Influential factors on the production of English /θ/ by Japanese learners of English

• Authors: Rika Aoki
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This study investigates the linguistic and sociolinguistic factors which trigger high frequency of /s/-substitution (i.e. the substitution of /s/ for /θ/) by Japanese-speaking learners of English. From the production experiment participated by 8 Japanese learners, it was found that /s/-substitution was more likely to occur in a stressed syllable before high vowels in a longer word, with /s/ in proximity, and in more spontaneous speech. The results of this study could be applied to pedagogical strategies to help Japanese learners overcome their pronunciation difficulties more efficiently.

Keywords

EN

/s/-substitution; L2 production; adjacent segments; stress; task type

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 47
• Pages: 15

Dates

published

2011

received

2010-09-30

revised

2010-11-24

accepted

2010-11-25

online

2011-03-31

Contributors

author

Rika Aoki

• University of Tokyo, Japan

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/psicl-2011-0003