Proc. of the ISCA Workshop on Experimental Linguistics (ExLing), pp. 161-164, Athens, 2008
Perception of consonant clusters in Japanese native speakers: Influence of foreign language learning
H. Masuda and T. Arai
Abstract: Previous research on the perception of consonant clusters by Japanese native speakers has revealed that they are highly likely to perceive a vowel between the two consonants even if there are no vowels inserted (Dupoux et al. 1999). The present study further investigates this issue but by dividing the group of Japanese native speakers into two groups: Japanese-English bilinguals and Japanese monolinguals. This study aims to look into the influence of language learning experience on the perception of foreign sounds. Results of the perception test revealed that bilinguals made less error than monolinguals in identifying pseudowords with and without consonant cluster.
keywords: consonant cluster, epenthetic vowel, bilingual, speech perception