The Essential Factors for Acquisition of Japanese Lexical Accent by Korean Learners

A Study of Advanced Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive factors for acquisition of Japanese lexical accent. In this study, 70 Korean advanced learners were given 5 tasks which were supposed to relate to Japanese accent production: word reading (as Production), non-word reading with pitch direction (as Pitch Control), monitoring of word/ non-word reading tasks (as Monitoring), accent pattern discrimination (as Perception), and accent judgment (as Knowledge). The results of correlation analysis revealed that the accent knowledge score was most strongly related to the production score. In addition, a stepwise regression analysis was employed to investigate the relationship between the production and other factors. The results showed that only the knowledge score could predict the production score.