Japanese Speakers Of English Research Articles

Reassessing Clarification Request Strategies within English-Speaking Japanese Business Discourse: Clarification of Message Delivery and Pragmatic Ambiguity

Objectives: English communication skills are becoming more important in the business context of Japan. To realise smooth communication, the use of clarification requests is considered facilitative. Many companies in Japan have introduced corporate in-house English training as a part of their English-speaking Human Resources development, and many focus on training in the use of clarification requests. However, not much has been understood about how the pragmatics are employed within the English-speaking discourse community by Japanese businesspeople. This study looks at how clarification requests are used by Japanese businesspeople and addresses how they can contribute to realising effective communication in English-speaking business discourse in Japan. Methods: The researcher analyses data retrieved from stimulated role-play. The participants are requested to engage in collective decision-making in their corporate in-house English training. There were 24 participants involved in this study, and they were placed into four teams for cross-sectional comparison. The interaction of the participants was videorecorded and later transcribed to allow for text-based discourse analysis. Results: Our data show that the use of clarification request strategies was observed in all teams. Participants used clarification requests for various kinds of discourse pragmatic functions. Conclusions: It was concluded that teaching clarification request strategies is beneficial for many Japanese businesspeople who wish to develop their English communication competence. However, the potential face-threatening aspect of the use of clarification requests by Japanese speakers of English has been overlooked. This aspect should be taken into consideration when designing/implementing corporate in-house English training in Japanese companies in the future.

Insertion of the voiceless fricative [s] at word-final position in Japanese English

ABSTRACT This article explains how the voiceless fricative [s], or what we refer to as ‘special [s],’ occurs in free talk produced by Japanese speakers of English and what this means for the current understanding of Japanese English. The discussion is based on a small corpus compiled by the authors from recordings. The findings are threefold. The special [s] is always voiceless, occurs only word-finally, and arises from four different pragmatic forces. These forces are discourse marker, hesitation, cause and effect, and expression of self. The definition of Japanese English has been built heavily on the influence of the first language (L1) on the second language (L2). While L1 transfer is integral to L2 English production, the present article supplements this view by disclosing facts about what L2 users do while they are engaged in speaking in English; that is, in usage events.

Examining fluctuations in the WTC of Japanese EFL speakers: Language proficiency, affective and conditional factors

Willingness to communicate (WTC), which plays a crucial role in second or foreign language learning, has a dynamic and complex nature, fluctuating during communicative events. This study examines how the situational WTC of four Japanese speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL) emerges and fluctuates, focusing on the roles of language proficiency and affective and conditional factors. Low-intermediate and advanced speakers were engaged in an interactive, communicative activity with an interlocutor. All utterances were recorded, transcribed, and analysed and combined with the qualitative data from participants’ self-ratings and a stimulated recall interview after the activity to assess fluctuations in WTC. The findings indicate that levels of WTC are influenced differently between low-intermediate and advanced speakers. Although the WTC of all speakers was negatively affected when they sensed a lack of English proficiency, low-intermediate speakers were affected by interest in the topic, influence of interlocutors on sense of security, and self-confidence, while opportunity to talk about oneself and one’s opinions contributed to the WTC of advanced speakers. It is suggested that teaches of EFL should be considerate of these factors that can affect EFL learners’ WTC.

Physical poetry: using Japanese Butо̄ in an EFL poetry performance project

ABSTRACTThis paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary project in which English poetry and performance studies were integrated into a poetry performance project for EFL students in a language education programme at a Japanese university. The project used the theories and methods of Butо̄, a contemporary Japanese form of dance and visual art, to guide students through the process of interpretation, journaling, rehearsal, and performance. In Notational Butо̄ practice, performers begin with a piece of literary or visual art, observe the images that stand out most to the performer, make notes about those images’ qualities in a journal, and then reflect on the movement. Our students followed a similar process, accompanied with vocal work, as they memorised excerpts from English poetry. We found that the project helped students create personal connections with the literature and more fully integrate foreign culture experiences into their identity as Japanese speakers of English.

Japanese Attitudes towards Japanese English Speakers: The Effect of Language Varieties and Spoken Content

Japanese Attitudes towards Japanese English Speakers: The Effect of Language Varieties and Spoken Content

Intelligibility and Segmental Phoneme Repair Strategies in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca Interactions among Chinese and Japanese Speakers of English

AbstractThis is a qualitative study of the types of segmental repair that maintain mutual intelligibility in English-as-a-Lingua-Franca interactions among Chinese and Japanese speakers of English (

“The people who are out of ‘right’ English”: Japanese university students' social evaluations of English language diversity and the internationalisation of Japanese higher education

Previous research indicates that evaluations of speech forms reflect stereotypes of, and attitudes towards, the perceived group(s) of speakers of the language/variety under consideration. This study, employing both implicit and explicit attitude measures, investigates 158 Japanese university students' perceptions of forms of UK, US, Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Indian English speech. The results show a general convergence between students' explicit and implicit attitudes, for instance, regarding US and UK English as the most correct, and solidarity with Japanese speakers of English. The findings are discussed in relation to intergroup relations between the traditional Japanese cohort and specific groups of overseas students, particularly in light of recent internationalisation policies adopted by many Japanese universities, and the resultant increase in international students from South and East Asia.

A prerequisite to L1 homophone effects in L2 spoken-word recognition

When both members of a phonemic contrast in L2 (second language) are perceptually mapped to a single phoneme in one’s L1 (first language), L2 words containing a member of that contrast can spuriously activate L2 words in spoken-word recognition. For example, upon hearing cattle, Dutch speakers of English are reported to experience activation of kettle, as L1 Dutch speakers perceptually map the vowel in the two English words to a single vowel phoneme in their L1. In an auditory word-learning experiment using Greek and Japanese speakers of English, we asked whether such cross-lexical activation in L2 spoken-word recognition necessarily involves inaccurate perception by the L2 listeners, or can also arise from interference from L1 phonology at an abstract level, independent of the listeners’ phonetic processing abilities. Results suggest that spurious activation of L2 words containing L2-specific contrasts in spoken-word recognition is contingent on the L2 listeners’ inadequate phonetic processing abilities.

A statistical method of evaluating the pronunciation proficiency/intelligibility of English presentations by Japanese speakers

AbstractIn this paper, we propose a statistical evaluation method of pronunciation proficiency and intelligibility for presentations made in English by native Japanese speakers. We statistically analyzed the actual utterances of speakers to find combinations of acoustic and linguistic features with high correlation between the scores estimated by the system and native English teachers. Our results showed that the best combination of acoustic features produced correlation coefficients of 0.929 and 0.753 for pronunciation and intelligibility scores, respectively, using open data for speakers at the 10-sentence level. In an offline test, we evaluated possibly-confusing pairs of phonemes that are often mispronounced by Japanese speakers of English. In addition, we developed an online real-time score estimation system for Japanese learners of English using offline techniques to evaluate the pronunciation and intelligibility scores in real-time with almost the same ability as English teachers. Finally, we show that both the objective and subjective evaluations improved after learning with our system.

Comparative study of intensity in the speech of native speakers and Japanese speakers of English

Comparative study of intensity in the speech of native speakers and Japanese speakers of English

There Constructions Used by Japanese Speakers of English: Their Linguistic Features and Acceptability

The concept of World Englishes should allow Japanese speakers of English (JS) to develop Japanese English as their own additional language to express their own identity. In Japan, however, previous research has primarily focused on errors JS make, and has not paid adequate attention to Japanese English expressions which are grammatically correct, but not commonly used by native speakers of English (NS). The general purposes of the present study were to collect such grammatically correct Japanese English expressions which were not preferred by NS, and to analyze why those differences emerge between Japanese English and native English. It specifically focused on the use of there constructions, using the Nagoya Interlanguage Corpus of English (NICE) which contains a large collection of essays on social topics written by adult JS and NS of English. It examined differences between JS and NS in terms of linguistic features such as tense, plurality of the logical subject, the post-logical-subject elements, quantifiers and others. It also examined the acceptability of there constructions, and how their sentence structures were changed by NS and JS evaluators who edited the sentences. It was found that JS preferred to use present tense, plural logical subjects, quantifiers, relative clauses and logical subjects which denote “beings”. A large portion of there constructions with these linguistic features were edited by the evaluators. Possible factors that may account for the preferential use of the constructions are also discussed.

Comparative electromagnetic articulographic study of English rhythm as produced by native and non-native speakers

Previous work suggests that concurrent changes in jaw displacement and formant frequencies may manifest rhythm of spoken American English utterances [e.g., Erickson, in Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2010, Chicago (May 2010), p. 1]. This paper compares jaw displacement and corresponding formant frequencies of monosyllabic American English words produced on low vowels in four word phrases with varying positions of emphasis as spoken by three native speakers and three Japanese speakers of English. Preliminary findings suggest an alternating pattern of strong-weak jaw displacement along with corresponding formant changes for the native speakers. This pattern was not consistently seen for the non-native speakers and seemed to vary as a function of their skill-level in spoken English.

Morphological Congruency and the Acquisition of L2 Morphemes

The present study examined the proposal that the presence of a similar morpheme in the learner's first and second languages (L2) facilitates morphological development in the L2. Advanced Russian and Japanese speakers of English as a second language performed a self‐paced reading task in which they read English sentences word by word for comprehension. Russian participants showed a reliable sensitivity to plural errors, but Japanese participants did not. The findings supported the morphological congruency hypothesis. A theoretical proposal is put forward to explain how morphological congruency affects L2 morpheme acquisition. The findings and the proposal are relevant to the discussion of the critical period hypothesis, ultimate attainment in L2, and the characterization of L2 competence of steady‐state adult L2 learners.

A Study on Pitch Patterns in Japanese Speakers of English with Verification by Speech Re-Synthesis

Certain irregularities in the utterances of words or phrases often occur in English spoken by Japanese native subject, referred to in this article as Japanese English. Japanese English is linguistically presumed to reflect the phonetic characteristics of Japanese. We consider the prosodic feature patterns as one of the most common causes of irregularities in Japanese English, and that Japanese English would have better prosodic patterns if its particular characteristics were modified. This study investigates prosodic differences between Japanese English and English speakers' English, and shows the quantitative results of a statistical analysis of pitch. The analysis leads to rules that show how to modify Japanese English to have pitch patterns closer to those of English speakers. On the basis of these rules, the pitch patterns of test speech samples of Japanese English are modified, and then re-synthesized. The modified speech is evaluated in a listening experiment by native English subjects. The result of the experiment shows that on average, over three-fold of the English subjects support the proposed modification against original speech. Therefore, the results of the experiments indicate practical verification of validity of the rules. Additionally, the results suggest that irregularities of prominence lie in Japanese English sentences. This can be explained by the prosodic transfer of first language prosodic characteristics on second language prosodic patterns.

Comparative study of focal lengthening in the speech of native speakers and Japanese speakers of English

A study on word duration in English sentences uttered by native speakers of Japanese is conducted, in which the difference in focus between the English and Japanese languages is taken into account. The durations of Japanese speakers are compared with those of English speakers in regard to a percentage distribution of an individual word relative to all words in a sentence. The results of statistical analysis reveal that defects of focus, which are shorter for English speakers, occur on nouns and on words at the ends of sentences in Japanese speakers. The former result suggests that English speakers put focus on nouns, whereas Japanese speakers tend not to have the same rhythm as English speakers. The latter result suggests that phrase-final lengthening is insufficient in Japanese speakers. Also, these results can be explained by the difference in focus between English and Japanese. Additionally, a correlation is recognized between the defects in focus and the English proficiency of Japanese speakers.

Effects of hyperarticulated clear speech in English stress production by Korean and Japanese speakers of English

Effects of hyperarticulated clear speech in English stress production by Korean and Japanese speakers of English

Qualitative Analysis of Disagreement Strategy between Korean and Japanese Speakers of English in an Academic Context

Qualitative Analysis of Disagreement Strategy between Korean and Japanese Speakers of English in an Academic Context

Effects of the grammatical representation of number on cognition in bilinguals

Research investigating the relationship between language and cognition (Lucy, 1992b) shows that speakers of languages with grammatical number marking (e.g. English) judge differences in the number of countable objects as more significant than differences in the number or amount of non-countable substances. On the other hand, speakers of languages which lack grammatical number marking (e.g. Yucatec) show no such preference. The current paper extends Lucy's (1992b) investigation, comparing monolingual English and Japanese speakers with Japanese speakers of English as a second language (L2). Like Yucatec, Japanese is a non-plural-marking language. Results show that intermediate L2 speakers behave similarly to the Japanese monolinguals while advanced L2 speakers behave similarly to the English monolinguals. The results (a) provide support for the claim that grammatical representation may influence cognition in specific ways and (b) suggest that L2 acquisition may alter cognitive dispositions established by a first language (L1).

A Comparative Study of Strategies for Interpersonal Conflict Management between Japanese Speakers of English and Native Speakers of English

A Comparative Study of Strategies for Interpersonal Conflict Management between Japanese Speakers of English and Native Speakers of English

Structure and Politeness: A Model for Comparing Discourse-Staging Strategies in Cross-Cultural Speech Encounters, with Special Reference to Japanese Speakers of English and Native Speakers of Australian English

This paper argues that there is a fundamental relationship between the manifestation of linguistic politeness and discourse management. It suggests that politeness in English — here specifically in Australian English — is not only a function of the various ways in which a particular speech act may be realised but is also a function of context-specific discourse focussing. It further suggests that politeness dysfunctions which occur between native speakers of Australian English and native speakers of languages other than English (the focus here being on Japanese speakers of English) in specific English-language speech situations could well be the result of differing discourse-staging strategies. Preliminary research findings are cited to examine this hypothesis.