Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Page 286

cording II)7. The recording was made with Edirol r-09Hr, roland,
and the saved sound files played back by a Windows Media file
through computer speakers.
First, a name from recording I was played, followed by the vari-
ous possible pronunciations in Japanese from recording II. The sub-
jects heard the tokens only once and chose the Japanese pro nunci -
ation (by number) that they thought came closest to the reading by the
Icelandic native speaker. This was repeated for 60 tokens, consisting
of 58 names, two of which were repeated for different sounds.
although in both cases, the information and experimental pro-
cedure were the same, the mental process must have been slightly
different for Japanese and Icelandic subjects. For Japanese sub-
jects, the Icelandic pronunciation (I) represented the foreign sound,
which had to be matched with one of the familiar-sounding Japan -
ese pronunciations. For Icelandic speakers, the Japanese pronunci-
ation (II) was foreign, and they had to choose among several opt -
ions the sound which most closely approximated (I). There could
thus be cross-linguistic, as well as individual, differences affecting
the choice. The aim of the experiment was to determine whether an
overall tendency could be observed.
all 60 test words were mixed and presented randomly to the
subjects.
3. The eight problems
For the purposes of this study, eight different features were select-
ed where problems in transliteration might occur. They are
described in the following sections, and the responses of the sub-
jects are discussed.
TranSLITEraTIng ICELanDIC naMES InTO JaPanESE …
286
7 The problematic pronunciation of the Icelandic names are selected by the author, as well as the
possible varieties of pronunciation in Japanese, based on the comparison between two languages
’phonological systems and the general rules of transliteration in Japanese. Since there is no fixed
rule for the transliteration of Icelandic sounds into Japanese, there is more than one possibility.
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