A relationship between orthographic output and perception in L2 Japanese phonology by L1 English speakers

Abstract

This study explored the possibility of utilizing orthographic output, namely, spelling errors, as a way to observe how beginning-level Japanese L2 learners whose L1 was English perceive length of Japanese morae. First, a word-level translation test was conducted among participants to examine characteristics of spelling errors; the results were compared with those of a subsequent dictation test using the same stimuli as perception data. The results showed similar difficulties to those reported by previous studies on pronunciation; and errors on translation and dictation tests were significantly correlated, similar to previous studies on the perception–production relationship using speech data. These results support the idea that orthographic output, as measured by spelling performance, can serve as useful data and should be considered when examining learners’ L2 phonological acquisition.

Keywords

• Second language acquisition (SLA)
• Japanese
• Orthography
• Second language phonology
• Spelling errors