Practice of British English /l/ and /r/ by Japanese learners

Katsumi NAGAI (Kagawa University)

Abstract

Eight Japanese learners of English practiced nonsense words (/ala, aɹa/ in British English and /aɾa/ in Japanese), minimal-paired words (e.g. light/right), and sentences (e.g. ‘Did you realise the reason he was ringing?’) every day for one week. Five native speakers of British English rated the naturalness of learners’ /l/ and /r/ sounds on a scale of 1 (good) to 4 (indistinguishable). Results showed that learners’ pronunciation did not improve after one week of practice. However, their discrimination test scores of minimal-paired words were significantly higher after the practice, suggesting that pronunciation practice helps boost listening skills in discriminating /l/ and /r/ sounds. Lowering third formant (F3), which is a characteristic of the /r/ sound, and move in second formant (F2), due to rise of tongue-back and rounding of lips, were also observed, suggesting that acoustic analysis is useful for examining the effects of pronunciation practice.