Norm Consciousness of the Syllabic Nasal Duration of Native Japanese Speakers: Tokyo Metropolitan and Kinki Dialect Speakers

Abstract

In this study, norm consciousness research on syllabic nasal duration was performed on 10 Tokyo metropolitan and 10 Kinki dialect speakers. A female Japanese native speaker read 14 example sentences including the target words, which were recorded to create sound stimuli in which the syllabic nasals in the target words were manipulated from 50% to 200% in duration. The 20 respondents heard the sound stimuli and judged whether or not the syllabic nasal duration was "good" or "bad" in relation to pronunciation that normally heard in a conversational situation. As a result, the following two tendencies were observed. Both respondent groups judged long syllabic nasals as "bad" in comparison to short syllabic nasals. This tendency was eminent in the Tokyo metropolitan dialect speaking group. The other was that, among the target words, there was higher tolerance of both long and short syllabic nasals for the word group that was considered to reflect the speaker's mental attitudes. In addition, the Kinki dialect speakers showed higher tolerance than the Tokyo metropolitan dialect speakers.