2023 Volume 27 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
This study examines the difference in phonetic characteristics of Japanese polite speech by Japanese native speakers and Chinese-speaking learners. In the production experiment, subjects were asked to produce requests with different levels of psychological imposition. As a result, utterances with high imposition by native speakers showed slower speech rate, narrower F0 range, and lower F0 max. Furthermore, prolongation and pressed voice which indicates disfluency, as well as the use of breathy voice were demonstrated. In contrast, the utterance of Chinese-speaking learners showed different intonation patterns. However, in the perception experiment, there was little difference between native speakers and Chinese-speaking learners.
