Effects of Syllable Duration and Pause on Word Identification by Native and Non-native English speakers

Abstract

This research project was set up to examine how native English speakers and L2 speakers with different levels of language experience make use of the cues of syllable duration and length of pause to identify compound words and phrases. Selected groups of native English speakers, Japanese speakers with extensive experience of English, and Japanese speakers whose knowledge of English was limited took part in a forced choice task. We selected twenty compound words and twenty corresponding two-separate words (phrases) as targets, and inserted a silence of 100ms between the first syllables/words and the second syllables/words in all the targets. After having been given one of the stimuli, the participants were asked to identify the targets either as compound words or as phrases. The results show that the native English speakers and both groups of Japanese speakers, regardless of their experience of English, used the length of pause rather than syllable duration to identify compound words and phrases.