Production and Perception of Focused Sentences in Japanese Learners of English

抄録

This study investigates the production and perception of the effects of focus on intonational attributes of fundamental frequency (F_0) and duration in English declarative sentences. In Experiment 1, the utterances under focus, as well as the neutral conditions produced by native speakers of English (NS), good Japanese speakers of English (GJS), and poor Japanese speakers of English (PJS), were analyzed acoustically. NS produced the focused word with large increase in duration, but the two Japanese groups showed a small increase. The duration of the utterance was almost the same as that under neutral conditions for NS, while for the Japanese speakers it decreased. The F_0 range (F_0 maximum minus F_0 minimum) of the focused words was wider than that of those defocused in NS and GJS, but it was not always the case for PJS. In Experiment 2, the perception of prominence (focus) was examined by changing both the F_0 range and duration by small steps using the analysis and resynthesis technique. The native listeners perceived prominence with a larger increase of vowel length and the F_0 range than the Japanese listeners. This was fairly compatible with the results of the analyses in Experiment 1. These indicate that Japanese learners of English are less dependent on the increment of duration and the F_0 range in producing and perceiving English sentential focus.