Perception and production of English consonants by Japanese adults and children

Abstract

This study examined perception and production of English consonants by native Japanese (NJ) adults and children (16 subjects in each group, mean age=39.9 and 9.9 years). The subjects were tested 2 times (T1, T2), when their mean lengths of residence in the U.S. were 0.5 years and 1.6 years. Age-matched native English (NE) controls (16 adults, 16 children) also participated. A categorial discrimination task was used to assess the perception of the English contrasts /b/–/s/, /b/–/v/, /ɹ/-/l/, /ɹ/–/w/, and /s/–/θ/. For three groups (NE adults, NE children, NJ adults), the T1 and T2 scores did not differ significantly on any contrast. The NJ children’s scores were significantly higher at T2 than at T1 on the /ɹ/–/l/ and /ɹ/–/w/ contrasts. A picture naming task with auditory cues were used to elicit the production of English words containing consonants of interest. Twelve NE listeners identified the subjects’ production of /ɹ/, /l/, and /w/ in word-initial position. Only the NJ children’s scores improved significantly from T1 to T2, and their improvement was the greatest on the production of /ɹ/. Several possible explanations will be offered for why there seems to be more improvement from T1 to T2 for /ɹ/ than /l/.