Effects of Syllable Duration and Pause on Word Segmentation by Native and Non-native English Speakers

Abstract

The present study investigated to what degree native English speakers and Japanese English learners with different levels of L2 proficiency employ the cues of syllable duration and pause between syllables to segment words. 12 native English speakers (NES), 12 native Japanese speakers with high English proficiency English (JSH), and 12 native Japanese speakers with low English proficiency (JSL) participated in the monitoring task, which presented four kinds of sound stimuli (i.e., compound words, words whose first syllable was lengthened by 100ms, the original compound words with a 100ms pause between segments, and words with manipulated syllable duration and pause). Although the results did not show any significant effects or interaction of syllable duration and pause, they indicate different tendencies between the three groups. NES appeared to use acoustic information other than syllable duration and pause to segment words. And while JSH did not employ the same word segmentation strategy as NES, they showed a tendency to consider the relationship between syllable duration and pause to segment words. At the same time, it is highly likely that JSL were sensitive to acoustic information and relied on this sensitivity to detect words.