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Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this presentation is to identify what type of speech used by native speakers is difficult for non-native speakers to understand, based on a listening comprehension survey of non-native speakers, from the perspectives of: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.

Paper long abstract:

In order for native speakers of Japanese to live together (symbiotically) with non-native speakers of Japanese using Japanese, native speakers need to speak in Japanese that is easy for non-native speakers to understand. In order for native speakers to speak in a way that is easy to understand, they must become conscious of what kind of speech is difficult to understand.

The purpose of this presentation is to identify what type of speech used by native speakers is difficult for non-native speakers to understand, based on a listening comprehension survey of non-native speakers. This was conducted with 50 non-native speakers studying Japanese in England, Germany, France, and Spain as collaborators. The survey method consisted in having the collaborators engage in a conversation with a native speaker, then watch a video recording of the dialogue, and subsequently speak in their own native language about what they understood the native speaker had said.

The result of the survey analysis shows that what can be difficult for many non-native speakers to understand can be summarized according to the following four perspectives: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.

Pronunciation: Not letting the pitch at the end of a question sentence rise very much, lowering the volume of the voice at the end of the sentence, etc.

Vocabulary: Use of less common Sino-Japanese words such as "sindoo" (vibration), homonym pairs such as "igai" (unexpected/except), etc.

Grammar: Use of the contracted form such as “sinakutya” (I’ve got to do), using a noun modifying clause such as “watasi ga koko de haitteru ookesutora no hitotati” (the people in the orchestra I am in here), etc.

Discourse: Referring to something that came up much earlier in the utterance with an indicative such as "sonna"(such), changing the subject in the middle of an utterance, etc.