Abstract
Some researchers and educators believe that the use of kana transcription may cause a negative transfer in the acquisition of English rhythm. This study investigated whether using Japanese phonograms, kana, as phonetic transcription negatively affects Japanese English learners’ acquisition of stress-timed rhythm. For this study, 66 Japanese learners of English (54 learners in the final analysis) were divided into three groups: an intuitive-imitative (e.g., listen and repeat), analytic-linguistic (e.g., articulatory descriptions), and L1-pivotal (e.g., kana transcription) group. Each group received 20 minutes of instruction in which they were taught how to read English sentences while paying attention to English rhythm. After each instruction, the participants were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding how difficult or easy they found the instruction (cognitive load). Their speech production was measured through controlled tests, analyzed with a focus on rhythmic units (phonological feet) with Pratt, an open-source software for phonetic analysis. The results of the pre/post-tests showed no significant differences in foot isochrony between groups. This may suggest that the L1-pivotal approach, whose well-known technique is the use of kana transcription, has few negative influences on Japanese learners who are acquiring English rhythm.
https://ror.org/00m007a06 
