出版物 ｜Sophia Linguistica
Tomohiko Ooigawa
Perception of American English Utterance-Final “can” and
“can’t” by Japanese Listeners
The present study examines Japanese listeners’ discrimination and identification of utterance-
final “can” and “can’t” (without audible [t] release) in American English. The study
aims to examine whether the Perceptual Assimilation Model (e.g., Best 1995, Best and
Tyler 2007) accounts for the perception of the contrast. The results of the discrimination
test showed that the listeners discriminated the contrast poorly. The results of the identification
test showed that the majority of the “can” and “can’t” stimuli were assimilated to
the same category (i.e., /kjaN/). The data obtained in the two experiments were consistent
with the predictions of the model. In addition, the present research points out sharply a
potential problem for Japanese EFL learners and suggests a way of teaching to overcome
the mis-perception of utterance-final “can” and “can’t” in American English.
