A Signal Detection Theorem Analysis of Native Japanese Production of American English Vowels

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The purpouse of this paper was to investigate the effects of identification training on the ability of native Japanese to pronounce the five American English (AE) vowels /æ/,/α/,/ʌ/,/ɔ/,/ɝ/. A production task, performed both before and after a six-week vowel identification training program, included an experimental group and a control group who produced words containing each of the five target vowels within a varied consonantal context. In a separate task, a group of native speakers of English performed an identification task that included a random sampling of the pre-and post-training vowel productions of the Japanese subjects from each of the two groups. A random sampling of vowel utterances as produced by the group of experimental Japanese talkers were then rated by three native English listeners in a two-interval, forced-choice identification task. A signal detection theorem-based correction for bias served to reveal a different pattern of production results and influenced the interpretation of the data, especially with regard to the /ʌ/ vowel. The results showed that the trained Japanese group's productions were more intelligible than the control group's productions for each of the five target AE vowels.

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