An Aspect of Phonological Perception on Listening Comprehension for Japanese Learners

An Experimental Test of Speech Rhythm's Role Operating Listening Comprehension

Abstract

This present study explores the characteristics of phonological perception and semantic processing mechanism during listening comprehension of Japanese learners with different listening levels, by controlling the articulation rate and pause location of listening recording materials. The achievement of this paper is as follows: (a) The fact that faster articulation rate promotes the general perception and processing of semantic units has also been confirmed in second language listening. (b) Learners carry out semantic processing in the unit of "phrase". It turns out that the higher the pause frequency doesn't contribute to better semantic understanding. On the contrary, cutting off the pause of chunks has negative effect on the process of understanding. (c) Learners with higher listening level are able to respond flexibly and realize semantic processing between longer chunks, while learners with lower listening level are unable to adapt to the processing accordingly, which results in memory loss and so on instead.