The use of durational variables to characterize the rhythmic patterns of non-fluent Japanese utterance by non-native speakers

Abstract

Twenty-nine durational variables were examined to clarify rhythmic characteristics in non-fluent Japanese utterances by non-native speakers. Discriminant analysis with these variables was performed on 343 Japanese words, each pronounced in a carrier sentence by six native Japanese speakers and 14 non-native Japanese speakers (7 Vietnamese with low Japanese proficiency and 7 Chinese with high Japanese proficiency). The results showed that a combination of two durational variables could discriminate Japanese speakers from Vietnamese speakers with a small error (8.7%, n = 4458), namely the percentage of vowel duration and the average of “Normalized Voice Onset Asynchrony,” which is an interval time between the onset of two successive vowels divided by the first vowel's duration. However, these two variables made a large error (39.4%, n = 4458) in the discrimination of Japanese speakers from Chinese speakers who had higher Japanese proficiency than Vietnamese speakers. These results suggest that the two variables characterize the rhythmic pattern in a non-fluent Japanese utterance by non-native speakers with low Japanese proficiency. [This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 22320081, 24652087, 25284080, and by Aichi Shukutoku University Cooperative Research Grant 2013-2014.]