A Study of Emphatic Mora Extension in Japanese-Concerning Taiwanese Students(Specifically on Long Vowel+Mora Obstruent Sequences)

• Main Authors: Shih-pei Kao, 高士珮
• Other Authors: Ji-li Luo
• Format: Others
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44505151890550261935

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 日本語文學系 === 97 === This study aims to investigate Taiwanese Japanese students' production of emphatic mora extension in Japanese, such as zuutto (ォみゲシ) and suukkari (エみゲろベ). An emphatic mora extension consists of a long vowel and a geminate consonant or mora obstruent and such emphatic mora extension phenomenon is ubiquitous in daily conversations, as observed in Japanese soap operas, movies, and animations. Previous related studies, however, tended to focus mostly on the investigation into either long vowels or mora obstruents, and yet the phenomenon in question here remains unremarked. As an endeavor to disclose the phonetic property of the emphatic mora extension in real-time production, this study collected the emphatic mora extension cases produced by both Taiwanese Japanese learners and native Japanese speakers. These collected cases then underwent acoustic analysis with regard to the durations of both long vowel and mora obstruent. It is found that native Japanese speakers tend to maintain a stable ratio between the duration of the long vowel and that of the mora obstruent, which is about 7 to 3. By contrast, such a stable ratio fail to appear in the speech produced by Taiwanese Japanese learners. Based on the findings, it is therefore suggested that Japanese learners should be exposed to input of the emphatic mora extension phenomenon in the course of their language learning so as to improve their speech production in authentic language use. It is hoped that with sufficient practice and exposure to the emphatic mora extension use learners can not only enhance their Japanese production ability but avoid confusion when interacting with native Japanese speakers.