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Mandible Movements in Japanese : A Comparative Study with Mandarin Speakers

Wang, Kexin ; Chen, Kaiqiao ; Sun, Jing ; Frid, Johan LU orcid ; Hayashi, Ryoko ; Erickson, Donna and Niebuhr, Oliver (2025) 188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America joint with 25th
International Congress on Acoustics p.77-77
Abstract
This study analyzed Japanese mandible movements using a recently developed technique, the MARRYS helmet [Gudmundsson et al., Interspeech (2024)]. Data were collected from 9 first language and 10 second language (Mandarin Chinese) speakers of Japanese. The speech materials included three sentences composed entirely of /a/ vowels, one neutral sentence and three focus sentences with emphasis on different target words. The results revealed that Japanese speakers showed greater variations in the jaw movements compared to Mandarin speakers. For native speakers, we observed that the right boundaries of phonological phrases and utterances were often accompanied by an increased mandible lowering, while the tendency was not noticeable for Mandarin... (More)
This study analyzed Japanese mandible movements using a recently developed technique, the MARRYS helmet [Gudmundsson et al., Interspeech (2024)]. Data were collected from 9 first language and 10 second language (Mandarin Chinese) speakers of Japanese. The speech materials included three sentences composed entirely of /a/ vowels, one neutral sentence and three focus sentences with emphasis on different target words. The results revealed that Japanese speakers showed greater variations in the jaw movements compared to Mandarin speakers. For native speakers, we observed that the right boundaries of phonological phrases and utterances were often accompanied by an increased mandible lowering, while the tendency was not noticeable for Mandarin speakers. On the other hand, at the right boundary of prosodic words, the mandible lowering was not pronounced for either Japanese speakers or Mandarin speakers. Moreover, the mora carrying the accent pitch nucleus was not often accompanied by the increased mandible lowering for both groups. For the focus sentences, native Japanese speakers showed more increased mandible lowering for emphasized words than Mandarin speakers. The findings indicate that there still remain challenges in acquiring articulatory and prosodic features for Japanese learners. (Less)
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author
; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
pages
1 pages
conference name
188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America joint with 25th<br/>International Congress on Acoustics
conference dates
2025-05-18
project
Språkbanken (Swedish Language Bank)
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d3e3ca17-020c-4f78-8180-a9140ef55149
alternative location
https://acousticalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Program-of-the-2025-New-Orleans-Meeting_revised.pdf#page=76
date added to LUP
2025-10-29 15:57:52
date last changed
2025-11-21 12:21:03
@misc{d3e3ca17-020c-4f78-8180-a9140ef55149,
  abstract     = {{This study analyzed Japanese mandible movements using a recently developed technique, the MARRYS helmet [Gudmundsson et al., Interspeech (2024)]. Data were collected from 9 first language and 10 second language (Mandarin Chinese) speakers of Japanese. The speech materials included three sentences composed entirely of /a/ vowels, one neutral sentence and three focus sentences with emphasis on different target words. The results revealed that Japanese speakers showed greater variations in the jaw movements compared to Mandarin speakers. For native speakers, we observed that the right boundaries of phonological phrases and utterances were often accompanied by an increased mandible lowering, while the tendency was not noticeable for Mandarin speakers. On the other hand, at the right boundary of prosodic words, the mandible lowering was not pronounced for either Japanese speakers or Mandarin speakers. Moreover, the mora carrying the accent pitch nucleus was not often accompanied by the increased mandible lowering for both groups. For the focus sentences, native Japanese speakers showed more increased mandible lowering for emphasized words than Mandarin speakers. The findings indicate that there still remain challenges in acquiring articulatory and prosodic features for Japanese learners.}},
  author       = {{Wang, Kexin and Chen, Kaiqiao and Sun, Jing and Frid, Johan and Hayashi, Ryoko and Erickson, Donna and Niebuhr, Oliver}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{77--77}},
  title        = {{Mandible Movements in Japanese : A Comparative Study with Mandarin Speakers}},
  url          = {{https://acousticalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Program-of-the-2025-New-Orleans-Meeting_revised.pdf#page=76}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}