Abstract
Numerous research has investigated how first language influences the perception of foreign sounds. The present study focuses on the perception of voiceless English fricatives by Japanese listeners with advanced and intermediate level English proficiency, and compares their results with that of English native listeners. Listeners identified consonants embedded in /a - a/ in quiet, multi-speaker babble and white noise (SNR=0 dB). Results revealed that intermediate level learners scored the lowest among all listener groups, and /th/-/s/ confusions were unique to Japanese listeners. Confusions of /th/-/f/ were observed among all listener groups, which suggest that those phoneme confusions may be universal.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2010 |
| Pages | 1866-1869 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | 11th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: Spoken Language Processing for All, INTERSPEECH 2010 - Makuhari, Chiba Duration: 2010 Sept 26 → 2010 Sept 30 |
Other
| Other | 11th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association: Spoken Language Processing for All, INTERSPEECH 2010 |
|---|---|
| City | Makuhari, Chiba |
| Period | 10/9/26 → 10/9/30 |
Keywords
- English consonants
- English proficiency
- Japanese
- Non-native
- Speech perception
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Speech and Hearing