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This paper investigated the rhythmic features of speakers of English as a lingua franca in Asian contexts. A speech corpus of 150 conversations between speakers of English in Asia with different L1 backgrounds was collected and %V, , VarcoV, and nPVI-V of each speaker were analyzed. It was found that L1 difference of the speakers and the speakers` daily use of English influenced %V, while the speakers` daily use of English influenced . The gender difference of the speakers also affected the rhythm of the utterances in VarcoV. A weak correlation between the two speakers` rhythm in each conversation was also found in %V and . No significant effects were found in nPVI-V. The results revealed that the speakers tended to accommodate the rhythm of their utterance to that of the interlocutors`. Further study on the speaking rate of the speakers is required to overcome some inconsistencies found in the results of the rhythmic metrics used in this study.

This study investigated the rhythmic accommodation of Korean English learners` interlanguage talk. Twelve Korean speakers, 6 native English speakers and 6 non-native English speakers in London participated in multiple conversations on different topics which produced 36 conversational data in interlanguage talk (ILT) settings. 190 utterances from the 36 conversational data were analyzed to investigate the rhythmic patterns of Korean English learners when they communicated with English speakers with different language backgrounds. Save for the final-syllable, the normalized duration of consecutive syllables was compared in order to derive a variability index (VI). It was found that there was no significant variability in the measurement of the syllable-to-syllable duration for the utterances of Korean English learners, regardless of their interlocutor`s language background. Conversely, it was found that there was evidence that Korean English learners showed rhythmic accommodation in ILT when they conversed with non-native English speakers. The speaking rate became significantly slower when Korean English learners talked to non-native English speakers, than when they talked to other Korean English learners. Furthermore, there was a negative correlation between speaking rate and the VI in the utterances of Korean English learners in ILT.

This study assessed the extent to which second-language learners are sensitive to phonetic information contained in visual cues when identifying a non-native phonemic contrast. In experiment 1, Spanish and Japanese learners of English were tested on their perception of a labial/labiodental consonant contrast in audio (A), visual (V), and audio-visual (AV) modalities. Spanish students showed better performance overall, and much greater sensitivity to visual cues than Japanese students. Both learner groups achieved higher scores in the A V than in the A test condition, thus showing evidence of audio-visual benefit. Experiment 2 examined the perception of the less visually-salient /1/-/r/ contrast in Japanese and Korean learners of English. Korean learners obtained much higher scores in auditory and audio-visual conditions than in the visual condition, while Japanese learners generally performed poorly in both modalities. Neither. group showed evidence of audio-visual benefit. These results show the impact of the language background of the learner and visual salience of the contrast on the use of visual cues for a non-native contrast. Significant correlations between scores in the auditory and visual conditions suggest that increasing auditory proficiency in identifying a non-native contrast is linked with an increasing proficiency in using visual cues to the contrast. (c) 2006 Acoustical Society of America.