英文摘要 |
Varden and Sato (1996) were the first to find that, on a pronunciation task, Taiwanese learners of Japanese tend to fail to devoice the high vowels [i, ɯ]in the voiceless consonant environment. The present study, using two Taiwanese learners and an oral reading task, verified Varden and Sato's findings, and thoroughly investigated the issue in a systematic manner. The main findings were that (1) one learner devoiced 2 out of 34 high vowels, and the other, 6, and (2) while the voiceless consonant durations are comparable between a model Japanese speaker and two Taiwanese learners, the durations of the high vowels were almost twice longer for the Taiwanese learners than for the model reader, thereby suggesting that vowel duration is a key factor. Educational implications and further research are briefly discussed. |