The impact of abdominal enhancement techniques on L1 Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin speakers’ English pronunciation

Abstract Research by this author found abdominal enhancement techniques can address difficulties in Mandarin and Cantonese speakers’ English pronunciation by helping them: (1) maintain long vowel/diphthong sounds for their required duration; and (2) adequately voice fricative consonants. This current study aimed to further understand the impact of these techniques, chiefly on learners from other L1s who also characteristically find these areas of pronunciation problematic. Consequently, I charted the progress of a Spanish speaker and a Japanese speaker as they were taught the techniques in an English pronunciation course. A cohort of Mandarin speakers from the same course was additionally examined. This was partly for comparability purposes with the Spanish and Japanese speakers, but also because some new areas of learner response to the techniques were examined in the study that had not previously been examined for Mandarin speakers. Following the instruction, I was also able to examine the Spanish and Mandarin speakers one year later to check for further progress. The study found the learners from the three L1s responded to the techniques in different ways, and often for apparently different reasons. Consequently, tentative theoretical claims regarding the techniques’ impact on such learners were developed, along with preliminary instructional guidelines.