Perception of Foreign Accentedness in L2 Prosody and Segments: L1 Japanese Speakers Learning L2 French

In order to examine the production of Japanese-speaking L2 learners of French, a series of perception tests were conducted with 17 native speakers of French (from mainland France). The subjects listened to French short phrases 1) synthesized with Mbrola using (European standard and Canadian) French and Japanese segments, combined with duration and F0 found in the recording of phrases read by Japanese learners and French native speakers, 2) read by Japanese learners and French native speakers, and then re-synthesized with manipulation of local duration and F0. The results indicate that duration and F0 play an important role in the perception of foreign accent.