The Japanese /r/ is one of the phonemes that, based on its phonetic characteristics, can belong to several different sound groups. For convenience, many sources group it together with various variants of the lateral approximant (the /l/ sounds), even though they do not share clear common features. Most experts agree that the Japanese /r/ belongs to the group of vibrants, while others also include it among the flaps and approximants. Its realization in Japanese speech thus covers a very wide range of aforementioned groups. Such usage is considered to be random, although the influence of paralinguistic factors is also mentioned. Based on literature in the field of emotion perception in speech and usage patterns of Japanese phonemes, I examined, using the example of the /r/ sound, whether the influence of paralinguistic factors—specifically emotions—can be detected in the speech of a voice actress who lent her voice to a character in a well-known anime series Noragami. Through an analysis of her speech in the context of the animation—that is, by comparing the auditory interpretation of the phoneme /r/ with the emotional background—I found that emotions have a relatively small but clear influence on the speech of this particular actress. Under the influence of anger, her pronunciation of the /r/ sound became closer to that of the vibrant /r/ compared to her pronunciation in other contexts.
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