A Preliminary Study of the Production of French Close-Mid and Open-Mid Vowels /e/ and /ɛ/ by Japanese Learners

Abstract

This paper presents preliminary results from a production study of French close-mid and open-mid vowels /e/ and /ɛ/ by Japanese learners of French as a second language. Among French vowels, the close-mid and open-mid vowels are especially difficult for learners because their pronunciation depends on an interplay of factors such as phonological environment, syllable structure, and spelling. In this study, 8 Japanese learners took part in a production experiment. Based on the analysis of the formant data of their productions and a comparison with French native speakers, this study found that (i) the acoustic characteristics of the two target vowels when produced by native speakers and second language learners differ, (ii) learners do not vary enough the degree of aperture between the two vowels to make a distinction, and (iii) the accuracy of the pronunciation is correlated with the position and spelling of the vowel. Further studies are required to investigate the perception of the two vowels by Japanese second language learners and understand better the difficulties they encounter in phonetic implementation.