How do Japanese students deal with the pronunciation of unknown words?
Graduation Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of
English Language and Literature
Notre Dame Seishin University
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for the Degree
Bachelor of Arts
By
Yu Matsumura
2012
Contents
Abstract
1
Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
2
1.2 Pronunciation
1.2.1 Features of English pronunciation
3
1.2.2 Consonants
1.2.3 Vowels
1.2.4 Word Stress
1.2.5 Thought Groups
1.2.6 Prominence
1.2.7 Intonation
1.2.8 Rhythm
1.2.9 Reduced Speech
1.2.10 Linking
1.2.11 Summary
1.3 Japanese people’s difficulties with English pronunciation
1.3.1 Vowels and consonants
1.3.2 Mora vs. Syllable
1.4 Acquisition of pronunciation
1.4.1 Critical period
11
14
1.4.2 Receptive or Productive
1.4.3 How people deal with the pronunciation of new words
1.5 Research Questions
1.6 Summary
17
17
Chapter Two: The Experiment
2.1 Introduction
18
2.2 The experiment
2.2.1 Aim
2.2.2 Method
2.3 Results
2.4 Summary
18
22
24
Chapter Three: Discussion
3.1 Introduction
25
3.2 Discussion of the results
3.3 Summary
3.4 Implication
25
30
30
3.5 Limitation of the test
3.6 Further research
31
31
3.7 Conclusion
32
References
33
Appendices
34
Abstract
As the world has become globalized, English education has become popular. In the
Japan, reading and grammar focused teaching materials are mainly used. However, in this
global society, useful communicative English skill is required for Japanese people not just
writing and reading skills. However, Japanese people’s Katakana English is the big problem
for the foreign listeners and it is said that Japanese people’s pronunciation is one of the worst
in the world. This paper reports what method is suitable for Japanese people who are already
past their critical period and which subject they should focus on.
In Chapter One, we looked at what it is generally said about learning English
pronunciation. Secondly, the structure of English pronunciation and the differences between it
and the structure of Japanese pronunciation were shown. From this information, the Japanese
people’s difficulties of English pronunciation became clear. Thirdly, how people’s age affects
people’s pronunciation skill and two different skills in the pronunciation skill are explained.
In Chapter Two, the experimental data was presented. Three kinds of pronunciation
tests were taken by students who are studying English to discover a) the relationship of
receptive and productive pronunciation skills and b) the aspects of English pronunciation
which are difficult for Japanese people.
In Chapter Three, we discussed the results of the questionnaire in detail also we
discussed the research questions. We found out that just using receptive pronunciation using
listen and repeating does not work to learn correct pronunciation especially reduced speech.
1
Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Today, English has to be taught as compulsory education, and the education was
started at elementary school as well in 2011 in Japan. Japanese people study English at least
for six years. English class in Japan is mainly focused on grammar and vocabulary, and
entrance exams for university include only reading and listening tests. Most Japanese people
do not worry about their speaking skills.
The reason why English education started in Japan is to know foreign culture and
scholarship in the Meiji period not to enter a good university (Suzuki, 2006). Japan has such a
long English education history however Japanese people are located 104th out of 113 for
speaking in the world on TOEFL IBT (ETS, 2010). Most Asian countries also require English
education as compulsory education same as in Japan and English is second language for them.
For example, English teachers in Taiwan say that most of Japanese English texts have
katakana reading above the words that is bad idea and it has a bad effect on the of learning
pronunciation. Japanese people are particular about grammar too much. There are many kinds
of English in the world. English is different depend on the speakers and area. Teachers should
let the students know that they can tell clearly what they mean, and they have good speaking
skill is important. The flexible English skill is required not English focused on grammar too
much (Kawasoe, 2005).
As the world is becoming globalized, English is getting popular. In the class, writing,
reading, listening and speaking are taught. But which skills are more useful and
communicative in that international society? Speaking skill is necessary to communicate with
2
other people, but on the pronunciation test, Japanese people got lowest rank in the world.
Japanese people cannot look away from this reality. To learn pronunciation is easy for
children but it is hard for adults, but there must be some method to improve Japanese people’s
English pronunciation. In this chapter, we will discuss the English pronunciation system and
how people acquire pronunciation.
1.2 Pronunciation
1.2.1 Features of English pronunciation
One undergraduate student who is learning in an ESL pronunciation course said, “I
feel that I am judged by my way of talking English. In other classes, teachers often treat me as
inferior or academic disability because of my muttering English.” People’s language skill is
judged by their speaking skill in daily life because no one can see their reading test score
except themselves. Pronunciation is the language feature that most readily identifies speakers
as non-native. It is a filter through which others see them and often discriminate against them
(Celce-Murcia, 2001: 117). In Japan, many people cannot speak fluently in English even the
people who got high score at TOEIC (Nakata, 2006). To acquire pronunciation of foreign
languages is not easy, because the native language affects second languages in some way
(Celce-Murcia:122). Basically Japanese and English have different points. For example,
Japanese has mora and English syllables. Several pronunciation systems comprise English
speech that the listeners can understand smoothly.
1.2.2 Consonants
Consonants are speech sounds made by completely or partly stopping the flow of air
being breathed out through the mouth. The English alphabet has twenty- one consonants,
3
B,C,D,F,G,H,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T,V,W,X,Y and Z. These twenty-one letters have
twenty-four phonemes. They are in the chart below.
Figure 1: Phonemes of consonants
PLACE OF ARTICULATION
Manner of
Articulation
Bilabial
Labiodental
Dental
Alveolar
Palatal
Velar
p
t
k
b
d
ɡ
Glottal
Stop
f
θ
s
ʃ
v
ð
z
ʒ
h
Fricative
tʃ
Affricative
dʒ
Nasal
m
ŋ
n
Liquid
l
r
Glide
w
y
There are several types and ways to produce each consonant phoneme. The unit of
manner of articulation and place of articulation create one sound. How to use mouth and
tongue, and each example are shown as below from Celce-Murcia (2001: 134-135).
Manner of articulation and examples
Stop: Air stream is blocked completely before it is released ― /p/
4
Fricative: Air stream is compressed and passes through a small opening, creating friction
― /z/
Affricative: Combination of stop followed by a fricative ― /tʃ/
Nasal: Air passed through the nose instead of the mouth ― /m/
Liquid: air stream moves around the tongue in a relatively unobstructed manner ― /r/
Glide: Sound is close to a vowel ― /y/
Place of articulation and example
Bilabial: Two lips together ― /b/
Labiodental: Lower lip and upper teeth ― /v/
Dental: tongue tip and inner edge of upper teeth ― /θ/
Alveolar: Tongue tip on tooth ridge ― /d/
Palatal: Body of tongue on hard palate ― /ʃ/
Velar: Back of tongue on soft palate ― /g/
Glottal: Throat passage ― /h/
1.2.3 Vowels
English has five spelling vowels, a, e, i, o and u. These five letters are pronounced
with twelve major phonemes. These vowel phonemes are also created by using the jaw and
tongue and some lips. The combinations can be seen in Figure 2.
The words High, Mid and Low on the left side in Figure 2 mean where people’s jaw
should be placed. When their jaw is High, people’s mouths are almost closed, on the other
hand, when their jaw is Low, their mouths are opened wide. The words, Front, Central and
Back show where people should put their tongues. Four phonemes in the box at the right top
are pronounced with rounded lips.
5
Figure 2: The International Phonetic Alphabet
(Cube life)
1.2.4 Word Stress
In the cases of multisyllabic words like “communication”, they can have more than
one stressed syllable. Only one of those syllables can have primary stress (●). The others has
secondary stress (●) or almost no stress (●)
●
●
●
●
●
com
mun
i
ca
tion
In the one word communication, ca has the primary stress. People should pronounce
here most strongly of the five syllables. The others should be pronounced with almost no
stress.
1.2.5 Thought Groups
In natural discourse, we use pause to divide our speech into manageable chunks
called thought groups. Just as punctuation helps the reader process written discourse,
6
pausing helps the listener to process the stream of speech more easily (Celce-Murcia,
p.119).
A thought group usually represents a meaningful grammatical unit, and can be
divided in more than one way. Pausing in different places can cause a change in meaning like
below.
1. I was speaking to him/ on the phone yesterday.
2. I was speaking to/ him on the/ phone yesterday.
Sentence 1 is accurate, however sentence 2 is not, because speaking to him is a
meaningful grammatical unit as is on the phone. When people divide a sentence into three
thought groups in their English speech, it is hard to understand for listeners. Here’s another
example.
3. Let’s eat, Grandma.
4. Let’s eat Grandma.
Both of these sentences can be used, however the pauses at different places create
different meanings. Sentence 3 means that eat something with Grandma, however sentence 2
means that eat Grandma as a food.
1.2.6 Prominence
Within each thought group, there is generally one prominent element, a syllable that
is emphasized, usually by lengthening it and moving the pitch up or down (Ibid). The
prominent element represents information either
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a) New :( I got a postcard from Sue.)
She’s in MEXico.
b) In contrast to some other previously mentioned information: (Are you leaving at five
thirty?)
No, SIX thirty.
C. simply the most meaningful or important item in the phrase
He is studying ecoNOMics.
The word you want to emphasize to listeners most in the phrase should be
pronounced stronger than others. This prominence works only in speaking, because people
cannot judge which words the writer wants to emphasize from the letters.
1.2.7 Intonation
Intonation is the melodic line or pitch pattern of a pronunciation feature. Intonation
patterns do vary but basically the pitch movement within an intonation contour occurs on the
prominent element.
Going out
TED: Are you READy yet?
LEE: No, I need to call DAVE first.
TED: Why’s THAT?
Lee: Because HE’S the one who’s giving us a LIFT!
8
Usually in an affirmative sentence, the last word finishes with a low pitched sound
and in an interrogative sentence, it finishes with high-pitched sound. This is similar to
prominence which was explained before, this intonation element is used for the word the
speaker want to emphasize. It is pronounced with high-pitched sound in the sentence.
1.2.8 Rhythm
Regular spoken English has rhythm, and English speech rhythm is usually referred to
as stress-timed. There is an alternating of longer stressed and short stressed syllable.
Syllable
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1 0
11
she / would / ve / liked / to / have/ gone / to / the / mov / ie
Beat
●
●
●
She would’ve liked to have gone to the movie.
(11 syllables but only 3 beats)
We can see there are only three beats in the syllables. In general, content words that
carry more meaning, such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs are stressed
whereas function words like structure words, such as the articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs,
and prepositions are not (Celce-Murcia, p.120).
9
1.2.9 Reduced Speech
Reduced speech means that the word is pronounced with the mouth relaxed when
articulating the vowels and to uses less energy or muscular tension which allow these reduced
vowels to be spoken more quickly, helping us to maintain a more or less regular interval
between stressed syllables. Many function words are unstressed, they have both a citation
form that is also known as full, strong, or stressed and a reduced form that is unstressed or
weak (Ibid, p.121).
(1) HAS /hæz/
What has he done now?
/əz/
In the sentence, the sound /h/ of has /hæz/ is lost and the vowel /æ/ has been reduced
to /ə/ which makes the mouth completely relaxed to say the whole sentence.
(2) TO /tuw/
a ticket to Tucson
/tə/
In the sentence, the sound /uw/ in the to /tuw/ has been reduced to /ə/which makes the
mouth completely relaxed to say the whole sentence.
1.2.10 Linking
Linking is a general tern for the adjustments speakers make between words in
connected speech.

Why don’t you find out?
10
When the native speakers say this, they pronounce don’t you like “don-chew” and
pronounce find out like “fine doubt”. By linking final consonant and the next syllable, which
begins with vowel, people can pronounce easier (Ibid).
1.2.11 Summary
English pronunciation is established by nine sound systems. They are consonants,
vowels, word Stress, thought Groups, prominence, intonation, rhythm, reduced speech and
linking. When all of the systems are functioning well, people can pronounce well.
1.3 Japanese people’s difficulties with English pronunciation
Japanese language structure and English one are completely different. It is so hard to
learn a language that is different with people’s native language. There are several difficulties
for Japanese people phonetically and structurally.
Phonetic difficulties (vowels and consonants)
- vowels, consonants, reduced speech
Structural difficulties (Mora and syllable,)
-consonant cluster, word stress, prominence, linking
1.3.1 Vowels and consonants
English learners usually have difficulties with sounds that do not exist in their first
language. Japanese and English have same spelling vowel: a, e, i, o and u. Japanese people
tend to think both English and Japanese vowels have same sound by mistake, however they
are completely different sounds.
11
Figure 3: The differences of vowels in Japanese and English
(初級英語音声学)
In Figure 3, ア,イ,ウ,エ,オ shows the place of Japanese vowels. There are no
sounds which are completely the same as each other. It means people cannot use the sounds of
Japanese vowels in English speech. In fact, Japanese people tend to use アイウエオ sounds
instead of English vowels. It is hard for Japanese speakers to correctly pronounce sounds like
/ʌ/ and /æ/, and they both are included in ア in Japanese. This is the one reason of Katakana
English. According to Nakamori (2001) to learn International Alphabet makes people
confused, so using Katakana subtitles is a good way for English learners. However, they
cannot notice the difference of vowels in Japanese and English from Katakana subtitles
because Katakana cannot show the /ə/ sound. Katakana subtitles are not useful to learn correct
pronunciation. This difficulty also makes people it difficult to pronounce reduced speech
because they pronounce vowels too clearly and it is hard to pronounce /ə/.
English consonants have many phonemes that do not exist in Japanese. They are the
difference of /l/ and /r/, /s/ and /θ/, /b/ and /v/. Except /s/ and /b/ sounds, they do not exist in
Japanese. It is difficult for Japanese to pronounce “lice” and “rice”, “sink” and “think”,
“bowel” and “vowel”.
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1.3.2 Mora vs. Syllable
One reason for this difficulty is that the Japanese is made of Mora which is one
vowel sound or a unit of consonant and vowel. On the other hand, English is made with
syllables. A syllable in English is counted by a sequence of speech sounds.
Japanese
One Vowel= a Mora
A
C + V = a Mora
= a Mora
K + A = Ka = a Mora
Yama = Ya・ma = 2 Mora
English
Water = wa ･ ter = 2 syllables
This difference makes a lot of difficulties for Japanese people. First, Japanese people
tend to put vowels between every consonant. For instance, little and it also includes consonant
cluster. It is pronounced in Japanese people’s habit using Mora as below.
English
●
Japanese
●
●
●
●
Little /litl/
ri to ru
(2 syllables)
(3 Mora,)
Stress accent
Pitch accent
Since the Japanese language has a Mora system, every consonant connects with one
vowel when Japanese people speak English. They cannot pronounce ttl in the little. It means
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consonant clusters (two or more syllables together) are one kind of difficulty for Japanese
speakers.
Prominence and word stress are also difficulties for Japanese because they do not
have stress accent system in Japanese speech. They use same strength of stress for each word
and the words meanings are judged by just differences of high or low pitched sounds like
melody (カタカナ英語の話). The word, Hashi has two meanings and there are different
melodies.
Hashi ↘
(Chopstick)
Hashi ↗ (Bridge)
Usually find out is pronounced like “fine-doubt” due to the linking system. With this
mora in Japanese, it is impossible because one consonant and one syllable are linked.
Find out
fa
i
n do a u to
Thus when people speak English with the mora system, they cannot use linking. This
difference of mora and syllable is one of the biggest problems with Katakana English.
1.4 Acquisition of pronunciation
In order to learn pronunciation, it is said that the critical period is crucial when
learning pronunciation. And in the pronunciation skill, there are two kinds of skills, receptive
and productive pronunciation skills. In this section, we will look at what the critical period is,
what receptive and productive pronunciation skills are and how people deal with the
pronunciation of new words.
14
1.4.1 Critical period
Generally, learning English should be started at an early age. Adults can learn
grammar and vocabulary well, however, the pronunciation cannot be learned the same way as
children. Even though they listen carefully, they cannot listen correctly and they cannot
notice that.
It seems difficult to learn a second language as a native after certain age. If you start
to learn English after about age eight to eleven, you will never become like native.
To have native-like pronunciation, you’d need to start learning English before age
seven to nine. This means the window for learning language as a native is open only
for children. But of course you can be very very good at English.
(Waring, 2010).
The children in the critical period, they can hear real English as it is. After the critical
period, people’s ear cannot hear sounds as it is and they tend to mishear.
1.4.2 Receptive or Productive
During the critical period, people can acquire the pronunciation skill better than after
they grew up. There are so many teaching materials covered by the comment, “Just listen and
repeat!” To pronounce correctly people need both receptive and productive skill not only one
of them.
Receptive pronunciation
According to the Oxford Dictionary, receptive means willing to listen to or to accept
new ideas or suggestions. The receptive pronunciation skill is a skill to listen to the words
correctly. Usually the listening skill is judged if they can understand the meaning with
15
English sentences or text, but this skill also means how correctly people can listen to English
pronunciation. For instance, when native English speaker says “banana”, as /bənænə/ it could
be received as /bʌnʌnʌ/ if they do not have good receptive pronunciation skill.
Productive pronunciation
According to oxford dictionary, productive means making goods or growing crops.
Productive pronunciation skill is the skill how people can read aloud the word correctly. If
people say /bʌnʌnʌ/, it is not correct English. It is Japanese or just a mistake.
1.4.3 How do people deal with the pronunciation of new words?
When people encounter new words they have never heard, they can only guess the
pronunciation of them. How does the brain work after people meet a new word? The
following example happens when people see “yellow”.
1. “yellow” is only letters.
2. They look in long term memory and search for each of phonemes of “yellow”; y, e,
ll, ow, they have already known.
3. Find /j/, /e/, /l/, /ou/.
4. Put the phonemes; /j/, /e/, /l/, /ou/ together.
6. Look for the meaning of /jelou/ and understand it.
English pronunciation can be tricky. For example, the pronunciation of the word put
is /put/. But other words which contain these three letters can be pronounced differently! For
example, putty is pronounced /pʌti/. The spelling of a word doesn't tell you how to pronounce
16
it In Japanese, one letter and only one phoneme are connected and do not change. There is the
difference and this difference can be the reason of mistake.
1.5 Research questions
We have looked at the structure of English, and the acquisition of pronunciation. We
could find out what the difficulties for Japanese people are, and how important the two skills
are to pronounce English correctly. However, how these two skills connect is not clear. In
order to find the right method of improving the pronunciation skill, and why Japanese people
cannot pronounce well realistically these days, these three research questions were made.
Research Question 1.
Is there any relationship between receptive and productive
pronunciation?
Research Question 2.
Is learning pronunciation from listening input the best
method?
Research Question 3.
What are the concrete points to improve pronunciation for
Japanese people?
1.6 Summary
In this chapter, we looked how English pronunciation is structured, they are how
different from Japanese and how these difficulties make Japanese people tend to use
Katakana English. There are a lot of difficulties for Japanese and they can be the concrete
points to improve. Also the way to acquire the pronunciation is essential. Start learning
pronunciation from receptive pronunciation is a really good way?
In Chapter Two, we will look at the how the experiment was made and taken. Results
of the pronunciation test were shown.
17
Chapter Two: The Experiment
2.1 Introduction
In Chapter One, we looked the general opinion and specific issues about
pronunciation for Japanese people and learning method. In this chapter, using the
pronunciation test, how Japanese people tend to pronounce English and these results find out
the points that they should be careful of are going to be clarified. We looked at the difference
of learning pronunciation from receptive skill and productive skill. And what is the biggest
difficulty for people who have finished their critical period to learn pronunciation.
2.2 The experiment
2.2.1 Aim
To find the receptive pronunciation skill and productive skill, which skill should be
trained first, three types of pronunciation test were made. Commonly people say many
Japanese people cannot pronounce English pronunciation correctly, and their English tends to
be Katakana- English. There are a lot of reasons and one reason of is the way people learn
them.
There must be the useful way to learn pronunciation for Japanese. The test tried to find
the best way to learn English pronunciation for the people who have already passed the
critical period and which kinds of words are difficult or easy to learn for Japanese people, and
how much they know about the problems for themselves.
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2.2.2 Method
a) Subjects
Sixteen students from Notre Dame Seishin University participated in this research. All
the students were in English department. They include juniors and seniors. All of them have
Japanese parents and have grown up in Japan. They have been studying English more than
nine years through their educations.
b) The test
Three types of questionnaires were used for the research. Each questionnaire includes
three kinds of texts like the one below. The nine texts were sourced from Mikulecky and
Jeffries (1986). Each text was about one hundred words. Most of the words were so easy
words that the students can read them smoothly. Each text has five or six difficult words to
read for Japanese people.
This is the one example of the reading test that the sixteen students took.
1.
Most people do not think of coffee as a pharmacopeia material. But, in fact, it is an
anesthetic and it has crucial effects on your body. Some of the effects are good and
some are not. Coffee can work in an auxiliary way to help you to stay awake when you
are driving or working. But it can also keep you awake at night when you want to
sleep. Coffee makes some people feel more alive so they can work better. Other people
feel too nervous when they drink coffee. After a large gastronomic experience, coffee
can help your stomach. But too much coffee can cause problems with your abdomen.
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These words in bold are not known by the students and have been chosen because there are
several possible ways to pronounce them wrongly and to force them to try to pronounce the
words to see how they’d pronounce them. These difficult words were changed to the words
that have almost same meaning as original words intentionally.
Table 1: The correct phonetic symbols of Text 1 words
pharmacopeia fὰɚməkəpíːə
anesthetic
æ`nəsθétik
crucial
krúːʃəl
auxiliary
ɔːgzíljəri
gastronomic
g`æstrənάmɪk
abdomen
ǽbdəmən
For example, in Text 1, the first problem word is “pharmacopeia”. The correct
pronunciation is shown as /fὰɚməkəpíːə /, but Japanese people tend to pronounce it /fὰ l
ɚməkəp éɪ ə/. It shows that Japanese people tend to pronounce some vowel between
consonant clusters and pronounce with mora.
Sixteen students were asked to take these experiments. Each test was taken by five or
six students. They did the first reading. Each text includes five or six changed words from six
categories: a) multi-syllable, b) short syllable, c) compound words, d) the word that includes
consonant clusters, e) the words that the sounds increase and f) decrease than when they read
with English words using Japanese pronunciation (e.g. Chocolate is pronounced
cho-ko-lei-to). These types of words Japanese people mistake easily when they read them for
the first time and thus reveal how they pronounce them.
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Table 2: Percentage of changed words in each text
Length
Number of
substituted words
Percentage changed
Text 1
Text 2
110
93
6
6
5.40%
6.40%
Text 3
Text 4
75
89
5
6
6.60%
6.70%
Text 5
Text 6
100
79
5
6
5%
7.50%
Text 7
Text 8
Text 9
73
87
79
5
5
5
6.80%
5.70%
6.30%
Table 2 shows the percentage of the text which were changed. Every text was
changed about 6% on average. Each text has almost the same amount of changes. Several
words come from the two of the six types, so in the column of number of substituted words
there are five or six items.
c) Procedure
This research investigated how Japanese people pronounce the English words that
they met first time and how they tend to make mistakes.
First the texts made up with easy as possible to read texts of about one hundred
words were chosen, then using a thesaurus dictionary the words were changed to the difficult
pronunciation words the students may have not seen before trying to keep near the original
meaning to see if they read them with incorrect pronunciation. Their pronunciations were
judged by if the students can pronounce correctly those points.
Three types of test were made, and each text has the six kinds of difficulties. Long
word means more than four syllables word, and short word means less than two syllables.
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Compound is the word some words are connected like nonconformities. Consonant cluster is
the words like inkling. Reduced words are the words that some sounds are lost, and increased
word means the word that some sounds are increased than reading with English words using
Japanese pronunciation style.
There are three texts in one test, and the first texts were read at sight, the second one
was read after the students listened to the native speaker read the whole text, the third one was
repeated after a native speaker read sentence by sentence. They got one to five points
depending on their performance. One point was given to the pronunciations that were tried
many times but not correct. Two was given to them that were only partly right but not
completely correct. Three was given to them that stopped and started again and again and
were correct. Four was given to them that were paused but were correct. Five was given to
perfect pronunciation. Their pronunciations were compared with the International Phonetic
Alphabet of each word.
2.3 Results
As a result, first, we will look at the scores of the three different test styles. We will
look at the data for the scores each type of words get.
Test style focus
When we look at the data of the test style, we got accuracy rate of each style, which
is in Table 4. On Test 1, on the first reading, the subjects got 34.6% of the pronunciations
correct, on the reading after listening to whole text the subjects got 34%, and on the listen
and repeat the subjects got 34%.
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Table 3: Accuracy rates in the three different test styles
Test Style
Accuracy Rate
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Total
34.6%
31.6%
39.2%
34.6%
Listen whole text
34%
38%
44.8%
38.4%
Listen and repeat
34%
40.4%
39.2%
40.2%
First sight
Even though they could hear a correct model speaking before they needed to read,
the rate had almost the same percentage. On Test 2, on first reading the subjects got 31.6% of
the correct pronunciations, on listening to the whole text the subjects got 38%, and on the
listen and repeat the subjects got 40.4%. The accuracy rates were getting higher little by little,
but still highest percentage was just 40.4%. On Test 3, on the first reading the subjects got
39.2% of correct pronunciations and on the listen whole text the subjects got 44.8%, and listen
and repeat got 39.2%. When the students read after listening whole text, the percentage
became higher than first reading, but at the listen and repeat the percentage went down again.
Include all tests, on the first reading the subjects got 34.6% of correct pronunciations, on the
listening to the whole text the subjects got 38.4%, and on the listen and repeat the subjects got
40.2%. The percentages were getting higher but the highest score was still about 40%.
Word type focus
We will look at the accuracy rates of whole test in Table 4. For the Long words the
subjects got 35.8% of correct pronunciations, on the Short the subjects got 37%, on the
23
Table 4: The accuracy rates in the different word types
Word type
Accuracy Rate
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Total
Long
36%
33%
38.6%
35.8
Short
36%
35.2%
40%
37%
Compound
37.6%
37%
49%
41%
Consonant clusters
35.2%
31.2%
39.4%
36.4%
Reduced speech
34.4%
30%
39%
34%
Increased speech
41.2%
46%
33%
39.6%
Compound the subjects got 41%, on the Consonant clusters the subjects got 36.4%, on the
Reduced speech the subjects got 34%, and on the Increased speech the subjects got 39.6%. In
these rates, Compound gets highest percentage. In the every test, Compound got high
percentages as well. On the other hand, most of Reduced speech got lowest, and also no word
type got higher than 41% in the Total column
2.4 Summary
In this chapter, we obtained two sets of results from a pronunciation test. One is
about how much the results differ with the pronunciation with receptive skill and with only
productive skill. In Chapter Three, using this results and results of each person, we will
discuss about why there are not so big differences between various test styles and why
compounds got highest accuracy rate and reduced speech got the lowest, and we will look at
what these results mean.
24
Chapter Three: Discussion
3.1 Introduction
In Chapter One, we looked at the construction of English pronunciation and language
acquisition system. In Chapter Two, we saw how much difference there was between the first
reading and listen and repeat, and which word types are the blind point for Japanese people.
In Chapter Three, we will look at the results of the experiment in more detail.
3.2 Discussion of the results
The students who took these tests are twenty to twenty-two years old, and they have
already finished their critical period long time ago. It means their ears have adapted to only
Japanese. From Table 3, there are almost no differences of percentages between the three test
styles. In Total column, on the first reading the subjects got 34.6% of correct pronunciations,
on the listen to the whole text the subjects got 38.4%, and on the listen and repeat the subjects
got 40.2%. If they could listen correctly, the percentage of listen and repeat would have raised
greatly because they could repeat it in just a few seconds after they heard it. Also we could see
the evidence from individual students’ results.
Table 5: Student A’s results
First reading
Correct
Student
miscellaneous
/misələiniəs/
/miselʌneusu/
Listen whole test
Listen and repeat
salient
/seilijənt/
Migraine
/maigrein/
/maigli:n/
illustrious
/ilʌstriəs/
/ilʌsutoliʌsu/
/sʌliʌnto/
25
From students A’s data, it is easy to find that she is affected by receptive
pronunciation and mishearing. Student A has her habit to pronounce English. She tends to
read with Katakana. For example, mi in miscellaneous is pronounced ミ/mi/, and neous is
pronounced ネウス /neusu/. If the letters are written nias she can pronounce as /niəs/ From
the first reading chart of Table 5, student A tends to pronounce with Katakana as shown. After
that, when she heard salient, she pronounced “a” as /ʌ/ not as correct sound; /ei/. Usually “e”
is pronounced as /e/ in Japanese, but this time she could find this “e” was not pronounced as
/e/, but she could not hear /ə/ because Japanese does not have it. Then her pronunciation
became /sʌliʌnto/. On the listen and repeat test, we can find she did not say English words
using Japanese pronunciation. She read “i” as /ai/ because she could hear the native read like
that. However, /grein/ which native read was accepted as /gli:n/ wrongly. If she read in her
own style without any influence from her ears, she might have pronounced it as /glʌin/ like an
English word using Japanese pronunciation. This means she misheard and it made her
mispronounce.
Answer to the Research Question 1
Research Question 1 asked Is there any relationship between receptive and
productive pronunciation? According to Table 3 and Table 5, there is a relationship and the
level of both of receptive pronunciation and productive pronunciation skills should be equal.
Only training people’s productive pronunciation skill does not create beautiful speech because
they do not have enough ability to listen correctly, so they create incorrect sounds. On the
other hand, just training the receptive pronunciation skill is not effective. Even if they could
hear correctly, without the knowledge how to produce that sounds, the receptive
pronunciation skill is not able to work. In order to create beautiful speech, people need the
26
same level of these skills. When the both skills are not same level, their speech is just an
uncomfortable speech for the listeners.
In Table 3, the difference of first reading and listen and repeat is just 5.6%. Certainly,
the number was raised, however, it does not mean listen and repeat system made their
pronunciation better. Actually, first reading got bad pronunciation scores, not listen and repeat
got good pronunciation. In the situation of first reading, many students pronounce the words
completely differently from the correct sounds, and probably listeners cannot understand them.
There is an example of one student below in Table 6.
Table 6: Student B’s results
First sight reading
auxiliary
gastronomic
abdomen
correct
/ɔ:gzileri/
/gæstrənamik/
/æbdəmən/
student
/ʌkixiʌli/
/jestronomik/
/ʌdomen/
From Table 6, student B read auxiliary as /ʌkixiʌli/. Probably listeners cannot
understand what she means. On the listen and repeat, she could pronounce better and they are
acceptable although there are still some mistakes like differences of /r/ and /l/.
Answers to the Research Question 2
Research Question 2 stated Is learning pronunciation from listening input the best
method? According to Table 3, it cannot be said learning from listening input is the best way
for the people who already have passed their critical period. Of course, conversation and
listening to English are essential to learn English, but it is not effective to know the correct
phonemes of the words. People can know just how the words were used and pronounced from
27
them a little. However, listening perfectly is hard for the people who are not in their critical
period, and the mishearing creates some mistakes. They cannot hear small differences with
their ears. Listen from ears can only make people’s pronunciation acceptable.
From Table 4, we found which word type is hard and acceptable. On the Compound
words the subjects got highest percentage, 41%. This could be because most of compounds
include a part which is made with the sounds the students know. For example, gastronomic,
gynecologist, and parallelism, these words include “-nomic”, “-cologist”, “-ism”. These parts
are known by students because they had met the same sounds in the other similar words. Thus
they could not pronounce them perfectly, but they could guess some part of the words more
easily than the other types of word.
On the other hand, 35.8% of Long, 36.4% of Consonant cluster and 34% of
Reduced speech words got low accuracy rates. These numbers suggest that these three types
of words are the weak points for Japanese. It’s easy to guess why long syllable words got low
accuracy rate. That is because they have many more sounds than the others and the
probabilities that the students make mistake will increase.
The notable points are Consonant cluster and Reduced speech. The reason that they
cannot pronounce consonant clusters correctly is that they cannot pronounce individual
consonants’ sounds correctly. For example, when Japanese people asked to pronounce “ra”,
most of them pronounce as Japanese sound “ラ”. Actually, “ラ” is not same as both of /rʌ/
and /lʌ/. Also, it is difficult to pronounce without any vowels like /k/ for them. They tend to
pronounce /ku/. The one reason they cannot do reduced speech is that they are not able to
pronounce English vowels correctly except the vowels that do not exist in Japanese. The
second reason is that they pronounce vowel sounds too clearly. Speaking of extremes, for
instance, when people pronounce “banana” /bənænə/, the first “a” and third “a” do not have to
be pronounced, however, Japanese people tend to pronounce like every “a” has an accent.
28
Here is a table of how many people can pronounce correctly individual consonants and
vowels that do not exist in Japanese.
Table 7: The accuracy rates of individual consonants and vowel sounds
All
Possible
Percentage
/r/, /l/
16
4
25%
/b/, /v/
/s/, /θ/
16
16
6
4
37%
25%
/ə/
16
2
12%
/æ/
16
1
6%
From Table 7, we can find that 25-37% of the subjects could pronounce consonants
sounds correctly, but on the other hand, vowel sounds were pronounced correctly by just
6-12% of the subjects. Also, 6-12% of the subjects could pronounce vowels in some words
correctly but some were not pronounced correctly. For instance, they could pronounce /æ/ in
“apple” /æpl/ but they could not do /æ/ in “saccharine” /sækəri:n/ . From this result, people
who could pronounce vowels correctly had known that “a” of the word “apple” is pronounced
/æ/ already.
Depends on the people’s knowledge, these accuracy rates will be changed. People
who know a, e, i, o, u are not always pronounced by ア, エ, イ, オ, ウ can pay attention to
the vowels sounds in their speech. In order to improve people’s weak points of English
pronunciation, it is important to know the individual phonemes of consonants and vowels that
are used in English speech.
Answer to the Research Questions
Research Question 3 asked What are the concrete points to improve pronunciation for
Japanese people? From Table 4, we can know weak points are the consonant and vowels.
29
First, from Table 7, we can see the reason Japanese people cannot pronounce them correctly is
that people do not know what kinds of phonemes exist in English actually. Second they do not
know how to produce them. Third, Japanese vowels sounds are not used so much in English.
In order to know these three, the unknown concrete point is the importance to know the
individual phonemes that are used in English and to try pronouncing them as much as
possible. To know the phonemes, people should know the International Phonetic Alphabet,
should not rely on their receptive pronunciation skill. The blind spot in Japanese people’s
pronunciation skill are basic points.
3.3 Summary
Table 3 said, there is not such a big difference between first sight reading and listen
and repeat. And Table 5 showed the students listened wrongly and produced mistakes
because of it. These results proved there is a relationship between receptive pronunciation
skill and the productive one. From Table 6, it is clear that learning from input does not work
so much for the people who do not have a high receptive pronunciation skill, although they
have great productive pronunciation skill. From Table 3 and 7, the conclusive point to
improve for Japanese people is shortage of the knowledge about each individual phoneme.
3.4 Implications
There are a lot of teaching materials that emphasize just to listen and repeat English
to make people produce beautiful English speech. According to the results of the test, training
from people’s receptive pronunciation skill does not work well. This method cannot change
their katakana-English. Pronunciation does not mean just using the mouth and creating sounds.
The Japanese conclusive point to improve is shortage of the knowledge about individual
phonemes of English. Easy methods will not work, so people should learn to use all of their
30
bodies. To search what kinds of phonemes exist in English and how to use their mouth to
create the sounds, after they knew them, using their receptive pronunciation skill together can
be better. Some people say using Katakana subtitles is an effective method to let the students
speak, however, they cannot have chance to know /ə/ and /æ/ with Katakana subtitles. It
means Katakana subtitles are the ineffective for training English pronunciation.
3.5 Limitations of the test
There are some limitations to the experiments. First, the number of the subjects was
small. There were only 16 subjects for this experiment. This number is not so enough to prove
the results. In order to make evidences stronger, it was better to ask many more students to
take test, and collect more data
Secondly, the qualities of the students’ productive pronunciation skills were not clear.
There could be a person who has terrible productive pronunciation skill and great receptive
pronunciation skill. If there were such person in the subjects, the reason and results could be
different from now.
3.6. Further research
In this experiment, only six categories of the word types were used to find out which
types are hard for Japanese people. If the number of categories is increased, the words can be
divided into each origin of the words - Latin, French or German, which can clarify what
makes Japanese people get confused. Also we could see that training from input is not reliable
enough to improve people’s pronunciation skill. So the reason why people who have been
studying abroad can improve their pronunciation abilities will be interesting to find out.
31
3.7. Conclusion
From this experiment, it was found that there is a relationship between the receptive
pronunciation skill and the productive pronunciation skill. To train one of them is not a good
way to improve people’s pronunciation skill. Even if people train only the productive
pronunciation skill, the shortage of the receptive pronunciation skill interferes with producing
correct sounds. This relationship that should be equal and in order to improve their
pronunciation. It means also training from just input is not the best way to learn pronunciation.
When they could not listen to the sounds correctly, this method can only create mistakes. In
order to improve any skills, people should know their strong point and weak point. Their
strong points can be developed more, and their weak point can be improved. According to this
experiment, the strong point for most Japanese people is to remember the sounds they have
met before, and the weak point is that they cannot create correct individual phonemes of
English. These are the point to be developed and improved.
In the English classes in Japan, there are a lot of listen and repeat activities and
teaching materials with Katakana subtitles. These teaching systems not the things people
should do. A communicative method is important to improve whole English skill, however,
the good method to improve just about pronunciation skill for Japanese people is to train the
skill to create individual phonemes properly. To do that, people need to learn the International
Phonetic Alphabet first.
32
References
Anonymous. 2009. Cube life, Accessed October 27th.
< http://mariemario.blog38.fc2.com/blog-entry-128.html>
Anonymous, 2010. ETS Research. Accessed December 2nd
< http://www.ets.org/research/policy_research_reports/toefl-sum-10>
Kashima, S. 1994. カタカナ英語の話―英語と日本語をつなぐバイパス, p.14
Kawasoe, K. 2005. アジア教育最前線 遅れる日本？ 進むアジア! , p.161
Mikulecky, B.S. and Jeffries, L.1986. Reading power. Addison Wesley.
Murcia, M.C. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, Third Edition, in
Goodwin, J. Teaching Pronunciation, p.117-137.
Nakata, T. 2006. TOEIC スピーキング/ライティング誕生の背景, All about, Accessed
November, 18th. < http://allabout.co.jp/gm/gc/58016/2/>
Nakamori, T. 2010. 学びのための学習理論 つまづきの克服と指導への提案, p.49.
Suzuki, T. 2006. 「発信型」の英語教育と「英語観」の転換を, Benesse, Accessed
December. 1st.
<http://benesse.jp/berd/center/open/berd/backnumber/2006_05/fea_suzuki_01.html>
Takebayashi, S. Watanabe, M. Shimizu, A. and Saito, H. 2007. 初級英語音声学, p.21
Waring, R. 2010. Personal communication
33
Appendices
Test A
Notre Dame Seishin University
Yu Matsumura
This is a pronunciation test. First, please read aloud text 1. Second, please listen to
the whole of text 2 that native speaks and after that, read aloud them. Third, please listen and
repeat the sentences in text 3 one by one.
1.
Most of people do not think of coffee as a pharmacopeia material. But, in fact, it is
an anesthetic and it has crucial effects on your body. Some of the effects are good and some
are not. Coffee can work in an auxiliary way to help you to stay awake when you are driving
or working. But it can also keep you awake at night when you want to sleep. Coffee makes
some people feel more alive so they can work better. Other people feel too nervous when they
drink coffee. After a large gastronomic experience, coffee can help your stomach. But too
much coffee can cause problems with your abdomen.
2.
Scientists and gynecologists say that about 34 million Americans are too fertile.
Why is this? One plausible reason is the kind of food Americans eat. Many Americans like
“fast foods”. These victuals (such as hamburgers and ice cream) often have fatting things in
them. Another cause is the way Americans eat. They often eat little snacks between regular
meals. These superfluous foods add extra fat on the body. Some Americans are also too
heavy because of health dilemma. But for most of those 34 million Americans, the problem is
the luxurious American’s lifestyle.
3.
Lemons and limes are parallelisms of fruit. They are both grown in warm locales.
They both have an epidermis and soft insides. People do not usually eat whole lemons and
limes. That is because both of these fruits have a very sour taste. They are often used in
blanching desserts and as the main vessel. People make juice from lemons and also from
limes. Finally, both fruits have a lot of vitamin C in them.
34
Test B
Notre Dame Seishin University
Yu Matsumura
This is a pronunciation test. First, please read aloud text 4. Second, please listen to
the whole of text 5 that native speaks and after that, read aloud them. Third, please listen and
repeat the sentences in text 6 one by one.
4.
Poland and Italy are the same in miscellaneous ways. And of course, they are
different in some ways. Poland is in the north of Europe, but Italy is in the south. Poland had
a communist government, but Italy has a democratic government. However, there are also
akin to each other. In both realms, the most important persuasion is Catholicism. In both
Italy and Poland, the country’s saga is very important to the people. And finally, both the
Italians and the polish are illustrious for their friendliness and good spirit.
5.
The food in India is allied to the food in China. First of all, in both countries, rice is
a very salient food for them. It is served at almost every gastronomic in India and China.
Indian and Chinese cooking can be very piquant. And they are also alike because they both
use many different vegetables. In both countries, the meat dish is not always the most
important dish. Finally these are both very large countries with long bygone pasts. In India
and China, each part of the country has its own favorite kinds of food and way of cooking.
6.
Aspirin is a simple drug that can lead to many repercussions. It can stop a migraine
or an earache. It helps take away stomach pangs. Aspirin can stop a fever if you have the flu.
Or it can make you better if you have a cold. Some doctors opine that aspirin also can have a
denouement of a heavy heart. They say that some people should take an aspirin every day.
For those people, aspirin may stop heart maladies.
35
Test C
Notre Dame Seishin University
Yu Matsumura
This is a pronunciation test. First, please read aloud text 7. Second, please listen to
the whole of text 8 that native speaks and after that, read aloud them. Third, please listen and
repeat the sentences in text 9 one by one.
7.
Peter and Joe are roommates in Chicago. They both like to cook good meals and
have dinner soirees. But they have very different inklings about what to cook. Peter likes to
cook lots of lenient food. His favorite foods are steak, potatoes, and apple pie. But Joe
prefers special dishes from extraneous places. He likes to cook curries from India and sushi
from Japan. Dinner at Peter and Joe’s penthouse is always delicious.
8.
In some ways English breakfasts are very similar to American breakfasts. In both
countries people usually devour large breakfasts. English and American breakfast both
include several dishes. They may include some fruit juice, cereal, and then eggs and toast. In
both places, there are also some nonconformities between American and English breakfasts.
In England, people usually carouse tea in the morning. However, most Americans prefer
coffee. The English usually do not eat things made of saccharine for breakfast, but many
Americans like sweet bread or coffee kuchen.
9.
People used to have very different ways of eating in Europe. Now everyone uses
forks, knives, and spoons. But a thousand years ago, no one used forks at the table. They used
solely spoons and knives. Today most Europeans do not eat with their appendages. But back
then many people take their sustenance with their hands. In those days most people did not
use transparency as an element in drinking. Instead they drank from bowls or large ligneous
cups.
36