Perceptions of non-native speakers' personalities by native speakers of Japanese: effects of voice characteristics, intonation and use of Japanese honorifics

This study investigated how three speech components in the speech of non-native speakers (NNSs) of Japanese—voice characteristics, intonation, and language form expressed by honorifics—contribute to the impressions formed by native speakers of Japanese (JNSs) of the NNS’s personality. Speech samples produced by six NNSs of Japanese (three males and three females) were used to construct four types of stimuli: (i) NNSs’ WHOLE SPEECH, an audio recording of verbal requests to borrow a pen under four situations (MOST FORMAL, FORMAL, CASUAL, and MOST CASUAL); (ii) LANGUAGE, which was a transcription of (i); (iii) INTONATION derived from (i) presented together with the transcription (ii); and (iv) NNSs’ VOICE, audio recordings of kana recitations representing individual voice characteristics. One hundred and fifty-four JNSs (77 males and 77 females) living in Japan rated each of the four stimuli on a semantic differential scale that presented personality traits expressed by nine adjectives, which were classified into three personality variables. The results of multiple regression analyses revealed that the contribution of each speech component differed according to situation and the gender of the NNS. Overall, LANGUAGE influenced the impression more than INTONATION in a formal situation, and vice versa in a casual situation. VOICE made contributions to the formal situations more than to the casual situations. A gender difference was found in less formal and less casual (i.e., intermediate) situations. The pattern of effects of speech components was consistent across situations but not across the three personality traits. These results clearly indicate that situation, or the level of formality, was an important factor in the impact of speech components on the impression of a NNS’ personality formed from the NNSs’ utterance.