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Article: Acquisition of L2 Japanese geminates: training with waveform displays.(programmed instructions)(Report)
- Article from:
- Language, Learning & Technology
- Article date:
- June 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 University of Hawaii, National Foreign Language Resource Center. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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INTRODUCTION
The duration of vowels and consonants is a contrastive feature in Japanese unlike English. In Japanese, singleton consonants contrast with their longer geminate counterparts, which are a special type of mora. Accurate perception and production of morae are important for comprehension; however, they can be problematic elements for second-language (L2) learners. Training studies to date have not addressed this particular issue.
Briefly, a mora is a unit of timing, which plays a role in the temporal organization of speech in production (e.g., Kubozono, 1999). Neighboring moraic units tend to show equal duration (Port, Dalby, & O'Dell, 1987). ...