Utilization of Articulatory Shape Visualization Information in Pronunciation Training and Evaluation of Training Effect by Facial Muscle SurfaceMyopotential Signals

抄録

Learning speaking skill is essential in language learning. It is challenging for Japanese native speaker to learn the pronunciation of vowels that are not commonly used in their native language. When pronouncing, human use their facial muscles in various way, and the usage of their facial muscles affect their pronunciation. This article contains the evaluation of Pronunciation Training System, which teach trainees by showing the formants of voice, lip shape and tongue position. Since using facial muscle, it is crucial in pronouncing vowels, in the modified pronunciation training system, indicators are added to the original pronunciation training system’s displaying of the lip shape to make trainees aware of their using of facial muscle. Evaluation was done by training experiment with 3 groups. First group uses the modified pronunciation training system, second group uses the original pronunciation training system, and last group uses no pronunciation training system. For the result, the group with modified pronunciation training system appears to use their facial muscle most effectively in articulating vowels, and the formants are more stably getting closer to the target vowel than two other groups.