Japanese Accent Research Articles

The Phenomenon of the Loss of Accent in Japanese: Which Accented Patterns Tend to Be Affected?

The Phenomenon of the Loss of Accent in Japanese: Which Accented Patterns Tend to Be Affected?

Lexical variation in Japanese dialects revisited: Geostatistic and dialectometric analysis

Abstract. Since the end of the 19th century in Japan, the official language policy enforced using Standard Japanese, based on the variety spoken in Tokyo (formerly Edo), in all official situations and in schools. Since then, Japanese dialects have been dwindling and ‘flattening’ (i.e., they retain less regional variation). Nevertheless, differences of language varieties keep being important topics and they reinforce the feeling of belonging and group formation in Japan, similarly to most languages with dialects. This study explores the spatial patterns in Japanese lexical variation based on digitised dialectal survey data (using the Linguistic Atlas of Japan) and presents first results of a dialectometric analysis, quantifying a number of factors assumed to affect lexical variation in Japanese.

Sequential Interpretation of Pitch Prominence as Contrastive and Syntactic Information: Contrast Comes First, but Syntax Takes Over.

Pitch accent serves multiple duties (encoding lexical accent, syntactic structure, and focus) in spoken Japanese. This study investigates how listeners interpret a role-ambiguous pitch prominence surfacing as F0 rise, which could be a cue to the resolution of a syntactic ambiguity between two possible branching structures, or a signal of contrastive focus on the constituent accompanied by the rise. Two visual world paradigm experiments tested the same Japanese linguistic stimuli with and without pitch emphasis on the second word of structures of the following form: modifier + N1 + N2. In Experiment 1, the visual context suppressed the availability of the contrastive interpretation; in Experiment 2, the visual context made the contrastive interpretation available. We found that the same pitch event can be interpreted as both syntax-encoding and contrast-encoding information within the course of processing the same sentence, as long as contextual information is made visually available. When contrastive focus is pragmatically felicitous, it is computed immediately, as soon as the incoming input is accompanied by a notable pitch prominence (Experiment 2). The same prosodic cue can then be re-interpreted as a signal to syntax after the branching ambiguity is recognized due to subsequent input (Experiments 1 and 2). This is most consistent with the view that an initially assigned prosodic boundary is exploited for re-interpretation.

Is the population of Sado Island genetically close to the population of western Japan?

To explore the effect of aging, a cohort study is being performed on Sado Island, which is located in the Sea of Japan. Sado Island is close to the eastern coast of Japan, yet its population speaks the western Japanese dialect. Consequently, the genetic background of the population of Sado Island is of interest. Based on Nei’s genetic distance, we compared the allele frequencies of people from Sado Island to those of people from Nagahama and Miyagi, which are located in the western and northeastern parts of Honshu, respectively. The results showed that the populations of Miyagi and Nagahama are genetically closer to each other than to the population of Sado Island. Because the Sado and Honshu Islands are isolated by a channel, it is possible that genetic drift occurred within Sado Island, which would explain the uniqueness of the people of this region.

Interplay of Phonological, Morphological, and Lexical Variation: Adjectives in Japanese Dialects

This paper examines the interplay of phonological, morphological, and lexical variation focusing on adjectives in Japanese dialects. Previous studies of adjectives in the Niigata dialects of the Japanese language analyzed the ongoing changes in dialectal variation amongst the young generation of Japanese. In this paper, the data derived from the geolinguistic survey and dialect dictionaries are used to verify the estimated changes in phonological, morphological, and lexical variation. The variation of adjectives is examined by classifying forms with regard to the distinction between standard/dialectal forms. The phonological types of adjectives played a role in the interpretation of the phonological variation and change. Most changes of phonological types are phonologically explained but include change by analogy. The lexical variation is intertwined with phonological variation and morphological variation. The morphological distributions which vary according to the conjugation form are one example of lexical diffusion.

Foreign accent in L2 Japanese: A cross-sectional study

The current study examines acoustic sources of foreign accent in second language Japanese produced by American learners across different instructional levels and learning backgrounds. Our prior work has demonstrated that pitch accent, vowel duration, and spectral information of the vowel [e] influence perceived foreign accent in Japanese short sentences produced by intermediate learners, with pitch accent exerting the strongest influence. Building on this prior finding, the current study examines Japanese produced by American learners at the beginning level (n = 10), at the intermediate level (n = 16), American learners who have had early exposure to Japanese (n = 10), native Japanese speakers (n = 10), and ratings of the speech samples by native Japanese listeners (n = 10) to investigate the difference in the extent of perceived accent in their speech and the acoustic sources that influence perceived accent. The results of the current study shed light on issues related to development of second language speech, and the perceptual relevance of the development to lay listeners.

Instructional Media Development for Teaching Japanese Language

This research aims to develop multimedia teaching materials for teaching Japanese language at the senior high school. Using Adobe Flash CS5 software, this interactive media was technology based and provided some features found in the source book, such as vocabularies or sentence patterns introduction, etc. In addition this media also equipped by Japanese words pronounciation practice using Online Japanese Accent Dictionary (OJAD). This research was conducted with pre-experimental method, survey questionnaire and a short interview. Research subjects were teachers and students of senior high schools majoring Japanese language in Indonesia. Survey questionnaire result showed that this media was high rated as an attractive media and user-friendly media based on the contents and features provided on it. Further, it was found that this media was very useful not only for teachers as a teaching materials, but also for learners who are eager to learn Japanese independently.

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech.

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Timing patterns of voiceless and voiced singleton and geminate plosives of Yanagawa Japanese

The paper examines acoustic timing patterns of word-medial voiceless and voiced singleton and geminate plosives of Yanagawa Japanese, one of the Chikugo varieties of Japanese spoken in the center of Kyushu (Japan). Unlike standard Tokyo Japanese, Yanagawa Japanese is characterized by frequent gemination of any types of consonants including voiced obstruents (e.g., /kuzzoko/ [kuddzoko] “sole, the fish,” /miroɡɡe/ [miɾoɡɡe] “a shell fish”). Five Yanagawa Japanese speakers were recorded. Another five speakers of standard Tokyo Japanese were also recorded as a control group. The stimuli consisted of nonsense words with C1V1C(C)2V2 structure (e.g., /kak(k)a/, /kaɡ(ɡ)a/). The findings suggest that the whole word duration containing geminate consonants was longer in proportion to mora count difference those containing singleton consonants, confirming moraic timing at word level in Yanagawa Japanese. When C2 was a geminate (voiceless or voiced), it lengthened the preceding vowel (V1) and shortened the following one (V2) in both dialects. However, the magnitude of influence of geminates to adjacent vowels was dialect specific: V1 duration in Yanagawa was consistently longer than Tokyo when the following consonant was a geminate. The results of the current study point towards the timing differences in singletons and geminates across Japanese dialects.

日本語とブラジル・ポルトガル語の外国語訛り : 加工音声と原音声の知覚的評価( 正常な発話と逸脱した発話)

日本語とブラジル・ポルトガル語の外国語訛り : 加工音声と原音声の知覚的評価( 正常な発話と逸脱した発話)

ラムゼイ説と日本語アクセント史研究の諸問題 : de Boer (2010)の書評

ラムゼイ説と日本語アクセント史研究の諸問題 : de Boer (2010)の書評

日本語学習者および茨城方言話者による東京方言アクセントの習得 : その類似点と相違点について( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

日本語学習者および茨城方言話者による東京方言アクセントの習得 : その類似点と相違点について( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

乳幼児における韻律の知覚と産出の発達( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

乳幼児における韻律の知覚と産出の発達( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

外国人学習者の日本語アクセント・イントネーション習得(第二言語習得, 音声の獲得)

外国人学習者の日本語アクセント・イントネーション習得(第二言語習得, 音声の獲得)

まえがき( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

まえがき( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

幼児の単語アクセントの聴取に関する方言比較による検討( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

幼児の単語アクセントの聴取に関する方言比較による検討( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

日本語母語乳児の文中からの単語切り出しにおけるアクセントと音素配列の役割( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

日本語母語乳児の文中からの単語切り出しにおけるアクセントと音素配列の役割( 日本語アクセントの獲得・習得研究)

静岡県松崎町方言のアクセントにおける「ゆれ」の実態 : 語アクセント調査と談話資料の観点から( 東日本の音声)

静岡県松崎町方言のアクセントにおける「ゆれ」の実態 : 語アクセント調査と談話資料の観点から( 東日本の音声)

口形分析によるハ行唇音の諸相と展開 : 東北方言における( 東日本の音声)

口形分析によるハ行唇音の諸相と展開 : 東北方言における( 東日本の音声)

陸中宮古方言における「終止長音」の機能 : 文末イントネーションによる表現の一例として( 東日本の音声)

陸中宮古方言における「終止長音」の機能 : 文末イントネーションによる表現の一例として( 東日本の音声)