IULC Publications

Patterns of Pronunciation Errors in English by Native Japanese and Hebrew Speakers: Interference and Simplification Processes

By Sara H. Basson

This research investigates pronunciation errors accounting for reduced intelligibility and perceived accent in Japanese and Hebrew ESL students. Native Japanese and Hebrew speakers recorded syllables and sentences in English and their native languages. The segments forming the English syllables were classified in terms of their similarity to sounds in the speakers' first langauge. Experienced listeners transcribed and rated the tokens for accentedness. Formant frequency information was gathered for the vowels. The intelligibility scores and acoustic data were used to compare an interference model with a model predicting inherent difficulty of particular sounds, based on cross-linguistic data and findings from L1 acquisition.

106 pages
$9.00

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