| The present study is concerned with the construction of a guide for use by teachers of English in Japanese secondary schools in order to teach English pronunciation. It is the only work on English-Japanese loanwords directed toward English instruction.;After the differences between the two languages were analyzed, a high degree of variation between English-Japanese loanwords and their English counterparts was identified. Fifty-one sound substitution rules were established by analyzing this variation. They were considered to be important in specifying which Japanese sounds are substituted for which English sounds. The fifty-one sound substitution rules were arranged according to consonants, vowels, diphthongs, and vocalic R for the construction of the guide.;The writer believes that the sound substitution rules established as a prerequisite for the construction of the guide are sufficient, not only in the treatment of the phonological aspects of English and Japanese, but also as useful information for instruction in English pronunciation.;The guide is designed to provide Japanese teachers of English with a usable reference for the pronunciation of English sounds. The guide contains the articulatory characteristics of English phonemes, the sound substitution rules, common errors, the contrastive charts of English-Japanese loanwords and their English counterparts, and sound approximation instruction.;In this study the phonological descriptions of English-Japanese loanwords presupposed a comparison of the sound systems of the two languages involved. Therefore, a survey was made regarding the phonetic characteristics of individual English and Japanese phonemes. From 3,591 English-Japanese loanwords identified in the forty-five public secondary school English textbooks, five hundred and forty-five representative words, containing all Japanese segmental phonemes were selected and listed in order to compare them with the sounds of their English counterparts. Authoritative dictionaries were utilized as references. The writer's own knowledge of the Japanese language was also used as a native speaker, born and educated in Japan. |
