Japanese Voice Research Articles

한국어, 영어, 중국어, 일본어 수동표현의 사용빈도 비교 - 신약성경 사도행전을 중심으로 -

In some languages, active voice can usually be converted to passive voice without any problems. However, there are languages in which the use of the passive voice is quite restricted. This paper analyzes the frequency of the passive voice in Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese based on the text of the Book of Acts in the New Testament. In the English text, 302 passive constructions were identified, while the Korean, the Chinese and the Japanese text used 198, 104, 215 passive constructions respectively. Korean and Japanese showed no meaningful difference. The four languages also showed differences in the number of passive markers or forms and their usages. Japanese has a single marker for passive voice. In English, two forms are used: the be-passive and the get-passive. The situations of the two other languages are quite different. In Korean, we could enumerate eight or more passive markers. Chinese grammars usually classify four or five passive markers, although some grammarians count twelve passive markers in Chinese. In Korean, eight markers were used with significant frequencies(more than nine cases). In Chinese, the bei(被)-type was mainly used (75 of 104 cases), and the shou(受)-type showed a frequency of 27. We did not find any other passive markers with a significant frequency in the Chinese text.

Hybrid Japanese Language Teaching Aid System with Multi-Source Information Fusion Mapping

Learning Japanese can enhance competitiveness in a globalized economy, and we address the problems of poor open-source Japanese language teaching, cumbersome teaching tasks, and a single teaching model. We propose a hybrid Japanese teaching aid system with multiple information fusion mapping, which can effectively improve the efficiency of Japanese teaching and reduce the tedious human teaching procedures. The system is divided into two branches of Japanese language recognition, namely, the Japanese text recognition branch and the Japanese voice sequence recognition branch. In the Japanese text recognition branch, we integrate attention mechanisms and long short-term memory networks as the basic network for Japanese character text recognition. In addition, we set up separate text feature recognition systems for Japanese computer writing and handwriting to prevent feature overlap problems. For Japanese voice sequence recognition, we used a combination of memory gating unit and encoder, based on the network still extending the structure of the deep neural network and using the residual structure connection in the gating unit to avoid the gradient disappearance problem. At the end of the system, we use a softmax layer to connect the text recognition and voice recognition networks to form a Japanese language teaching aid system. To verify the efficiency of our system, we selected the Japanese text recognition public dataset and voice recognition public dataset for experimental validation. To match the practical application of the system, we created our dataset based on the dataset standard and conducted experimental validation. To compare other Japanese recognition methods, we selected the six most representative Japanese recognition algorithms for experimental comparison. To ensure the balance of the experiments, each algorithm is trained in a separate experimental environment for modeling and tuning parameters. Experimental performance and the experimental results show that our method significantly outperforms the other methods and has better system stability.

Sex-and Age-Based Etiological Analysis of 2901 Patients With Dysphonia in a Japanese Tertiary Medical Institute

Societal aging is a grave concern in Japan, and its impact on voice clinics has not been investigated. This study aimed to clarify recent demographic features of geriatric dysphonia at a tertiary medical institute in Japan. Retrospective study. The medical records of 2901 patients newly referred to the Voice Outpatient Clinic of the University of Tokyo Hospital between 2003 and 2020 were analyzed for age, sex, and etiology. The mean ± standard deviation age of all patients was 53.2 ± 20.7 (median, 58; range, 0-95) years. The aging rate (ratio of patients aged ≥65 years) increased continuously during the study period, and the recent aging rate was the highest in the world (43%). However, its rate of increase has slowed over the past 10 years. The etiologies of dysphonia associated with the largest number of older patients were vocal fold immobility (32%), vocal fold atrophy (23%), and benign vocal fold lesions (11%). The highest aging rate was detected in patients with laryngeal cancer/leukoplakia, vocal tremor, vocal fold atrophy, sulcus vocalis, and vocal fold immobility. Societal aging substantially increased the aging rate of patients with dysphonia in a Japanese voice clinic. The incidence of vocal fold immobility and atrophy is expected to continue to increase, whereas that of benign vocal fold lesions is expected to decrease.

Voice Assistants and the Concept of Character: Response to Joleen Blom

New technologies like voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant give the impression that the lines between humans and machines are blurring as machines gradually take up social roles once occupied by humans. To counter that anxiety, this essay argues that these technologies are becoming more like characters, adapting to the templates we initially constructed for fictional beings whose space voice assistants occupy instead. It provides a textual reading of the Japanese voice assistant Hikari Azuma as advertised by the company Vinclu's website in order to demonstrate how Hikari functions as a kyara, a character without story, whose development depends on the user. The essay proposes that we have to adjust our conceptual understanding of characters as distinct from human beings and technology. Instead, the essay concludes that we should perceive current technologies like voice assistants as technologies operating on a spectrum in which some machines will look more like characters and others more like software-in-action with no humanlikeness at all.

Contrasting Character Identities: A Response to Kai Mikkonen

New technologies like voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant give the impression that the lines between humans and machines are blurring as machines gradually take up social roles once occupied by humans. To counter that anxiety, this essay argues that these technologies are becoming more like characters, adapting to the templates we initially constructed for fictional beings whose space voice assistants occupy instead. It provides a textual reading of the Japanese voice assistant Hikari Azuma as advertised by the company Vinclu's website in order to demonstrate how Hikari functions as a kyara, a character without story, whose development depends on the user. The essay proposes that we have to adjust our conceptual understanding of characters as distinct from human beings and technology. Instead, the essay concludes that we should perceive current technologies like voice assistants as technologies operating on a spectrum in which some machines will look more like characters and others more like software-in-action with no humanlikeness at all.

Virtual Assistants as Characters—Or Not

New technologies like voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant give the impression that the lines between humans and machines are blurring as machines gradually take up social roles once occupied by humans. To counter that anxiety, this essay argues that these technologies are becoming more like characters, adapting to the templates we initially constructed for fictional beings whose space voice assistants occupy instead. It provides a textual reading of the Japanese voice assistant Hikari Azuma as advertised by the company Vinclu's website in order to demonstrate how Hikari functions as a kyara, a character without story, whose development depends on the user. The essay proposes that we have to adjust our conceptual understanding of characters as distinct from human beings and technology. Instead, the essay concludes that we should perceive current technologies like voice assistants as technologies operating on a spectrum in which some machines will look more like characters and others more like software-in-action with no humanlikeness at all.

Voice Assistants as Characters—or Not

New technologies like voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant give the impression that the lines between humans and machines are blurring as machines gradually take up social roles once occupied by humans. To counter that anxiety, this essay argues that these technologies are becoming more like characters, adapting to the templates we initially constructed for fictional beings whose space voice assistants occupy instead. It provides a textual reading of the Japanese voice assistant Hikari Azuma as advertised by the company Vinclu's website in order to demonstrate how Hikari functions as a kyara, a character without story, whose development depends on the user. The essay proposes that we have to adjust our conceptual understanding of characters as distinct from human beings and technology. Instead, the essay concludes that we should perceive current technologies like voice assistants as technologies operating on a spectrum in which some machines will look more like characters and others more like software-in-action with no humanlikeness at all.

Incorporating Reader’s Theater in Japanese University EFL Classrooms

Reader's Theater is an activity that is often utilized in classrooms for younger learners. However, this activity, which fosters a cooperative learning environment, can also be used to increase the fluency of Japanese university EFL learners. This article explains how the author uses Reader’s Theater (hereafter called RT) with adult learners and how it can be scaffolded in a Japanese university setting through the introduction of information on the Japanese voice acting industry. Moreover, the benefits of implementing RT in the EFL classroom, potential challenges when doing so, and different ways of addressing these challenges are also discussed. The article focuses on the use of cooperative learning strategies, such as the jigsaw technique, which can be used to enhance student voice acting skills, delivery, pronunciation, and teamwork. Utilizing strategies like these can help ensure that RT will be an engaging activity for students in an English-medium classroom.

Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination, by W. Anthony Sheppard

<i>Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination</i>, by W. Anthony Sheppard

The Political History of Modern Japan

Kitaoka Shinichi, a diplomatic historian and policy advisor who currently serves as the president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, has been a long-time advocate of raising Japan’s political profile and one of the leading intellectual forces behind Japan’s 2013 National Security Strategy. Before chairing a variety of advisory bodies responsible for overhauling Japan’s security regime under Abe Shinzō, Kitaoka updated an earlier textbook on modern Japan’s domestic and, to a lesser extent, international politics. The textbook was originally published in 1989 and updated in 2011. On the occasion of the monograph’s recent translation and publication under the auspices of the Japan Library, the author managed to add a chapter to the original version on the country’s former colonies and the legacy of its empire there. This book is a welcome addition to the growing number of general histories and university handbooks, because it adds a representative Japanese voice to...

JSUT and JVS: Free Japanese voice corpora for accelerating speech synthesis research

JSUT and JVS: Free Japanese voice corpora for accelerating speech synthesis research

Interlinear Glossing in a Historical Perspective: A Case of Gradience in the Passive Voice in Japanese

Interlinear Glossing in a Historical Perspective: A Case of Gradience in the Passive Voice in Japanese

Context effects on Japanese voice misperceptions

Context effects on Japanese voice misperceptions

日本語ヴォイス構文の指標的機能と話者の選択

In previous researches Japanese voice constructions were examined as devices for managing discourse coherence by indicating a person as the focus of attention or of spearker’s empathy. However, in that discourse function a speaker cannot choose the function because it is automatically determined by grammatical and cognitive ways. Previous studies rarely studied the context constitutive choice made by a speaker in every actual language use. This paper aims to explain the functions of Japanese voice constructions which can potentially be a set of options for a speaker’s choice in a discourse, and then examines the speaker’s motivation for the choice made. Introspective and intuitive research method is used to explain the set of options and motivations of speaker’s choice, and each set is assumed to be formed paradigmatically based on functional linguistic theory. The functions of constructions are explained as indexical functions which is developed in the theory of anthropological linguistics. Indexical functions examined here are conventional grammatical knowledges shared in a particular language community. The data used are personal narrative ones. Therefore, the speaker’s focus of attention or empathy no longer need to be questioned here, because in the personal narratives the speaker itself is cognitively the focus of attention. The analysis shows that the indexical functions of constructions chosen by the speaker is roughly divided into two types of indexicals, the first is referential indexicals which express the locus of speaker, directionality, causality, and affectedness of actions, evaluative attitudes towards events, social statuses and powers, and mental attitudes. The second is nonreferential indexicals that express socio-cultural attitudes.

Franz Kafka no cinema animado

Por meio do diálogo comparado entre audiovisual e literatura, este artigo analisa o conto Um médico rural, de Franz Kafka, e a sua adaptação para o cinema a partir da animação homônima criada pelo japonês Koji Yamamura. O objetivo central é compreender e investigar como as características narrativas e a atmosfera criada no fantástico de Kafka são trabalhadas na animação. Através da análise fílmica, verificamos que os principais recursos utilizados foram as deformações gráficas no desenho das personagens, o exagero nos gestos, a ênfase no modo de se movimentar das figuras, as abruptas mudanças de acelerações e uma colorização com tons frios e amarelados. A ambientação sonora perturbadora do violino e do piano e as interpretações vocais dos dubladores japoneses foram cruciais para recriar o fantástico kafkiano no audiovisual animado sob um novo olhar.

한국인 학습자의 일본어 어두 유성파열음의 발음 습득 실태 : 자발(회화) 음성의 VOT를 중심으로

This study describes the acquisition status of Japanese initial voiced plosive of Korean learners using spontaneous speech, the descriptive contents and the pronunciation teaching method of Japanese initial voiced plosive’s VOT in commercial Japanese voice textbooks. As a result, the following findings were confirmed.BR First, most of Korean learners were acquiring Japanese initial voiced plosive as +VOT. The longest +VOT value appears in the phonetic environment where the point of articulation is the soft palate and the subsequent vowel is /i/ whereas the longest -VOT value appears when the point of articulation is the alveolar ridge and the subsequent vowel is /e/.BR Second, the VOT value of Japanese initial voiced plosive by both Korean learners and Japanese speakers is most distributed in common in the range of 0ms to 50ms , but in terms of the proportion , Korean learners’ VOT values were higher than Japanese speakers`.BR Third, commercial Japanese voice textbooks describe Japanese initial voiced plosive as -VOT, and suggest learners pronounce it by adding ‘ん’ or a vowel before the voiced stop. But, it is necessary to modify and complement the explanation and the pronunciation teaching method of VOT considering the fact that +VOT appears in the pronunciation of most Japanese speakers and Korean learners, and it is also necessary to examine the validity and the need for improvement of existing pronunciation teaching methods.

클라우드 컴퓨팅을 활용한 일본어 음성수업 설계 및 효과 분석 연구

클라우드 컴퓨팅을 활용한 일본어 음성수업 설계 및 효과 분석 연구

中島悦子著, 『日中対照研究 ヴォイス-自・他の対応・受身・使役・可能・自発-』, 2007年4月20日発行, おうふう刊, A5判, 192ページ, 4,000円+税

中島悦子著, 『日中対照研究 ヴォイス-自・他の対応・受身・使役・可能・自発-』, 2007年4月20日発行, おうふう刊, A5判, 192ページ, 4,000円+税

On Morphological Properties of Voice in Japanese and Shimoichi(ni)dan-verb

On Morphological Properties of Voice in Japanese and Shimoichi(ni)dan-verb

Constraints on the semantic extension of onomatopoeia

This article proposes three constraints on the complex polysemy patterns of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeic forms for thirty types of sounds were collected from Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and English, and examined in terms of their semantic extensibility and extension types. It was found that 1) Chinese onomatopoeia is generally resistant to semantic extension, 2) onomatopoeic forms for voice in Japanese and Korean are less likely to be polysemous than those for noise, many of which show metonymical extension, and 3) many onomatopoeic verbs in English have metaphorical meanings. These three patterns can be accounted for by generalizations that associate high semantic extensibility with referential specificity, event-structural complexity, and syntactic coreness, respectively. Each of these generalizations finds some independent support, and is compatible with or complementary to a frame-semantic approach to polysemous onomatopoeic forms, which has been taken to discuss existing, rather than non-existing, cases in each language. This study is, thus, an attempt to locate sound symbolism research in the center of cognitive studies of language.