, K., Wade, T., & Jongman, A. (2009). Acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken English fricatives. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125, 3962–3973.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oh, G. E., Guion-Anderson, S., Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Akahane-Yamada, R., & Yamada, T. (2011). A one-year longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English-speaking setting. Journal of Phonetics, 39, 156–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piske, T., MacKay, I. R. A., & Flege, J. E. (2001). Factors affecting degree of foreign accent in an L2: A review. Journal of Phonetics, 29, 191–215.Google Scholar
Vance, T. (1987). An introduction to Japanese phonology. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Wayland, R. P., & Guion, S. G. (2003). Perceptual discrimination of Thai tones by naïve and experienced learners of Thai. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 113–129.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×