Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Page 301
results
Both Japanese and Icelandic subjects seemed to prefer the voiced
version, though about half also chose the voiceless version. Since
Icelandic plosives are aspirated or unaspirated, rather than voiced
and voiceless, Icelandic students of Japanese often have difficulty
in perceiving and producing voiced and voiceless contrasting
sounds in Japanese words. This could be the reason why Icelandic
subjects do not show a clearer tendency here. For Japanese speak-
ers on the other hand, Icelandic unaspirated plosives may not
always be perceived as voiced plosives in Japanese due to the dif-
ferent boundaries in VOT.
Table 6.a Choice of pronunciation for names that contain unaspirated plo-
sives in Icelandic.
Individual results indicate that both Japanese and Icelandic sub-
jects chose the voiced version of names such as Dagmar, Birta,
Gísli and Sindri. For the initial consonant of Bergur, Japanese sub-
jects chose the voiced version, but opinions were divided among
Icelandic subjects. For Helgi, Icelandic subjects chose both voice-
less and voiced versions, showing no clear preference. With Hjör -
dís and Ragnar, more Icelandic subjects chose the voiceless ver-
sion, whereas Japanese subjects preferred the voiced version.
although in general, both Japanese and Icelandic subjects chose
the voiced version, results vary depending on the individual names
and seem rather inconsistent. no special tendency could be
observed with respect to the environment of the sound in question.
(For example, VOT is known to be sensitive to the place of articu-
lation and the vowel that follows it.) The reason for this inconsis-
tency could be linked to the recording quality or the way the Ice -
landic name is read by the speaker each time. VOT can vary con-
siderably according to individuals, too.
KaOru uMEZaWa
301
1st year 2nd year 1st & 2nd year Japanese
Voiceless 44 30 74 22
Voiced 83 50 133 67
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