Japanese children's suprasegmental imitation capability of English rhythm

Abstract

This study reports on an acoustic analysis of L2 Japanese child learners' English rhythmic imitation capabilities. The participants for this study were Japanese fifth and sixth graders, all of whom had been taking English language classes since their first year of elementary school. Rhythmic chants were employed as a means to elicit oral production owing to their frequent use in the EFL classroom. Nine English sentences (including two to six stressed syllables, four downbeat sentences and five upbeat sentences) were employed in the collection of a rebus rhyme and in consideration of word familiarity. In the first of two parts of the experiment, the participants shadowed back the test sentences following the experimenter's model pronunciation. In the second part, the experimenter showed picture cards related to the test sentences during the participants' imitation of the experimenter's utterance. During both tests, the experimenter tapped rhythm in time to each participant's utterance of stressed syllables instead of using automatic rhythmic machine. Acoustic analyses and Cluster analysis were used to discriminate between the native-like rhythmic and non-native groups, and profile the 5th and 6th grade groups. Overall, the findings have clear implications for the teaching of English rhythm to moraic language speaking children.