Phonological Interference of Japanese Uvular [ɴ] in the pronunciation of English Alveolar /n/ at Ending Distribution

Anisah Durrotul Fajri

Abstract

English has been widely used all around the world, either as the first, second, or foreign languages. As foreign language of Japan, English is not daily used, however, since immigration to English speaking countries for educational or business purposes has been common in Japan, more and more people used English within those contexts. A case on the use of English by Japanese is a vlogger Rion Ishida whose speech frequently used uvular [ɴ] for English alveolar /n/. This study examined the interference of Japanese uvular [ɴ] which is not common in English in the speech production of English alveolar /n/. The finding shows that at ending distribution, English alveolar /n/ has been pronounced as uvular [ɴ] in more-than-one-syllable words. In this case, actual phoneme substitution occurs as a result of phonological interference. This is partly caused by the position of the words containing /n/ in the speech and another is caused by the interference of Japanese phonological system which regulates alveolar /n/ to be realized as uvular [ɴ] at final or ending distribution. Thus, three factors causing phonological interferences consisting (1) the competing phonemic categories, (2) their allophonic membership, and (3) their distributions are all evident in this study.

Keywords

Phonological Interference, Japanese uvular, English Alveolar, Language Interference, English Pronunciation

Full Text:

PDF

References

Adnania Nugra, H., & Subiyanto, A. (2023). Phonological Processes of English Words Pronounced by Japanese Found in Hey Say Jump! Songs. Madah: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Sastra, 13(2), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.31503/madah.v13i2.421

Anjarningsih, H. Y., & Saraayu, A. (2016). a Phonetic Contrastive Analysis of English Words in Three Japanese Songs By Akb48. Jurnal Humaniora, 27(3), 350. https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.v27i3.10595

Aoyama, K. (2003). Perception of syllable-initial and syllable-final nasals in English by Korean and Japanese speakers. Second Language Research, 19(3), 251–265. https://doi.org/10.1191/0267658303sr222oa

Blatter, J., & Haverland, M. (2012). Designing Case studies: Exploratory studies in small-N research. In Macmillan Publishers Limited: Hampshire.

Brière, E. (1968). A Psycholinguistic Study of Phonological Interference. A Psycholinguistic Study of Phonological Interference. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112414941

Colantoni, L., Kochetov, A., & Steele, J. (2023). L1 influence on the L2 acquisition of English word-final nasal place contrasts: An electropalatographic study of L1 Japanese and Spanish learners. Laboratory Phonology, 14(1), 1–45. https://doi.org/10.16995/labphon.6434

Comrie, B. (1989). Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of Chicago Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2017). Research Design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Dearden, J. (2014). English as a medium of instruction – a growing global phenomenon. In British Council.

Ellis, R. (2008). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press.

Han, H., & Namba, K. (2023). Perception of Japanese moraic nasal in intervocalic position by Japanese native speakers and Korean learners of Japanese. Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 406–410.

Loeb, S., Dynarski, S., McFarland, D., Morris, P., Reardon, S., & Reber, S. (2017). Descriptive analysis in education: A guide for researchers. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, March, 1–40. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED573325

Maekawa, K. (2023). Production of the utterance-final moraic nasal in Japanese: A real-time MRI study. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 53(1), 189–212. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100321000050

O’Grady, W., & Dobrovolsky, M. (1997). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd Editio). Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Patricia Pulliam Philips, P., & Cathy A. Stawarski, P. (2008). Data collection. Planning for and collecting all type of data.

Phany, M., & Dara, D. (2024). The Investigation into Pronunciation Problems Faced by Teacher-Trainees: A Case Study at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Cambodia. Indonesian Journal of Advanced Research, 3(3), 301–326. https://doi.org/10.55927/ijar.v3i3.8501

Rambe, A. O. R., & Rangkuti, R. (2022). English Vs Japanese : the Phonological System English Language Into Absorption in Japanese. Hikari: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Kebudayaan, 2(1), 88–95. https://doi.org/10.37301/hikari.v2i1.10

Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2010). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Rose, H., & McKinley, J. (2018). Japan’s English-medium instruction initiatives and the globalization of higher education. Higher Education, 75(1), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0125-1

Sesefanakh, A. G., & Febriyanti, R. (2022). Japanese Learner’s Ability to Pronounce Nasal Consonant /N/ Located at The End of Words. JAPANEDU: Jurnal Pendidikan Dan Pengajaran Bahasa Jepang, 7(2), 85–93. https://doi.org/10.17509/japanedu.v7i2.45418

Swan, M., & Smith, B. (2001). Learner English. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667121

Weinreich, U., & Martinet, A. (1968). Languages in Contact : Findings and Problems. Mouton Publishers.

Whitman, P. N. (2022a). English consonants, IPA.

Whitman, P. N. (2022b). Japanese consonants, IPA.

Yuhki, T., & Ryoko, H. (2016). Articulatory Variability in Word-Final Japanese Moraic-Nasals: An X-ray Microbeam Study. Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, 20(1), 77–87.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20961/prasasti.v10i1.94064

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.