Abstract
Acquisition of the production of ‘new’ and ‘similar’ vowels: the case of /u/ and /y/ in French by Japanese-speaking learners KAMIYAMA Takeki Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie (UMR 7018), CNRS / Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris
[email protected]
• French /y/ (F2/F3 close around 1900 to 2100 Hz for males) does not have an equivalent phoneme in Japanese and English, whereas /u/ (F1/F2 close < 1000 Hz) has a phonemic counterpart (high back) in both Japanese and English, but its phonetic realization is different from French /u/, with a higher F2. Flege (1987) [6] found out that it was easier for American English speakers to acquire a native-like production of French /y/ (“new” phone) than that of French /u/ (“similar” phone). Our recording of two groups of male and female adult Japanese-speaking learners of French (JLF) shows a similar tendency. We measured the formants of isolated vowels embedded in a carrier sentence read 3 times by JLFs. In the first group, consisting of 3 elementary learners who volunteered for the task, 2 learners pronounced /y/ with close F2/F3 around 2000 Hz, but none of them produced a low F2 (< 1000 Hz) for /u/. In the second group, consisting of 50 JLFs in 4 different classes and levels (elementary to upper intermediate), only 4 of them, who had all lived in a French-speaking country except one, produced /u/ with a low F2 (< 1000 Hz), whereas 20 of them pronounced /y/ with close F2/F3 at least once. 2 3/07/2008 Acoustics'08 KAMIYAMA Takeki
Parisian French: 10 oral vowels and 3 nasal vowels
/i/ /y/ si
/!#/ /œ#/ saint brin
brun
/u/
su
sous
/e/ /ø/ ses
sot
/!/ /œ/
sort
/a/ sa Acoustics'08
son
/ "/
sœur
unrounded • a rounded nasal 3/07/2008
/o/ /"#/
ceux
sait
Japanese: 5 vowels
/$#/ sans
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Phonemically “new” and “similar” vowels in L2 French learned by L1 Japanese speakers
• Fig.1 The first three formants (left) and the first two formants in two dimensions (right: F1 on the y-axis, F2 on the x-axis) of the five vowels (male voice) of Tokyo Japanese (Sugito 1995 [18]). 4 3/07/2008 Acoustics'08 KAMIYAMA Takeki
/u/ in French and Japanese: articulation
• /y/ (F2/F3 close around 1900 to 2100 Hz for males): no phonemic equivalent in L1 Japanese • /u/ (F1/F2 close < 1000 Hz): phonemic equivalent (high back) /u/ in L1 Japanese is phonetically different [!] (F2 > 1000 Hz) 3/07/2008
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French /y/ and /u/ (Wioland 1991) 5
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Japanese /u/ (Uemura 1990)
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“New” and “similar” vowels in L2 French learned by American English speakers
Research question
• Flege (1987):
• Do native speakers of Japanese have more difficulty in producing L2 French /u/ (“similar” sound) than /y/ (“new” sound)?
• Native speakers of American English who were experienced in French did not differ from French monolinguals in producing French /y/ (F2/F3 close). • However, native English speakers of all groups studied produced /u/ in their L2 French with F2 values which differed significantly (higher) from those of native speakers.
“similar” sounds: harder to produce in a native-like manner than “new” sounds
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Target French vowels /u/ and /y/ Native speaker 1 (M)
Native speaker 3 (F)
/y/ F2/F3 Native speaker 2 (M)
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Native speaker 4 (F)
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/u/ F1/F2KAMIYAMA Takeki
• Mean formant frequencies of French oral vowels pronounced 3 times in the carrier sentence “je dis /V/ comme dans …” by 2 male and 2 female native speakers of French. 9
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KAMIYAMA Takeki
Target French vowels /u/ and /y/ Native speaker 1 (M)
Native speaker 3 (F)
F3
F3
F1
F2
F2
F1
Native speaker 2 (M)
Native speaker 4 (F)
F3
F3
F1
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• Mean formant frequencies of French oral vowels pronounced 3 times in the carrier sentence “je dis /V/ comme dans …” by 2 male and 2 female native speakers of French.
F2
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Experiment I: 3 learners Experiment I
Japanese learner 3 (F)
Japanese learner 1 (M)
• French vowels in isolation • Carrier sentence: “Je dis /V/ comme dans …” (e.g. Je dis /u/ comme dans loup.) • 3 learners (3 months of learning experience) studying at the University of Tokyo.
/y/ F2/F3 Japanese learner 2 (M)
• Recorded in an anechoic booth. 3/07/2008
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Japanese /u/-like vowel
• Mean formant frequencies of French oral vowels pronounced 2 times in the carrier sentence “je dis /V/ comme dans …” by 2 male and 1 female native speakers of Japanese learning French (3 months of learning). 12 Acoustics'08 KAMIYAMA Takeki
Experiment I: 3 learners Japanese learner 1 (M)
Experiment I: /u/
Japanese learner 3 (F)
F3
F3
F2 F1 Japanese learner 2 (M)
F1
F2 •
• Mean formant frequencies of French oral vowels pronounced 2 times in the carrier sentence “je dis /V/ comme dans …” by 2 male and 1 female native speakers of Japanese learning French (3 months of learning). F2 13 Acoustics'08 KAMIYAMA Takeki
F3
F1
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/u/ pronounced by a male native speaker. 3/07/2008
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/u/ pronounced by a male Japanese-speaking learner. Acoustics'08
Relative intensity in 3 frequency zones (0-1 kHz, 1-2 kHz, 2-3 kHz) of /u/ pronounced by the 4 native speakers (fr: mean of 12 tokens) and by the 3 Japanese-speaking learners (jp: mean of 6 tokens). The error bars represent ±1SD.
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Experiment I: learner 3 (F) •
Experiment I: summary
Mean formant frequencies of French oral vowels pronounced 2 times (5 measures) in the carrier sentence “je dis /V/ comme dans …” by 1 female native speakers of Japanese learning French (3 months of learning).
• /u/: none of the learners produced close F1/F2. • /y/: two of the learners produced close F2/F3; the other produced a diphthongized [j!]. • Diphthongization /y/ [j!] 3/07/2008
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Experiment II • French vowels in isolation • Carrier sentence: “Je dis /V/ comme dans …” (e.g. Je dis /u/ comme dans loup.) • 47 learners of different levels (elementary, intermediate, upper intermediate) studying in universities in Tokyo area. • Recorded simultaneously in CALL rooms. 3/07/2008
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Concluding remarks
Experiment II: summary
• The findings in the two experiments (/y/ easier to learn to produce than /u/) corroborate the results of Flege (1987): “similar” sounds are harder to learn to produce than “new” ones.
• /u/: only 4 (out of 47) learners produced close F1/F2. • /y/: 20 learners produced close F2/F3 at least once.
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Concluding remarks
• /y/: more attention is paid in teaching and learning as a “new” sound
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• The author would like to express his gratitude to Miho Inoue for accepting to use precious class time to record her students, as well as to all participants of the experiments.
• /u/: harder to give visual feedback on the articulation (esp. tongue position)
References
KAMIYAMA Takeki
Acknowledgement
• /u/: lack of consciousness of the articulatory and acoustic differences between French /u/ and Japanese /u/
• /y/: relatively easy to show its articulation (/i/ + lip protrusion and rounding) 3/07/2008 Acoustics'08 KAMIYAMA Takeki
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