Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
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Phonological processes of consonants from orthographic to pronounced words in the Buckeye Corpus

  • Yang, Byunggon (Department of English Education, Pusan National University)
  • Received : 2019.10.18
  • Accepted : 2019.11.29
  • Published : 2019.12.31
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Abstract

This paper investigates the phonological processes of consonants in pronounced words in the Buckeye Corpus and compares the frequency distribution of these processes to provide a clearer understanding of conversational English for linguists and teachers. Both orthographic and pronounced words were extracted from the transcribed label scripts of the Buckeye Corpus. Next, the phonological processes of consonants in the orthographic and pronounced labels were tabulated separately by onsets and codas, and a frequency distribution by consonant process types was examined. The results showed that the majority of the onset clusters were pronounced as the same sounds in the Buckeye Corpus. The participants in the corpus were presumed to speak semiformally. In addition, the onsets have fewer deletions than the codas, which might be related to the information weight of the syllable components. Moreover, there is a significant association and strong positive correlation between the phonological processes of the onsets and codas in men and women. This paper concludes that an analysis of phonological processes in spontaneous speech corpora can contribute to a practical understanding of spoken English. Further studies comparing the current phonological process data with those of other languages would be desirable to establish universal patterns in phonological processes.

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References

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