The Effect of Singing on Improving Syllabic Pronunciation - Vowel Epenthesis in Japanese
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چکیده
One of the difficulties in pronouncing English for Japanese learners can be traced to unfamiliar English syllable structures (such as CCCV or CVC). It is commonly believed that native speakers of Japanese overcome this problem through the use of epenthetic vowels. This study examines to what extent these extra vowels are suppressed to approximate more closely the syllable structure of English after singing lessons specifically targeted to improve the pronunciation of consonant clusters. Preliminary results suggest that university students of 18-20 yrs majoring in English performed quite well in pronouncing consonant clusters in connected speech even before having singing lessons: only 27% of tokens contained unnecessary vowels. After three months of weekly singing lessons, the rate of vowel insertion was further diminished to 13%. The effect was statistically supported in comparison to a control group. The results therefore suggest that at least young adult native speakers in Japanese do have sensitivity to the syllabic structure in English, and this can be reinforced by some specified tasks such as songs of focusing syllable timing.
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تاریخ انتشار 2011