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Finding your voice in L2 Japanese: Guided accent/voice exposure to enhance more faithful L2 identities and communicative competence

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Abstract

Accents are a crucial part of communicative competence, mirroring the reality of diversity among instructors and learners. Accents project identities by indexing regional affiliation and social associations (i.e., sociolects) of gender, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergence, non-nativeness, and more. Accents may be multiple and fluid, reflecting evolving identities, stances, or contexts (e.g., formality, speaking vs. reading) and/or manipulating effect and meaning through styleshifting. In Japanese, a trilled /r/ shows aggression/anger while a narrower high-pitch range, slower speech, and increased pausing express formality and deference. Particular voices characterize different media: newscasters, character language (i.e., kyarago) in anime, and Kansai regional dialect in comedy. Within an EXposure Process, students EXplain, EXamine, EXperience, EXperiment, and EXplore diverse Japanese accents/voices through controlled exposure to social accents/voices. High diversity phonetic training improves learners’ communicative competence through enhanced awareness, pronunciation, listening, and comprehension, enabling learners to create more faithful L2 identities and more fully interact in various communities and Japanese culture.

Keywords: accents, voices, speech styles, communicative competence, EXposure process

How to Cite:

Schaefer, V., & Zhang, A. (2026). Finding your voice in L2 Japanese: Guided accent/voice exposure to enhance more faithful L2 identities and communicative competence. In P. Trofimovich, A. Bodea, T.-N. N. Le, R. Suzuki, & C. Teló (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference (pp. 1–17). Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, October 2025. https://doi.org/10.31274/psllt.21330