title: The early phase of /see symbol/ production development in adult Japanese learners of English.
abstract: Although previous research indicates that Japanese speakers' second language (L2) perception and production of English /see symbol/ may improve with increased L2 experience, relatively little is known about the fine phonetic details of their /see symbol/ productions, especially during the early phase of L2 speech learning. This cross-sectional study examined acoustic properties of word-initial /see symbol/ from 60 Japanese learners with a length of residence of between one month and one year in Canada. Their performance was compared to that of 15 native speakers of English and 15 low-proficiency Japanese learners of English. Formant frequencies (F2 and F3) and F1 transition durations were evaluated under three task conditions--word reading, sentence reading, and timed picture description. Learners with as little as two to three months of residence demonstrated target-like F2 frequencies. In addition, increased LOR was predictive of more target-like transition durations. Although the learners showed some improvement in F3 as a function of LOR, they did so mainly at a controlled level of speech production. The findings suggest that during the early phase of L2 segmental development, production accuracy is task-dependent and is influenced by the availability of L1 phonetic cues for redeployment in L2.
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Murray J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Munro
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult