Tonal realization of English intonation and register by Japanese learners of English as a foreign language compared to English speakers

Abstract

Theoretically, there are four levels of tone in English intonation, whereas in standard Japanese, phonologically, there are two levels (high and low) and phonetically, there are three levels of in lexical tone. The Japanese said to be a mora-timed and pitch-accented language and English to be a stress-timed. The Japanese language sounds monotonous. Further, English speakers (EL1) seem to have a wider register than Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (JEFL). There is only one kind of interrogative sentence in Japanese, while there are two kinds in English. Moreover, there is a difference in the position of the nucleus between Japanese and English. This study aims to examine whether JEFL can realize the four levels of tone in English, and the degree of difference in register between JEFL and EL1 when producing a sample English intonation pattern. We conducted experiments to investigate JEFL’s realization of English intonation in one word-sentences, affirmative sentences, and interrogative sen...