Articulatory and acoustic correlates of English front vowel productions by native Japanese speakers

Abstract

Speakers of languages having a relatively small vowel inventory (e.g., Japanese) may experience interference effects when attempting to produce novel vowels from a language with a larger vowel inventory, such as English. Studies of English vowels produced by native Japanese speakers have shown formant frequency and duration differences between native and accented productions. Less is known about the exact articulatory processes underlying second language vowel learning. The current study examines tongue position during native Japanese speakers’ productions of American English vowels. Ten speakers produced the front vowels /i/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ε/, and /æ/ while seated in a 3D electromagnetic articulograph (EMA) system that tracked the position of the tongue (tongue tip, TT, tongue dorsum, TD, and tongue back, TB) and lower lip during vowel productions in the consonant environment /hVd/. Kinematic and acoustic measures were taken at the midpoint of each vowel steady-state portion. Differences in tongue position for tense-lax vowel pairs were determined by calculating the Euclidean distance between vowel centroids. Preliminary results suggest more spatial overlap in vowels produced by Japanese talkers than those produced by monolingual English speakers. The relationship between these articulatory distances and acoustic measures (formant frequency and durational changes) will be explored.