Insertion of the voiceless fricative [s] at word-final position in Japanese English

ABSTRACT

This article explains how the voiceless fricative [s], or what we refer to as ‘special [s],’ occurs in free talk produced by Japanese speakers of English and what this means for the current understanding of Japanese English. The discussion is based on a small corpus compiled by the authors from recordings. The findings are threefold. The special [s] is always voiceless, occurs only word-finally, and arises from four different pragmatic forces. These forces are discourse marker, hesitation, cause and effect, and expression of self. The definition of Japanese English has been built heavily on the influence of the first language (L1) on the second language (L2). While L1 transfer is integral to L2 English production, the present article supplements this view by disclosing facts about what L2 users do while they are engaged in speaking in English; that is, in usage events.

KEYWORDS:

• Voiceless fricative [s]
• Japanese English
• free talk
• pragmatic forces
• usage events

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. M and F represent male and female, respectively. J indicates that a speaker is Japanese. Since the entire recordings included different nationalities, this differentiation was indispensable.

2. The authors intended to ask the participants to read the beginning of the text in Japanese, although this was not fully completed.

3. J1M was removed from this study because he had asked a native speaker to check his prepared text for the FTs prior to the recording. Our 2018 study maintained him in the sample but took only the reading text part (i) into consideration.

4. We recorded four native speakers of American English on 29 November 2016. They were all students in Malaysia and in their 20s.

5. These two educated Malaysian speakers participated in the recordings in 2013 and 2016, respectively. The conditions for recording were the same as those explained in Section 1.2. The only difference is that the speakers spoke only in English.

6. We are referring to this fact on the grounds that reviewers pointed out that the occurrence of the special [s] is still too low to regard it as the feature of JE. The other side of this remark is that there was an expectation among the reviewers that [s] should occur in virtually all speakers, or, alternatively, that it should occur more frequently within individual speakers. This expectation can be matched to the high frequency of the devoicing of /z/ among JE speakers.

7. Some speakers inserted sounds such as [za] or [zə] into their speech. Although these sounds may be deemed variants of ‘the,’ they cannot always be so functionally and often behave like a filler. We have left them as ‘za’ or ‘ze’ in the examples.

8. This is a pseudonym.

9. The square brackets indicate alternative words that would be used by native speakers of English.

10. One should observe this fact with caution since not all the speakers made this voiced and voiceless contrast in light of plurality. For example, J27M produced ‘rains’ (‘… there are a lot of rains and thunders …’; FT2) but [s] was voiceless.

11. The information within the square brackets is the time in milliseconds.

12. This information indicates a pause in milliseconds.

13. Systematicity is not only syntagmatic but also paradigmatic. Even if there is one occurrence of the special [s] per speaker, it can be part of a system if it occurs among other speakers (see Matthews, 2014, p. 397).