韓国人学習者の語尾上げ現象の評価基準に 関する考察

Abstract

This paper describes the results of an examination how teachers of Japanese evaluate Korean Learners’ Uptalk level. Because intonation and accents are requisite to intelligible communication, it is necessary for Korean learners of Japanese to acquire natural intonation and accents.Research has thus far shown that Korean learners of Japanese tend to have Uptalks at the end of each word. However, research focused on these issues has thus far prioritized examination of the mechanisms or the elements of Uptalk, and little work toward providing acriteria of evaluation of Uptalk has been seen. In order to establish a better method for education about intonation, it is necessary for the teachers to be aware of the level of Uptalk, as intonation should be corrected within actual educational settings. This study was thus conducted in order to work toward providing a defining framework of levels of Uptalk for educators to apply/examine/reference for learner correction. An analysis on speech with many Uptalks was first conducted. In the analysis, the experiment explored relationships between increase ratios of pitch and the duration of Korean learner's Uptalks. Through the experiment, a correlation between the increase ratio of the pitch and the duration time was revealed. Specifically, the findings revealed that these two elements have mutual affect.The findings suggest that even minor UPTALK with small increases in pitckratio should be pointed out as problematic by the educators, if the UPTALK has enough duration time. Previous research has shown that the UPTALK might give a bad impression to native speakers of Japanese. The findings of this study suggest, that even minor UPTALKs should be pointed out and corrected by teachers and provides clearer definitions of learner UPTALK for teachers to reference in order to conduct such education properly.