For the Taiwanese Japanese language learners, who Chinese is their mother tongue, in their study of Japanese pronounciation, the most difficult part is generally the confusion of the voiceless consonants and voiced consonants. Taiwanese learners, under the influence of their mother tongue, can clearly differentiate “aspirated voiceless consonants” and “non-aspirated voiceless consonants”. But they often are not able to differentiate “voiced consonants” from “voiceless consonants”. In Chinese language, there exists a difference in meaning between “aspirated, voiceless plosive consonants” and “non-aspirated, voiceless consonants”. But “voiced plosive consonants” do not exist. On the other hand, there is a difference in meaning, in Japanese language, between “voiceless consonants” and “voiced consonants”. But there is no such difference in meaning between “voiced consonants” and “voiceless consonants”. However, in the actual conversation by Japanese people, under the particular phonetic environment, “aspirated voiceless consonants” and “non-aspirated voiceless consonants” equivalent to those in Chinese language emerged. This is exactly the area Taiwanese learners feel confused. This thesis analyzes the characteristics of the languages in Japanese and Taiwan from the acoustic phonetics point of view in order to seek for the instruction methods for Taiwanese Japanese language learners.
This thesis contains six chapters. The first chapter, Introduction, introduces the language environment of the Taiwanese learners. It also describes the difficulties Taiwanese learners, who Chinese is their mother tongue, come across in learning the affricate consonants and plosive consonants of Japanese language. It further describes the research objectives and method of this thesis. Chapter two compares and contrasts the phonetic systems of learners’ mother language – Chinese and target language – Japanese by observing the learners’ mother language and the languages they have learnt and its positive and negative influences in learning Japanese language. Chapter three introduces the concept of vot (voice onset time) and describes the theoretical basis of the research of this thesis follows by an overview of research documents regarding the plosive consonants and affricate consonants by the Taiwanese scholars and Japanese scholars. It further introduces the articles regarding the affricate consonants and plosive consonants by the Japanese language phonetic teaching materials and text books. Chapter four and chapter five use the phonetic software to observe the aspirated sound and voiced sound of affricate consonants and plosive consonants. In the meantime, it verifies the phenomenum of “devoiced of voice consonants” by the Japanese speakers. It also uses the statistics point of view to investigate the frequencies of appearance of affricate consonants and plosive consonants in Japanese language teaching material. Chapter six through the survey method to understand the current situation and mental status of Japanese pronounciation learners in Taiwan and to seek the most suitable phonetic instruction methods for Taiwanese learners with the expectation to be able to contribute to the instruction/learning of Japanese phonetic education.