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Abstract

Abstract

Despite growing interest in the role of prosody in communication, there is still a need for more empirical research to better understand its impact on listeners’ understanding and to provide effective pronunciation instruction. The study compares the effectiveness of two methods (i.e., embodied and computer-assisted techniques) in training Japanese vowel length contrast and pitch accent, with the aim of improving L2 perception and production, and ultimately increasing intelligibility and comprehensibility. Training was provided to English-speaking learners of Japanese for four weeks. Following the training, learners exhibited significant improvement in their overall performance, and these observed improvements often continued until the delayed posttest. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in performance between learners assigned to embodied techniques and those using computer-assisted methods. These findings suggest that both methods may be equally effective and that L2 prosody can improve in as short as four weeks with targeted instruction.

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/content/journals/10.1075/jslp.24024.shi
2025-06-12
2025-07-19

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/content/journals/10.1075/jslp.24024.shi
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A comparison of techniques for training L2 Japanese prosody
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/jslp.24024.shi
/content/journals/10.1075/jslp.24024.shi
/content/journals/10.1075/jslp.24024.shi
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: comprehensibility ; focused instruction ; prosody training ; Japanese ; intelligibility

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