1

Ota, Mitsuhiko and Isao Ueda (2006). Japanese speech acquisition. In Sharynne McLeod

(Ed.), The international guide to speech acquisition (pp. 457-471). Clifton Park, NY:

Thomson Delmar Learning.

Pre-print version

2

Overview

Japanese is the national language of Japan, where it is spoken by virtually all the native

population of 120 million people. There are also some sizeable immigrant groups outside Japan,

particularly in Hawai’i and Brazil, who speak Japanese as their heritage language. The genetic

affiliation of the language remains unresolved despite countless attempts at establishing its

membership in a range of language families including Altaic, Malayo-Polynesian, Tibeto-

Burman, and Dravidian. Other languages spoken in Japan include Korean (with estimated

670,000 speakers in 1988) and Ainu, although the latter, an indigenous language to Japan, is

classified as ‘nearly extinct’ by Ethnologue. Unless noted otherwise, the general descriptions

below are of standard Japanese, a somewhat idealized form of the western Tokyo dialect. See

Appendix A for resources pertaining to Japanese.

/H1/Countries/states where Japanese is spoken

Japan (see Figure 1).

[Fig. 1 here]

Figure 1. Geographical area where Japanese is spoken.

Spatial data is courtesy of Environment Science Research Institute, 2004

Components of Japanese

Consonants

Japanese has 15 phonemic consonants. These are given in Table 1 along with some important

allophones (shown in brackets). All non-labial consonants are palatalized before /i/ (e.g., /si/ [i]

‘four,’ /ni/ [i] ‘two,’ /hi/ [i] ‘fire’) The alveolar plosive /t/ affricates, as well as palatalizes,

before /i/ and /u/ (e.g., /ti/ [ci] ‘blood,’ /tuma/ [tsma] ‘wife’). A consonant preceding /j/ also

3

palatalizes and, if coronal, absorbs the glide (e.g., /hjaku/ [jak] ‘hundred,’ /sja/ [a]

‘company,’ /tja/ [ca] ‘tea,’ /zjo/ [o] ‘sympathy’). Syllable final nasal typically realizes as a

nasal stop with a weak uvular contact in word-final position (e.g., /ho/ [ho] ‘book’), as a

nasalized vowel before another vowel or an approximant (e.g. /kie/ [ki e] ‘non-smoking’),

and as a homorganic nasal stop before other consonants (e.g., /tobo/ [tombo] ‘dragonfly,’

/maga/ [maga] ‘comics’). Before /u/, /h/ occurs as a bilabial fricative (e.g., /huju/ [j]

‘winter’). Intervocalically, /g/ is nasalized (e.g., /taga/ [taa] ‘hoop’).

Table 1. Consonants produced in language/dialect

Bilabial Labio-dental

Dental Alveolar Post

alveolar

Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

Plosive Nasal () () Trill Tap or flap Fricative () ()() () Lateral

fricative

Affricate () ()() Approximant Lateral

approximant

Consonants

(non-

pulmonic)

Black = articulations judged impossible

Based on the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Acknowledgement is made to the International Phonetic Association (c/o Department of Linguistics, University of Victoria, Victoria, British

Columbia, Canada).

Vowels and diphthongs

Japanese has five short vowels, /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, and /o/, and five long vowels /aa/, /ii/, /uu/, /ee/,

and /oo/. The short-long distinction is primarily that of duration, with little difference in the

quality. The high-back vowel /u/ is unrounded: []. Any sequence of non-identical vowels is

permitted, but it is not clear whether such a sequence constitutes a diphthong, except possibly /au/

and /ai/ in some contexts (Vance, 1987). The high vowels, /i/ and /u/, are usually devoiced when

4

it is unaccented and not contiguous to a voiced sound (e.g., /kutu/ [kts] ‘shoe,’ /hasi/ [ha ]

‘chopstick’).

Table 2. Vowels produced in Japanese

IPA Examples

High-front, short ‘death’ High-front, long ‘chinquapin’Mid-front, short e ‘compete’Mid-front, long ‘sale’High-back, short ‘black’High-back, long ‘airway’ Mid-back, short ‘degree’Mid-back, long ‘sidewalk’Low-back, short ‘corner’Low back, long ‘card’

Phonotactic restrictions

Syllables

The syllable structure of Japanese can be described in the formula: (C)(j)VV(C). Canonical

syllables can be classified into light syllables, which contain only a short vowel in the rhyme

(e.g., /ko/ [ko] ‘child’), and heavy syllables, which contain either a long vowel (e.g., /koo/ [ko]

‘clause’) or a combination of a short vowel and a coda (e.g., /ko/ [ko] ‘navy blue’).

‘Superheavy’ syllables that contain more rhyme elements, such as a long vowel and a coda, are

marked and only found in loanwords (e.g., /koo/ [ko] ‘cone’).

Consonants and consonant clusters

Only two types of consonant can occur in the coda position: A nasal (e.g., /ho/ [ho] ‘book,’

/re.ga/ [ega] ‘brick’) and the first half of a geminate, which can be a plosive or a fricative

(e.g., /rap.pa/ [apa] ‘horn,’ /sak.ka/ [saka] ‘writer,’ /nis.si/ [nii] ‘journal’). The only cluster

allowed is a two-consonant onset cluster with /j/ in the second position. Any non-approximant

5

can occur in the first position of this cluster (e.g., /kjoo/ [kjo] ‘today,’ /mjoo/ [mjo] ‘strange,’

/rjoo/ [jo] ‘quantity’).

Tones

Japanese is often cited as a textbook example of a lexical pitch-accent language. All words are

either accented or unaccented, and accented words have one accented syllable. The accent

consists of a sequence of high and low pitch levels. In an accented syllable that contains a long

vowel or a nasal coda, the syllable itself has a high-low pitch contour. In other cases, the accented

syllable only carries the high portion of the contour, and the following syllable is low-pitched.

Stress and intonation

Japanese has no lexical stress. Intonation patterns are affected by pitch movements that indicate

utterance-level semantics, lexical accent and phrasal boundaries. A declarative utterance ends in a

low pitch and an interrogative utterance in a high pitch. Each utterance consists of one or more

accentual phrases, whose beginning is marked by a low pitch except when the first syllable of the

phrase is lexically accented. The phrase /akái/ (‘it’s red’), for example, has a rise-fall pitch

contour due to the low pitch that marks the initial syllable and the high-low pitch sequence on the

accented second syllable.

Writing system

Three orthographic systems are used in written Japanese. The first, kanji, is a set of ideographic

characters borrowed from Chinese. A set of 1,945 characters, designated by the Japanese

Ministry of Education as [ ] (‘daily-use kanji’), are taught in primary and secondary

school, but most educated people know a few thousand more characters. Each character

represents a semantic concept and also has one or more readings. For example, 犬 means ‘dog’

and reads /inu/ or /ke/. Kanji characters are usually used to write the roots of nouns, verbs,

6

adjectives and adverbs. The other two writing systems, hiragana and katakana, each with 46

symbols, represent sound units that are best described as moraic. Each symbol stands for either

the (C)V portion or the remainder of the syllable (i.e., the second half of the long vowel, the first

half of the geminate or the nasal coda). Thus, in hiragana, /toru/ ‘to take’ is written as とる (to-ru),

/tooru/ ‘to pass’ as とおる (to-o-ru), /totta/ ‘took’ as とった (to-[geminate]-ta), and /tonda/ ‘flew’

as とんだ (to-n-da). Hiragana is mainly used to write inflections and various bound morphemes,

while katakana is used to transcribe foreign loanwords. A Japanese sentence can be seen with all

three characters mixed, as in the following example, where the noun /tomodati/ ‘friend’ and the

stem of the verb /mi/ ‘to watch’ are written in kanji, the loanword /terebi/ ‘TV’ in katakana, and

the postposition /to/, the accusative marker /o/ and past-tense marker /ta/ in hiragana.

友達と テレビを 見た。

/tomodati to terebi o mita/

friend with TV ACC watch-PAST ‘(I) watched TV with a friend’

Varieties of Japanese

Dialectal variation in Japanese phonology is quite vast. Three important divisions exist between

the mainland and Ryukyuan (Okinawan) dialects, between the Western and Eastern dialects, and

between the central (around the ancient capital of Kyoto) and peripheral dialects (Shibatani,

1990). Two major characteristics of Ryukyuan are the varied vowel inventories, which range

from a three-vowel system (Yonaguni) to seven (Hateruma), and the presence of the glottalized

consonants. The ‘Western’ dialect of Kyoto differs from the ‘Eastern’ dialect of Tokyo in several

aspects, including a) the rounding of the high-back vowel /u/; b) the lack of high vowel

devoicing; and c) the presence of two default phrasal pitch levels (high and low) in addition to the

lexical accent, which gives a more complex pitch pattern. In Tohoku, a typical ‘peripheral’

7

dialect: a) /s/ palatalizes not only before /i/ but also before /e/; b) high vowels are centralized and

c) voiced non-nasal stops are pre-nasalized.

Typical acquisition of Japanese

Appendix B contains a summary of studies of the acquisition of Japanese.

Acquired sounds

Consonants

Table 3 contains age of acquisition data for Japanese from Takagi and Yasuda (1967), Noda,

Iwamura, Naito and Asukai (1969), Nakanishi, Owada and Fujita (1972), Sakauchi (1967) and

Nakanishi (1982). The age range indicates the cross-sectional group that achieved 90% correct

production of each consonant in syllable initial position, except for Nakanishi (1982) where the

range and mean age of first appearance and complete acquisition are shown based on longitudinal

data. Most consonants are acquired by 4;0, but [], [s], [ts], [z], and [] are typically mastered

later. There is also a noticeable degree of individual variability in the timing of acquisition.

8

Table 3. Age of acquisition for Japanese consonants

Consonant Takagi &

Yasuda (1967)

Noda et al.

(1969)

Nakanishi et

al. (1972)

Sakauchi

(1967)

Nakanishi (1982)

First appearance

(mean)

Complete

acquisition

3;0-3;5 3;0-3;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;0-1;8 (1;3) 1;10-2;9 (2;2) 3;0-3;5 3;0-3;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;1-2;0 (1;5) 1;4-4;0 (2;5) 3;0-3;5 3;0-3;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;1-1;10 (1;5) 1;10-2;9 (2;3) 3;0-3;5 3;0-3;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;2-1;10 (1;6) 1;8-2;9 (2;5) 3;0-3;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;2-1;9 (1;5) 1;8-2;6 (2;1) 5;0-5;5 3;0-3;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;0-1;6 (1;3) 1;3-2;9 (2;3) 3;0-3;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;3-2;3 (1;9) 1;7-2;9 (2;3) 3;0-3;5 4;6-4;11 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;2-1;9 (1;5) 1;11-3;0 (2;5) 3;0-3;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 3;4-3;8 1;2-2;3 (1;8) 1;11-4;0 (2;8+) 4;0-4;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;1-1;10 (1;5) 1;10-2;6 (2;2) 3;0-3;5 4;6-4;11 4;0-4;5 3;4-3;8 1;1-1;9 (1;5) 1;6-4;0 (2;7) 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 1;2-1;8 (1;6) 2;6-4;0 (3;1) 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 2;10-3;3 n/a n/a 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 3;4-3;8 1;1-1;9 (1;4) 1;10-2;3 (2;0) 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 4;0-4;5 after 4;8 n/a n/a after 6;6 5;6-5;11 4;6-4;11 4;4-4;8 1;1-2;3 (1;8) 2;9-4;0 (3;4+) 5;6-5;11 5;6-5;11 5;6-5;11 after 4;8 1;7-3;0 (2;6) 3;0-4;0 (3;6+) after 6;6 5;0-5;5 5;0-5;5 after 4;8 1;5-2;9 (2;3) 3;0-4;0 (4;0+) after 6;6 5;6-5;11 5;0-5;5 after 4;8 1;6-3;0 (2;8) 3;0-4;0 (3;8+) after 6;6 4;0-4;5 5;6-5;11 after 4;8 1;3-2;3 (1;8) 2;0-4;0 (3;3+)

Consonant clusters

Cross-sectional studies by Umebayashi and Takagi (1965), Yasuda (1966) and Sakauchi (1967)

show that [Cj] clusters with an initial labial consonant (/mj/, /pj/, /bj/) reach the criterion of 75%

correct production by 3;0. Velar and palatal clusters (/kj/, /gj/, /hj/) reach the criterion slightly

later (around 3;0-3;6). The /rj/ cluster is the last to be acquired (around 4;0-4;5).

Vowels and diphthongs

All five simple vowels emerge fairly early, although the two high vowels, particularly [i],

stabilize slightly later than the others (K. Ito, 1990). In a study by Nakajima at al. (1962), 75% of

the subjects produced [o] correctly at 1;9-1;11, [a] at 2;3-2;5, [e] and [] at 2;6-2;8, and [i] at

2;9-2;11. A longitudinal study by Nakanishi (1982) concludes that most children achieve

9

complete accuracy of simple vowels between 1;10 and 2;3. However, monophthongization of

vowel sequences involving /i/ (e.g., [mienai] → [menai], [oide] → [ode]) has been reported in

some 2-year-olds (K. Ito, 1990; Ota, 2003a).

Percent correct

Most studies collecting percent correct norms in Japanese have used the syllable as a unit of

analysis, e.g., [pa], [ts]. Table 4 presents the percentage of such syllables produced correctly,

reported by Sumio (1978), who used a repetition task both with isolated syllables and words.

Table 4. Percentage of children with correct production of Japanese syllables (Sumio, 1978)

Age Syllable in isolation Syllable in words

4;0-4;5 95.6% 91.7%

4;6-4;11 97.0% 93.8%

5;0-5;5 98.5% 95.8%

5;6-5;11 98.5% 97.9%

6;0-6;5 98.5% 97.9%

6;6-6;11 100.0% 97.9%

Phonological processes

Common segmental processes include stopping of fricatives ([sakana] → [takana], [cakana]

‘fish’), palatalization ([sagi] → [agi] ‘rabbit’), stopping of word-initial /r/ and rhoticization

of word-medial /d/ ([apa] → [dapa] ‘trumpet’; [kodomo] → [koomo] ‘children’), and deletion

of /h/ and /r/ ([hana] → [ana] ‘flower’; [koe] → [koe] ‘this’) (Funayama, 1998; K. Ito, 1990;

Okubo, 1977; Owada, Nakanishi & Oshige, 1969; Ueda, 1996a; Ueda & Davis, 1999, 2001).

Also frequently reported are fronting of velars ([eki] → [eci] ‘station’; Okubo, 1977; Ueda,

1996b) and backing of alveolars and palatals ([toa] → [koa] ‘tiger’; Owada & Nakanishi, 1971;

Beckman, Yoneyama, & Edwards, 2003). Particularly before 4;0, we also see long-distance

segmental processes, such as metathesis (e.g., [teebi] → [tebei] ‘TV’) and consonant harmony

10

([happa] → [pappa] ‘leaf’). Cross-sectional and longitudinal examination by Owada et al. (1969)

shows that the majority of these segmental processes decline rapidly between three and five.

Omission of syllables from long words, in particular those with more than two syllables, is

common until 2;6: [hadaka] → [haka] ‘naked’; [banana] → [bana] ‘banana’ (Okubo, 1977; Ota,

2003a).

Intelligibility

Although there are several assessment schema for intelligibility (e.g., Furuya, 1958; Taguchi,

1967), no norm data are available to this date.

Phonetic inventory

Based on previous research, Sakauchi (1967) presents the inventory of consonants and consonant

clusters as in Table 5.

Table 5. Phonetic inventory (consonants and clusters)

Complete by 3;0 t, , , d Mostly acquired by 3;0 b, p, t, d, k, g, m, n, , , , j, w, c, , mj, bj, pj 3;5 b, p, t, d, k, g, m, n, , , , j, w, c, , mj, bj, pj, kj, gj, j 3;11 b, p, t, d, k, g, m, n, , , , , , h, j, w, c, , mj, bj, pj, kj, gj, j 4;6 b, p, t, d, k, g, m, n, , , , , s, z, , , h, j, w, ts, c, , mj, bj, pj, kj, gj, j After 4;6 b, p, t, d, k, g, , m, n, , , , , s, z, , , h, j, w, ts, c, , mj, bj, pj, kj, gj, j

Common mismatches

The most common mismatches involve palatalization of [ts], [s], and [z]. Table 6 summarizes

mismatches observed in Owada et al. (1969). The unit of comparison was CV.

11

Table 6. Common mismatches (Owada et al. 1969)

3;0

(n=47)

3;6

(n=67)

4;0

(n=54)

4;6

(n=35)

5;0

(n=15)

Total

ts→c 39 46 35 13 6 139 z→ 36 42 38 15 6 137 sa→ 25 28 23 9 4 89 wa→ja 6 24 26 19 12 87

s→ 25 25 23 5 6 84 zo→o 20 26 26 7 4 83 ne→de 16 29 15 9 6 75

do→o 17 25 13 9 6 70 zo→do 18 19 15 7 6 65

i→i 10 19 18 9 7 63 na→a 16 22 15 4 3 62 sa→c 16 17 15 3 2 53 All mismatches 502 644 498 210 127 1,981

Syllable structure

Before 2;0, coda nasals in (C)VN.CV contexts are often omitted with concomitant lengthening of

the vowel: [panda] → [pada] ‘panda’ (Ota, 2003a). Geminates appear before 2;0 but the actual

duration of closure time in comparison to singletons (e.g., the duration of [k] vs. [k] in /sakka/ vs.

/saka/, [n] vs. [n] in /hanna/ vs. /hana/) is shorter and does not fully converge on the adult values

even at age 5 (Aoyama 2001).

Prosody

Most children acquiring Tokyo Japanese produce the falling pitch accent contour in correct

positions before 1;6 (Hallé, Boysson-Bardies, & Vihman, 1991; Ota, 2003b). The phrase-initial

low-pitch may be lacking in some children before 2;0 (Ota, 2003b), but by 3;0, the overall pitch

pattern of simple words is in place (Shirose, Kakehi & Kiritani, 2001). However, the timing of

pitch accent acquisition varies across dialects. In Kagoshima Japanese, for example, 4-year-olds

12

tend to overgeneralize penultimate accent to final accent words (Shirose, Kakehi, & Kiritani,

2002).

Phonological awareness

The prominence of the mora as a metaphonological unit in Japanese and its link to the mora-

based kana writing systems (hiragana and katakana) have been explored extensively. Although

there is some limited awareness of moraic units in preliterate 3-year-olds (Ito & Tatsumi, 1997;

Ito & Kagawa, 2000), it is subsequent to the learning of kana writing (for most, between 4-6) that

children become able to fully perform counting and deleting of moras (Inagaki, Hatano, & Otake,

2000). Japanese first graders, on the other hand, are generally unaware of phonemes, although

fourth graders are able to perform some phoneme manipulation tasks (Goetry, Urbain, Morais,

Kolinsky, 2005; Mann, 1986; Spagnoletti, Morais, Alegria, Dominicy, 1989).

Speech assessment for Japanese children

A variety of articulation tests have been developed for speech assessment in Japanese. The most

widely used test for identification of articulation problems is Shinteiban Kotoba no Tesuto Ehon

[Word test picture book: New edition] (Taguchi & Ogawaguchi, 1992). Kōon Hattatsu Yosoku

Kensa [Articulation development prognosis test] (Nagasawa et al., 1985) is a representative tool

used for predicting whether specific problems may persist in individual cases. The most popular

diagnostic tool is Kōon Kensahō [Articulation test method] developed collectively by the Japan

Association of Speech-Language-Hearing Therapists and the Japan Society of Logopedics and

Phoniatrics (see Abe et al., 1981; Funayama, et al.,1989 for documentation). Most articulation

tests employ repetition, reading or naming to collect speech samples of segments, syllables,

words and sentences. In addition, hearing tests, discrimination tests and examination of speech

organs are administered during assessment.

13

Speech intervention for Japanese children

There are currently approximately 10,000 nationally-qualified SLPs in Japan. Satake, Uchiyama,

Otomo, Takaizumi and Higashikawa (2005) surveyed 133 institutions across Japan engaged in

treatment of children with speech impairment. The setting in which the surveyed SLPs worked

included: hospitals (10.7%), medical centers (9.0%), schools for mentally disabled children

(8.2%), day-care centers for disabled children (7.8%), institutions of physically handicapped

children (7.4%), schools for physically handicapped children (7.4%), institutions for the severely

mentally and physically handicapped (7.0%) and a variety of other welfare facilities. On average,

2.9 full-time and 0.8 part-time SLPs worked for each institution. Nearly half the SLPs (44.8%)

had more than 11 years of clinical experience, another 18.3% had six to ten years and the

remainder (37.0%) less than five years.

The mainstay of the speech intervention techniques used for Japanese is Van Riper & Erickson’s

(1996) traditional articulation therapy, in some cases used in combination with minimal pairs

therapy (Weiner, 1981). Other proposed techniques are more reliant on medical insights and tend

to lack linguistic considerations (Ueda, 1995), but some models incorporating recent

advancements in linguistic theory can be found in Imamura & Sakamoto (2002) and Ueda (2004).

Additional information

Working in Country

Practicing SLPs in Japan must pass a national qualification examination. Before taking the test,

candidates must also have completed training in a 3-to-4-year speech pathologist program or, for

those who hold a bachelor’s degree, a 2-year program in one of the 52 institutes recognized by

the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Those who hold qualifications in other countries can

take the national examination with the Ministry’s approval, but the examination is given only in

14

Japanese.

References

Abe, M. et al. (1981). Kōonkensahō. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 22, 209-217.

Aoyama, K. (2001). A psycholinguistic perspective on Finnish and Japanese prosody

Perception, production and child acquisition of consonantal quantity distinctions.

Boston: Kluwer.

Beckman, M. E., Yoneyama, K., & Edwards, J. (2003). Language-specific and language-

universal aspects of lingual obstruent productions in Japanese-acquiring children.

Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan, 7, 18-28.

Funayama, M., Abe, M., Kato, M., Saito, S., Takeshita, K., Nishimura, B., Yamashita, S., &

Yamashita, Y. (1989). Kōonkensahō tsuikahōkoku. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 30, 285-292.

Funayama, M. (1998). Kodomo no kōonshōgai. In K. Oishi (Ed.), Kodomo no komyunikēshon

shōgai (pp. 99-125) Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.

Furuya, N. (1958). Gengoshōgai no goonmeiryōdo kensa (gomeido) ni kansuru kenkyū. Nichijibi,

61, 1923-1948.

Goetry, V., Urbain, S., Morais, J., & Kolinksy, R. (2005). Paths to phonemic awareness in

Japanese: Evidence from a training study. Applied Psycholinguistics, 26, 285-309.

Hallé, Pierre A., Boysson-Bardies, Bénédicte de, and Vihman, Marylin M. (1991). Beginnings of

prosodic organization: Intonation and duration patterns of disyllables produced by

Japanese and French infants. Language and Speech, 34, 299-318.

Inagaki, K., Hatano, G., & Otake, T. (2000). The effect of kana literacy acquisition on the speech

segmentation unit used by Japanese young children. Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology, 75, 70-91.

15

Ito, K. (1990). Kodomo no kotoba. Tokyo: Keiso Shobo.

Ito, T., & Tatsumi, I. (1997). Tokushuhaku ni taisuru metagengo chishiki no hattatsu. Onsei

Gengo Igaku, 38, 196-203.

Ito, T., & Kagawa, A. (2001). Moji kakutoku mae no yōji ni okeru onritsu tan’i no hattatsu. Onsei

Gengo Igaku, 42, 235-241.

Mann, V. A. (1986). Phonological awareness: The role of reading experience. Cognition, 24, 65-

92.

Nagasawa, Y., et al. (1985). Kōonhattatsu yosoku kensa. Tokyo: Kokuritsu Tokushu Kyōiku

Sōgōkenkyūjo.

Nakajima, S., Okamoto, N., Murai, J., Tanaka, M., Okuno, S., & Maeda, T. (1962). Onsei no

kigōka narabini taiseika katei ni kansuru kenkyū (1). Sinrigaku Hyōron, 6, 1-48.

Nakanishi, Y. (1982). Kōon hattatsu. In R. Uchisugawa & Y. Yasuko (Eds.), Kōza gengo shōgai

chiryō kyōiku 4: Kōonshōgai (pp. 37-64). Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan.

Nakanishi, Y., & Owada, K. (1967). Yōji no kōonshōgai no hattatsu. Tokyo Gakugei University

Bulletin of the Research Institute for the Education of Exceptional Children, 1, 1-52.

Noda, M, Iwamura, Y., Naito, K., & Asukai, K. (1969). Yōji no kōonnōryoku no hattatsu ni

kansuru kenkyū. Nihon Sōgō Aiiku Kenkyūsho Kiyō, 4, 153-170.

Okubo, A. (1977). Yōji no kotoba to otona. Tokyo: Sanseido.

Ota, M. (2003a). The development of prosodic structure in early words. Amsterdam: John

Benjamins.

Ota, M. (2003b). The development of lexical pitch accent systems: An autosegmental analysis.

Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 48, 357-383.

Owada, K., & Nakanishi, Y. (1971). Yōji no kotoba no hattatsu (6) – Kōon no kōjōsei to

kanseijun’i. Jikō, 43, 183-192.

16

Owada, K., Nakanishi, Y., & Oshige, K. (1969). Hoikuenji no kōon no henka nit suite. Jikō, 41,

227-231.

Sakauchi, T. (1967). Kodomo no kōon nōryoku ni tsuite. Gengo Shōgai Kenkyū, 68, 13-26.

Satake, T., Iizuka, N., Uchiyama, C., Otomo, T., Takaizumi, Y., Higashikawa, T. (2005). Gengo

hattatsu shōgai gengo hattatsu chitaiji no genjō to kadai. Japanase Journal of Speech,

Langauge, and Hearing Research, 2, 105-113.

Shirose, A., Kakehi, K., & Kiritani, S. (2001). Interference of accent system variation with the

acquisition of compound accent rule: A cross-dialectal study. Journal of Cognitive

Science, 2, 33-44.

Shirose, A., Kakehi, K., & Kiritani, S. (2002) Kagoshima hoogen yooji no tango akusento

kakutoku ni kansuru yobiteki kentoo, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the

Acoustic Society of Japan.

Spagnoletti, C., Morais, J., Alegria, J., & Dominicy, M. (1989). Metaphonological abilities of

Japanese children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 221-244.

Sumio, K. (1978). Yōjikyōiku sensho. Ryōikihen: Gengo. Tokyo: Kawashima Shoten.

Taguchi, T. (1967). Gengoshōgai chiryōgaku. Tokyo: Igaku Shoin.

Taguchi, T., & Ogawaguchi, H. (1992). Shinteiban kotoba no tesuto ehon – Gengo shōgaiji no

senbetsu kensahō. Tokyo: Nihon Bunkakagakusha.

Takagi, S., & Yasuda, a. (1967). Seijōyōji no kōonnōryoku. Shōni Hoken Igaku, 25, 23-28.

Ueda, I., (1995). A consideration of various theoretical and clinical problems pertaining to

“Natural Process Analysis”. The Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, 36, 331-

337.

Ueda, I. (1996a). Segmental acquisition and feature specification in Japanese. In B. Bernhardt, J.

Gilbert & D. Ingram (Eds.), Proceedings of the UBC International Conference on

17

Phonological Acquisition (pp. 15-27). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Ueda, I. (1996b). On the phonology of Japanese “kappacism”. In T. W. Powell (Ed.), Pathologies

of speech and language: Contributions of clinical phonetics and linguistics (pp. 179-

186). New Orleans, LA: ICPLA.

Ueda, I. (2005). A linguistic characterization of ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ in functionally disordered

phonologies. Gengo Kenkyu: Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan, 106, 74-94.

Ueda, I., & Davis, S. (1999). Constraint-based analysis of Japanese rhotacism. In B. Maassen &

P. Groenen (Eds.), Pathologies of speech and language: Advances in clinical and

linguistics (pp. 34-40). London: Whurr Publishers.

Ueda, I., & Davis, S. (2001). Promotion and demotion of phonological constraints in the

acquisition of the Japanese liquid. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 15, 29-33.

Umebayashi, S., & Takagi, T. (1965). Gakurei mae no kodomo no kōonnōryoku ni kansuru

ichikenkyū. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 6, 17-18.

Van Riper, C., & Erickson, R. L. (1996). Speech correction: An introduction to speech pathology

and audiology. (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Weiner, F. (1981). Treatment of phonological disabilty using the method of meaningful minimal

contast: Two case studies. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46, 97-103.

Yasuda, A. (1966). Sansaiji ni okeru kōonnōryoku. Onsei Gengo Igaku, 7, 32-33.

18

Appendix A. Resources about Japanese

Books

Ito, M., & Sasanuma, S. (2002). Shinpen gengo ryōhō manyuaru [Manual for Speech-Language

Therapy – new edition]. Tokyo: Ishiyaku Publishing.

Kotera, T. (1992). Gengo chōkaku ryōhō rinshō manyaru [Clinical manual for speech and

hearing therapy]. Tokyo: Kyodo Isho Shuppan.

Shibatani, M. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vance, T. J. (1987). An introduction to Japanese phonology. Albany, NY: State University of

New York Press.

Recording

Japan Society of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (1989). Kōgairetsu no kōon shōgai sampuru tēpu

[Tape recorded speech samples of cleft palate patients]. Medical Research Center.

Journals

Gengo Chōkaku Kenkyū [Japanese Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research].

Onsei Gengo Igaku [The Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics]

Professional association

The professional associations of speech-language pathologists and related groups within Japan

are:

The Association of Japanese Clinical Psychology (http://www.u-netsurf.ne.jp/pajcp/)

Gengo Hattatsu Shōgai Kenkyūkai [authors’ translation: Speech development disorder research

group] (http://www.lipss.gr.jp/)

Japan Audiology Society (http://www.audiology-japan.jp/)

Japan Society of Developmental Psychology (http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jsdp/)

Japanese Association of Communication Disorder (http://www.chabashira.co.jp/~communi/)

http://www.u-netsurf.ne.jp/pajcp/http://www.lipss.gr.jp/http://www.audiology-japan.jp/http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jsdp/http://www.chabashira.co.jp/~communi/

19

Japanese Association of Special Education (http://www1.accsnet.ne.jp/~tokkyou)

Japanese Cleft Palate Association (http://square.umin.ac.jp/JCLP/jclp.html)

Neuropsychology Association of Japan (http://www.neuropsychology.gr.jp/)

Institutions offering courses in speech-language pathology

Aso Rehabilitation College (Fukuoka, Fukuoka)

Health Sciences University of Hokkaido (Ishikari, Hokkaido)

International University of Health and Welfare (Otawara, Tochigi)

Kitasato University (Sagamihara, Kanagawa)

National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities (Tokorozawa, Saitama)

Osaka College of Rehabilitation (Osaka, Osaka)

Tokai College of Health Related Professions (Nagoya, Aichi)

Prefectural University of Hiroshima (Hiroshima, Hiroshima)

http://www1.accsnet.ne.jp/~tokkyouhttp://square.umin.ac.jp/JCLP/jclp.htmlhttp://www.neuropsychology.gr.jp/

20

Appendix B. Summary of studies of typical Japanese speech acquisition

Authors Year Country No. of

children

Age of

children

Information Sample type Data collection

Aoyama 2001 Japan 22 3- to 5-

year-

olds

/n/ vs /nn/

contrast

Single word

production

& perception

Cross-sectional

Goetry, Urbain,

Morais, & Kolinsky

2005 Japan and

elsewhere

115 5;2-

8;11

Phonemic

awareness

Phoneme

manipulation

Cross-sectional

Ito & Kagawa 2001 Japan 80 3- to 6-

year-

olds

Segmentation

and moras

Single word

(SW)

Cross-sectional

Ito & Tatsumi 1997 Japan 80 3- to 6-

year-

olds

Metalinguistic

awareness of

moras

SW Cross-sectional

Kawakami & Ito 1999 Japan 173 1- to 6-

year-

olds

Segmentation

and moras

SW Cross-sectional

Nakajima, Okamoto,

Murai, Tanaka, Okuno,

& Maeda

1962 Japan 550 1;0-

2;11

Variety SW Cross-sectional

Nakanishi & Owada 1967 Japan 20 1;0-1;8 Variety Connected

Speech (CS)

Longitudinal

Noda, Iwamura, Naito

& Asukai

1969 Japan 446 2;0-6;6 Age of

acquisition

SW Cross-sectional

Ota 2003 USA 3 1;0-2;6 Prosodic

acquisition

CS Longitudinal

Owada & Nakanishi 1971 Japan 10 1;0-4;0 Age of

acquisition of

consonants

CS Longitudinal

Owada, Nakanishi, &

Oshige

1969 Japan 511 3;0-6;0 Processes and

mismatches

SW Cross-sectional

and

longitudinal

Sakauchi 1967 Japan 134 2;10-

4;8

Age of

acquisition of

consonants

SW Cross-sectional

Shirose, Kakehi, &

Kiritani

2001 Japan 191 3- to 5-

year-

olds

Word accent Compounds Cross-sectional

and cross-

dialectal

Shirose, Kakehi, &

Kiritani

2002 Japan 8

children

12

parents

4-year-

olds

Word accent SW Child-parent

comparison

Spagnoletti, Morais,

Alegria & Dominicy

1989 Belgium 23 Means:

6;5, 6;8

and 7;0

Phonological

awareness

Phoneme

manipulation

Cross-sectional

Sumio 1978 Japan 1600 4;0-

6;11

Variety Isolated

syllables &

CS

Cross-sectional

Umebayashi & Takagi

(also Takagi & Yasuda

1967)

1965 Japan 133 3;6-6;0 Age of

acquisition of

consonants

SW Cross-sectional

Yasuda 1966 Japan 100 3;0-4;0 Age of

acquisition of

consonants

SW Cross-sectional

21

Appendix C. Useful words/phrases and pronunciation

Pronunciation of language’s name in phonetic font: [ihogo]

Pronunciation of chapter author(s)’ name(s) in phonetic font: [ota mitsko]; [eda isao]

Relevant words for speech assessment and intervention

Word/Phrase Formal usage Pronunciation Informal usage Pronunciation

Tongue 舌 舌 Teeth 歯 歯 Lips 唇 唇 Hard palate 硬口蓋 Soft palate 軟口蓋 Larynx 喉頭 t Lungs 肺 肺 Nose 鼻 鼻 Sound 音 音 Word 語 言葉 Sentence 文 文 Paragraph 段落 段落