Abstract
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).
Highlights
When native speakers of Japanese are taught a second language (L2), adult learners typically have difficulty mastering certain phonemic contrasts between vowels in the target language (L2), especially if fewer vowel sounds are used in their native language (L1)
The results of a closely related study [1] that were published fifteen years ago showed that identification training of native speakers of Japanese yielded improved skills in pronouncing American English (AE) vowels that typically are difficult for native speakers of Japanese to distinguish
The CVC demonstrating a somewhat higher first formant frequency than that found in the word “bet” is found in the AE pronunciation of the word “bat.” This discussion is focussed upon a potential problem that can be encountered when a native speaker of Japanese is guided to produce the word “bat” as spoken by a speaker with generally lower formant frequencies than those of that Japanese L2 learner
Summary
When native speakers of Japanese are taught a second language (L2), adult learners typically have difficulty mastering certain phonemic contrasts between vowels in the target language (L2), especially if fewer vowel sounds are used in their native language (L1). The CVC demonstrating a somewhat higher first formant frequency than that found in the word “bet” is found in the AE pronunciation of the word “bat.” This discussion is focussed upon a potential problem that can be encountered when a native speaker of Japanese is guided to produce the word “bat” as spoken by a speaker with generally lower formant frequencies than those of that Japanese L2 learner. Problematic is the case in which various Japanese L2 learners of AE pronunciation are provided with a single utterance of the word “bat” as a pronunciation example out of context, after which they are instructed to produce that same sound In such cases, it is inevitable that some (physically smaller) L2 learners will be attempting to match an utterance provided by a (physically larger) L1 speaker exhibiting lower formant frequencies, relative to the higher formant frequency values more appropriate to the lengths of their vocal tracts. The L2 learner with a shorter vocal tract generally exhibits higher formant frequencies than those of a longer-VTL AE speaker providing the target utterance
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