A special geminate like ff in maffa "pillow", which does not exist in the Standard Japanese (SJ), is found in the Antoh dialect in Fukui Prefecture. This paper deals with the synchronic and diachronic phenomena concerning the ff geminate in addition to bb and ss. This paper has the following purposes: (1) to illustrate the correspondence of geminates between the Antoh dialect and SJ, (2) to investigate the historical development of the geminates in the Antoh dialect, (3) to point out that the manifestation of the geminates in the Antoh dialect is similar to that of the Miyakojima dialect in the Ryukyuan language, and (4) to propose that the explanation for the process of the geminate in this dialect gives a suggestive source to the discussion on the processes of sound changes in the Ryukyuan language.

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Penultimate Non-Lexical Prominence, or PNLP, is a variant of phrase final rising-falling intonation in Standard (Tokyo) Japanese. In the first half of the paper, phonetic difference between the authentic rising-falling intonation and PNLP was examined using the phonetic data of the Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ). In the last half, PNLP's linguistic function was analyzed using CSJ's monologue speech and clause boundary labels that provide information about the relative strengths of various clause boundaries. Analysis of the distribution of PNLP with reference to clause boundaries revealed two interesting functions. Firstly, PNLP seemed to have culminative function; it occurred, typically, only once in an utterance bounded by absolute (i.e., the strongest)clause boundaries. Secondly, modest delimitative function was also observed; PNLP occurred, most frequently, but not regularly, in the penultimate accentual phrase of an utterance thereby predicting the end of an utterance. These findings and pilot text analysis suggested tentative conclusion that native speakers of Japanese used PNLP to predict the end of an utterance and a change in topic at the utterance boundary.

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This article examines the following three aspects of teaching English pronunciation at secondary schools in Japan: 1)which features of pronunciation are actually taught and which are not; 2) which problems are caused by this; and 3)which measures can or should be taken to solve the problems. In each aspect above, single sounds, word/phrase/sentence stresses and intonation are taken into account. Very little time is devoted to teaching pronunciation, and sadly awareness of the importance of pronunciation among pupils/students is quite low. In order to improve the situation, remedies, such as phonics-based instruction, are proposed.

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English is now regarded as the world's principal international language, and there are now more exchanges between non-native speakers of English than between non-native speakers and native speakers. As a result, the traditional idea of a native-speaker accent as a model or norm has come to be questioned. This paper first surveys the change in the attitude towards non-native English pronunciation in the seven versions of Gimson's Pronunciation of English (first published as An Introduction to English Pronunciation in 1962), the seventh of which was published in 2008, and then examines several models of English pronunciation with simplified phonological systems which have been devised for international communication. After comparing those models with the Lingua Franca Core proposed by Jenkins, which is a small set of pronunciation points found crucial to intelligibility in spoken interactions between non-native speakers of English with different first languages, the writer works out a tentative guideline for teaching Japanese learners of English to achieve minimal intelligibility in international communication, making as much use as possible of the sounds as we have in Japanese.

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This paper aims to reconsider the education of the pronunciation and phonics of the vowels of General American by introducing Yamamoto (2006), who argues that the vowel system of this variety of English can be analyzed as five vowels plus /r/. His cluster analysis, together with modification of his notation and arrangement of the vowels in a tabular form, will help reduce the difficulties encountered in teaching vowels to Japanese-speaking students. The last part of the paper Will discuss the relationships between his cluster analysis and the English spelling system, which will lead to a new approach to phonics education.

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[in Japanese]

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This paper surveys the phenomenon of misplacement of the intonation nucleus in English by Japanese learners, by integrating the studies conducted by the same authors on several occasions. The studies were carried out from various perspectives in order to find out the reason why Japanese learners of English tend to pronounce words belonging to certain grammatical categories with high pitch, which native speakers of English interpret as the intonation nucleus being misplaced. The reasons behind this kind of mispronunciation, however, is in fact various and complex, and cannot be explained by simple negative transfer from the native language. Moreover, it has been found that formal instruction is needed in order to induce correct nuclear-stress placement.

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