Abstract
Previous studies suggest that Korean learners of Japanese perceived Japanese pitch-accents differently compared to the L1 dialect. This study examines such differences in terms of the discreteness of pitch perception. Participants included Seoul and Gyeongsang dialect speakers as well as Japanese native speakers completed an AXB identification task based on nonsense words' continua (CVCVCV and CVRCV), in which the contours of accentual pitch fall varied gradually from one mora to the next. The results showed a remarkable difference between the responses of the Gyeongsang and Seoul dialect speakers: the former were discrete to the same extent as the Japanese native speakers, whereas the latter were more continuous. This suggests that Seoul dialect speakers are less sensitive at detecting Japanese accents and such insensitivity could make Japanese accent acquisition more difficult for them.
