This article examines the concepts of expectation and surprise in the work of Paul Valéry, a French poet and critic. Valéry’s key idea is that “expectation and surprise” are a complementary pair of notions, and his reflections on “basic expectation” share some similarity with current neuroscientific perspectives on prediction. His theoretical considerations in Cahiers are inseparable from his poetics, and Valéry regards the composition of verse as “the creation of expectation.” While exploring his conception of poetry, we highlight the characteristics of Valéry’s “paradoxical surprise” by comparing it to Surrealist surprise. Finally, we focus on several poems from Valéry’s Charmes to analyze how expectations and surprises are created in poetic composition. This study shows that Valéry’s conception of a poem as an oscillation “between sound and sense” is associated with his view of expectation as “neither body nor mind but both of them together.”

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Shadowing practice has been introduced into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom learning method and a number of empirical studies support its efficacy. However, these studies focused on sentence processing, while a number of intervening variables made it difficult to verify which factors might help learners to perceive and produce second language (L2) sounds. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of auditory word repetition in order to understand the cognitive processes in L2 repetition and clarify some effective means of repetitive practice that suit Japanese EFL learners. Forty Japanese university students participated in an auditory word repetition experiment and three factors of repetition (number of repetitions, repetition method, and processing orientation) were discussed. The results showed that a greater number of repetitions led to swifter and more stable responses, but did not improve accuracy. In addition, vocal repetition helped learners to produce each word quickle and correctly in an on-line condition. Finally, a positive learning effect could be seen when repetition followed semantic processing. The three factors of repetition seemed to have mutually complementary relationships and the overall findings underscored the importance of well-repetition tasks for Japanese EFL learners.

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In recent years, the number of applications of synthesized speech software in the English language classroom has increased. The use of text-to-speech (TTS) synthesized technology is expected to shed light on the dearth of spoken English input for learners in Japan. However, it still remains unclear whether synthetic speech has similar learning effects to natural human speech for effectively learning a second language. This study investigated auditory word priming in 80 Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Vocal repetition data was used to measure perceptual learning. The results revealed that by focusing more on a perceptual dimension, (1) there was significantly greater learning when natural human speech was used. However, when synthetic speech was used, (2) the lower proficiency group showed a sufficient level of learning. Also, when synthetic speech was used, (3) significantly greater learning occurred within the higher proficiency group when the focus was more on a higher-level dimension (i.e., a semantic dimension). Further research is required to apply the results to English language education in Japan, although the results support the application of synthetic speech as an effective tool to increase perceptual learning in Japanese EFL students.

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Phonemic awareness has been known as the most important variable for developing reading skills. Although various training curricula and programs were developed in order to cultivate the phonemic awareness, this study introduces a new phonemic awareness curriculum, called Tturtletalk training program. The principle of this program in learning is pronouncing each letter of a word as slowly as possible in reading, making a child focus on each phoneme of a word. The children trained by this program have shown better phonemic awareness test score than those trained by a current reading training curriculum. The implication of these results and the prospect of the Turtletalk program were discussed.

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This study incorporates Kieran Egan’s imaginative approach (IA) into an elementary English teacher education course at a Japanese college. Introducing the IA as a theoretical basis, a preservice foreign language activity (FLA) teacher-training course was implemented. Throughout the course, English picture books were used to facilitate student teachers’ understanding of the IA and its related concepts. Subsequently, we argued how the student teachers’ concept of teaching FLA lessons was developed by analyzing their in-class performance, conversations during the group-work,and post-lesson written reflections. The results indicated that it was unclear whether the student teachers fully internalized the IA concepts and re-conceptualized their everyday concepts of EFL;however, data analyses revealed that some of the student teachers were in the process of this development. Finally, some pedagogical suggestions are provided for the further development of an effective language teacher training course design.

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This article reports the results of an investigation into the phonetic correlates of the tonal inventory of the Mandarin dialect of Èzhōu. Our study focuses on the reflexes of the Middle Chinese (MC) qù (falling) tone, which has split into upper and lower-register rising tones in Èzhōu. This split as well as a distinct reflex for the MC entering (checked syllable) tone were identified by Chao et al. (1948) as defining characteristics of the Chǔyǔ dialects located in the southeastern region of the Mandarin speaking area.

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We attempted to estimate subjective scores of the Japanese Diagnostic Test (DRT), a two-to-one forced selection speech intelligibility test. We used automatic speech recognizers with language models that force one of the words in the word-pair, mimicking the human recognition process of the DRT. Initial testing was done using speaker-independent models, and they showed significantly lower scores than subjective scores. The acoustic models were then adapted to each of the speakers in the corpus, and then adapted to noise at a specified SNR. Three different types of noise were tested: white noise, multi-talker (babble) noise, and pseudo-speech noise. The match between subjective and estimated scores improved significantly with noise-adapted models compared to speaker-independent models and the speaker-adapted models, when the adapted noise level and the tested level match. However, when SNR conditions do not match, the recognition scores degraded especially when tested SNR conditions were higher than the adapted noise level. Accordingly, we adapted the models to mixed levels of noise, i.e., multi-condition training. The adapted models now showed relatively high intelligibility matching subjective intelligibility performance over all levels of noise. The correlation between subjective and estimated intelligibility scores increased to 0.94 with multi-talker noise, 0.93 with white noise, and 0.89 with pseudo-speech noise, while the root mean square error (RMSE) reduced from more than 40 to 13.10, 13.05 and 16.06, respectively.

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Research has shown that phonological processing skills (phonological and prosodic awareness) play a critical role in reading development. The importance of phonological awareness in reading has been well-established for both first- and second-language (L2) environments, but prosodic awareness, the ability to recognize and manipulate prosody such as stress, rhythm, and intonation, has received little attention in L2 reading research. Therefore, this study investigates and clarifies the contributions of phonological and prosodic awareness to L2 reading comprehension among English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners. A total of 44 Japanese EFL undergraduate and graduate students participated in this study. Three types of tasks were conducted to assess phonological awareness, prosodic awareness, and L2 reading comprehension. The results of the correlation analysis showed that both phonological and prosodic awareness were correlated with L2 reading comprehension. Moreover, multiple regression found that only prosodic awareness significantly contributed to L2 reading comprehension. These findings have pedagogical implications for EFL learners’ reading.

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Dans un premier temps a partir d'une experience vecue, l'auteur raconte et explique comment il en est venu a recourir aux comptines de langue francaise pour aider ses etudiants japonais a un apprentissage du rythme de cette langue. Dans un second temps, il tente d'expliciter et de justifier un tel apprentissage non a partir de la phonetique traditionnelle mais de la physico-physiologie du corps. In a first approach, starting from a long range experience, the author tries to introduce and explain how he started to call on French nursery rhymes in order to help his Japanese students to feel the rhythm of that language. Next he tries to explain and justify such a training starting not from the traditional phonetics but from the physico-physiology of the body.

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The study of the Ch'ieb Yün system should be conducted entirely independent of the Sung dynasty tables. As to the upper ch'ieh characters of the Kuang Yün, Luh Chi-wei divided 51 groups in his “51 Groups of initials of the Kuang Yün, a Formal Proof.”(YJCS 25. 1939. 1-58), and applying the same cross reference method to the T'ang dynasty books, Ling Ta-t'ing proved that there were similar tendencies in these books and the Kuang Yün (YJCS 26. 1939. 129-142). The 319 groups, divided by Luh in the same paper, were, as he noticed it, only “the starting point of a study” and not “the result of a study.” The author of this paper classifies the rhymes of Cb'ieb Yün, with reference to the Luh's 51 initial groups and not to the Sung tables, as follows:
I Group chiefly uses the Division II characters.
II Group chiefly uses the Division II characters and Group B of the Division I characters.
III Group chiefly uses the Divsion I characters.
As to the so-called “fan-ch'ieh doublets”(重紐) that appear in the C and D initial Groups of the III Group, some scholars assume the difference in medials (-i-, -ï-) and someone in the principal vowels. Mostly, the lower ch'ieh characters represent the distribution of the class, and A initial Group belonged undoubtedly to the palatal (or closer vowel) class, and B1 Group (側series) to the neutral (or opener vowel) class. But the position of the B2 Group (陟series) within III Group, being not clearly pointed out by fan-ch'ieh, can not be decided. The examination of fanch'ieh show the following pattern:〓The author, then, interprets the doublets as the difference in the initial consonant phonemes: ki-, kji-; pi-, pji-(instead of ki-, ki-; pi), tji-, tci-, tsi-, li-, etc.
As the former interpretations, this one also does not fit the distribution of the Sung tables. The Yün Ching arranges as follows:〓(N. B. A1 includes之, 昌, 食, 式, 時, 而, 以, sub-groups and A₂ includes 子, 七, 疾, 息, 徐sub-groups. In the above table, however, 以sub-group belongs to A₂).
The main problem is the position of A₁ in III Division (except. 以sub-group), and according to the author's view, if such arrangement of the Yün Cbing is acknowledged, the sound shift, from the dorsal consonant (in the Cb'ieb Yün) to apical, must be assumed to have occured between the time of the Cb'ieb Yün and that of compilation of the Yün Cbing: tG->t∫-, tG'->t∫'-, dz>d3-, G->∫-, z->3-. az->3. This phenomena will explain easily why the “30 (or 36) initial alphabets” 三十 (六) 字母compound 之 (tG-) series with 側 (ts-) series and not with 子 (ts-) series.
The Yün Cbing is, therefore, not a mere indication of the Cb'ieb Yün system, but in the interpretation of the latter system it reflects the phonemic system of the time of its compilation.

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本研究では発達遅滞児124名の音声言語行動の諸相を把握・分析した。筆者と対象児とが歌遊び『げんこつ山』を行う場面を観察、録画した。分析には菅井(1989)の評価法を用いた。結果は5段階に分類された。A段階(35名):動作と肉声の歌の提示下で動作発信できる。B段階(67名):肉声の歌のみの提示下で動作発信できる。C段階(14名):所要時間13秒のテープに録音した歌の提示下で動作発信できる。D段階(3名):10秒のテープの歌の提示下で動作発信できる。E段階(5名):伴奏や語りの入ったレコードの歌の提示下で動作発信できる。対象児はA段階では歌わず、C段階で歌い始め、E段階で完全に歌った。E段階に至る過程には、視覚→動作系、聴覚→動作系、聴覚→構音系の順で情報処理の学習が必要であった。A、B段階では動作の提示が行動発現に必要であり、C、D、E段階では音声の提示のみで、音声言語を受信-発信できた。各段階に応じた指導について考察した。

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