The perception of non-native lexical pitch accent by speakers of 'accentless' Japanese dialects

Akira Utsugi, Masatoshi Koizumi, Reiko Mazuka

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

While Standard (Tokyo) Japanese has a lexical tonal system known as a system of 'lexical pitch accent', there are some varieties of Japanese, called 'accentless' dialects, which do not have any lexical tonal phenomena. We investigated how the speakers of those dialects perceive Standard Japanese accent, which is nonexistent in their native dialect's phonology. The results of the Sequence Recall task showed that their scores were lower than those of control (Standard Japanese) participants. We also found a large variance in the results of 'accentless' participants, which was probably caused by their exposure to Standard Japanese.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication5th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2010
PublisherInternational Speech Communications Association
ISBN (Electronic)9780000000002
Publication statusPublished - 2010
Event5th International Conference on Speech Prosody: Every Language, Every Style, SP 2010 - Chicago, United States
Duration: 2010 May 102010 May 14

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody
ISSN (Print)2333-2042

Conference

Conference5th International Conference on Speech Prosody: Every Language, Every Style, SP 2010
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChicago
Period10/5/1010/5/14

Keywords

  • Non-native speech perception
  • Pitch accent 'deafness'
  • Sequence recall task

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