http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/147 1996-10-31 Search the Channel search http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/simple-search http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/1262 Title: Response to Japanese College EFL Learners' Difficulties in SLA<br/><br/>Authors: KOBAYASHI, Toshihiko<br/><br/>Abstract: The purpose of this paper is three-fold: one, to investigate and identify the difficulties faced by Japanese college students, two, to investigate and identify their questions raised in the course of studying English as a foreign language, and three, to discuss the background behind their problems with learning. Based on the author's own experiences both as an ESL/EFL learner and ESL/EFL instructor, he offers a range of pedagogical suggestions. A total of 273 students at two Japanese colleges, both national and private, were asked to point out their own broad problem areas and particular difficulties in their learning of English. The collected responses were sorted according to skill areas such as speaking, pronunciation, listening, writing, reading and vocabulary. The data suggest that the majority of the students who responded feel less confident in listening and speaking; they also feel that it is difficult to improve indicated skills. The results furthermore indicate that most of the respondents are lacking in a clear idea about how to improve the skills areas they assume to be undeveloped. http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/1263 Title: 筑前国志賀白水郎歌群 : 構造論の展望<br/><br/>Authors: 村山, 出<br/><br/>Abstract: Songs of the Shika fishermen ("Shika-no-ama") in Chikuzen tell of how a fisherman named Arao was lost at sea at the biginning of the Jinki Era (724～9) and of the subsequent grief of his family. It is debated whether the writer of the songs was the poet Yamanoue Okura or a member of the family of the fisherman Arao. It is further argued whether the songs can be considered to have a literary construction. Finally, in the Amagasaki-bon version of the Manyoshu, there is mention of another source ("one book"), the importance of which is contested, in which the Shika-no-ama songs appear in a different version. In this paper, I give an overview of these issues and of the various theories surrounding the Shika-no-ama songs. http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/1261 Title: 英語母語話者による日本語の音声(韻律)の習得に向けて<br/><br/>Authors: 中川, かず子<br/><br/>Abstract: It is not always appropriate to regard all native speakers of English as one group as there are differences between native speakers of different varieties of English, differences in their length of study as well as individual differences. But drawing on previous research, the present research and the teaching experience of the writer, it was decided in this paper to describe some characteristics of the acquisition of Japanese pronunciation by English native speakers generally. The issues here are some problems at the syllables and those associated with prosody. Problems at the syllable level-Because English is a stress-timed language, this is a likely area for interference. In English there is a relation between the placement of the stressed accent and the length of the vowel. In contrast to Japanese where the syllables are treated as equal intervals of time, syllables in English with strong accents are lengthened and syllables with weak accents become ambiguous. The particular problems in this regard identified so far in the current research are shown in the paper. Problems associated with prosody-Problems of vowel and consonant length are often explained as problems of accents, rhythm or intonation. It is not easy for native speakers of stress-accented languages like English to grasp the sense of pitch-accented languages. But because pitch-accent perception is the basis of acquiring word and sentence intonation in Japanese, it can be thought of as more fundamentally important than problems of vowels and consonants. The paper suggests that the main causes of un-Japanese like pronunciation are deviations in the pitch-accent and in the sentence intonation. So for native speakers of English it is valid to concentrate on the acquisition of rhythm and intonation rather than the elements of sounds. http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/1260 Title: A Matter of Prosody, or Why Prosody Matters<br/><br/>Authors: JONES, Willie<br/><br/>Abstract: This essay takes as its starting point a fact which no-one disputes: that the prosodic characteristics of nihongo are radically different from those of eigo, and, in certain crucial respects, a good deal less complex. It follows that Japanese learners experience great difficulty in accustoming themselves to the alien rhythms, stress habits and intonation contours of English; from this, it follows that students need to be consciously aware that these prosodic differences do indeed pose problems and that the problems must be faced: a failure to do so can result in serious breakdowns in communication. Since few Japanese high school teachers are competent to teach the prosodic features of English, and almost none of them tries, native-speaking teachers of English have a duty to make up for this deficiency, and are, of course, best-placed to do so. This essay offers first a brief account of the rhythm of Japanese, a syllable-timed language, against which to set a more extended description of the rhythm of English, a stress-timed language; it then seeks to demonstrate how the rhythmic beat of English under-pins phonological stress, and is thus related to the semantic function of stress as a marker of information. Since stress and intonation work in partnership, issues of intonation are, from the beginning, inevitably woven into the discoursive fabric, until, finally, the essay deals more specifically with the various functions which intonation fulfills as the over-arching prosodic melody, the tune of speech: to highlight contrasts, to express emotion, to mark cohesion and coherence, to reveal a speaker's affiliations, education and class.