• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.27-35
• /
• 2021

This study investigated the status of the wh-island constraint in Seoul Korean. The syntactic movement of a wh-phrase out of an embedded sentence so as to have wide scope at LF is known to be invalid as it violates the wh-island constraint, but there have been studies in which such a movement was possible when the sentence is read with a wh-intonation. We conducted perceptual tests in which subjects were asked to select an answer after listening to each of the four types of interrogative sentences. Three of them were with 'Nugu-leul', which is an accusative form of the wh-phrase 'who' as well as an indefinite form. The fourth sentence contained the name of a person. 'Nugu-leul' and the noun were positioned in the same embedded sentence to see whether the subjects accepted a matrix scope interpretation of the wh-phrases. Response time was transformed to normalized log response time and checked to find any differences in the time taken to select the answers depending on different types of interrogative sentences. The results showed the subjects had a definite preference for the matrix scope interpretation for the sentences with a wh-intonation. The response time required to select the matrix scope interpretation was longer than for any other type of interrogative sentence. We concluded that the wh-island constraint in Seoul Korean is weak.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.19-25
• /
• 2021

It has been widely recognized that there are two varieties of lateral liquid /l/, which are light /l/ (a non-velarized allophone) and dark /l/ (a velarized allophone). However, this categorical view has been challenged in recent studies, both on articulatory and acoustic aspects. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether to consider /l/ velarization as a continuum in American English and provide supporting data. A spontaneous American English speech database called the Buckeye Speech Corpus was used for the material. The formant frequencies of /l/ in each syllable position were measured and analyzed statistically. The formant frequencies of /l/ in each syllable position, especially F2 values, were significantly different from each other. The results showed that there were other significantly different varieties of /l/ in American English, which support the continuum view on /l/ velarization. Regarding the effect of the adjacent vowel, the backness of the adjacent vowels was shown to affect the degree of /l/ velarization, regardless of the syllable position of the lateral liquid. This result will help provide a solid ground for the continuum view.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.77-90
• /
• 2021

This study is to develop a Korean version of nonword intervention by modifying and supplementing a Rapid syllable transition treatment (ReST) and to determine its effect by applying it to children with CAS. Ultimately, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether nonword interventions are effective for nonword production ability and generalization of real words. Single-subject research using the ABA design was performed for a child aged five years and six months with diagnostic features of CAS. The nonwords used in the interventions were made suitable for the individual child. The intervention was provided in one-hour sessions, twice a week for six weeks. In all cases, performance of the treated three-syllable nonwords improved, and untreated three-syllable words, four-syllable words, and nonwords showed a generalization effect. However, the generalization of treatment effects to words was smaller than for nonwords. The nonword intervention was effective in improving the subject's speech motor programming skills. As a result, transition errors due to impaired speech motor programming were greatly reduced, and the ability to produce untreated nonwords was greatly increased. However, there was a limit to the full improvement of strongly habitable word errors, which would be expected if a more intensive and repetitive intervention schedule was provided.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.81-90
• /
• 2020

This paper describes a method of building Korean conversational speech data in the emergency medical domain and proposes an annotation method for the collected data in order to improve speech recognition performance. To suggest future research directions, baseline speech recognition experiments were conducted by using partial data that were collected and annotated. All voices were recorded at 16-bit resolution at 16 kHz sampling rate. A total of 166 conversations were collected, amounting to 8 hours and 35 minutes. Various information was manually transcribed such as orthography, pronunciation, dialect, noise, and medical information using Praat. Baseline speech recognition experiments were used to depict problems related to speech recognition in the emergency medical domain. The Korean conversational speech data presented in this paper are first-stage data in the emergency medical domain and are expected to be used as training data for developing conversational systems for emergency medical applications.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.447-456
• /
• 2021

This study analyzed 28 domestic and foreign studies related Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets treatment techniques from 1984 to 2020 to prepare basic data for the development of PROMPT intervention programs and examination tools. According to the analysis, continuous research has been conducted since 1984 when the prompt study was first started, and the method of research was 16 intervention studies, with the highest number of speech disorders, and the target age being 3 to 5 years old, the most frequently conducted for infancy. The treatment was the most frequent in the 16th sessions, and the activities were based on the Motor Speech Hierarchy(MSH), except for the subjects of the non-verbal autism spectrum disorder. According to the analysis of the dependent variables, 'speech production' was the most common, followed by 'speech motor control', 'articulation', and 'speech intelligibility' were highest. Combined with all these studies, it suggests that PROMPT, which are directly useful for exercise spoken word production, are effectively being used outside the country and that it is necessary to develop a PROMPT program that can be applied domestically, in Korea.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.1-15
• /
• 2021

The present study investigated the mental representation and processing of an ambiguous word in the bimodal processing system by manipulating the lexical ambiguity of a visually or auditorily presented word. Homonyms (e.g., '물었다') with more than two meanings and control words (e.g., '고통을') with a single meaning were used in the experiments. The lemma frequency of words was manipulated while the relative frequency of multiple meanings of each homonym was balanced. In both experiments using the lexical decision task, a robust frequency effect and a critical interaction of word type by frequency were found. In Experiment 1, spoken homonyms yielded faster latencies relative to control words (i.e., ambiguity advantage) in the low frequency condition, while ambiguity disadvantage was found in the high frequency condition. A similar interactive pattern was found in visually presented homonyms in the subsequent Experiment 2. Taken together, the first key finding is that interdependent lexico-semantic processing can be found both in the visual and auditory processing system, which in turn suggests that semantic processing is not modality dependent, but rather takes place on the basis of general lexical knowledge. The second is that multiple semantic candidates provide facilitative feedback only when the lemma frequency of the word is relatively low.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2021

This study aims to enhance English pronunciation education for Korean students by examining the impact of standard Korean and Gyeongsang regional dialect on the articulation of English vowels. Data were obtained through the Korean-Spoken English Corpus (K-SEC). Seven Korean words and ten English mono-syllabic words were uttered by adult, male speakers of standard Korean and Gyeongsang regional dialect, in particular, speakers with little to no experience living abroad were selected. Formant frequencies of the recorded corpus data were measured using spectrograms, provided by the speech analysis program, Praat. The recorded data were analyzed using the articulatory graph for formants. The results show that in comparison with speakers using standard Korean, those using the Gyeongsang regional dialect articulated both Korean and English vowels in the back. Moreover, the contrast between standard Korean and Gyeongsang regional dialect in the pronunciation of Korean vowels (/으/, /어/) affected how the corresponding English vowels (/ə/, /ʊ/) were articulated. Regardless of the use of regional dialect, a general feature of vowel pronunciation among Korean people is that they show more narrow articulatory movements, compared with that of native English speakers. Korean people generally experience difficulties with discriminating tense and lax vowels, whereas native English speakers have clear distinctions in vowel articulation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.35-46
• /
• 2021

In this study, we examined the interactive aspects between pitch reduction phenomena considered a universal language phenomenon and native language interference in the production of L2 intonation performed by Chinese learners of Korean. To investigate their interaction, we conducted an acoustic analysis using acoustic measures such as pitch span, pitch level, pitch dynamic quotient, skewness, and kurtosis. In addition, the correlation between text comprehension and pitch was examined. The analyzed material consisted of four Korean discourses containing five and seven sentences of varying difficulty. Seven Korean native speakers and thirty Chinese learners who differed in their Korean proficiency participated in the production test. The results, for differences by language, showed that Chinese had a more expanded pitch span, and a higher pitch level than Korean. The analysis between groups showed that at the beginner and intermediate levels, pitch reduction was prominent, i.e., their Korean was characterized by a compressed pitch span, low pitch level, and less sentence internal pitch variation. Contrariwise, the pitch use of advanced speakers was most similar to Korean native speakers. There was no significant correlation between text difficulty and pitch use. Through this study, we observed that pitch reduction was more pronounced than native language interference in the phonetic layer.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.23-34
• /
• 2021

This study aims to discuss how Egyptian learners of Korean perceive and categorize Korean vowels, how Koreans perceive Korean vowels they pronounce, and how Egyptian learners' Korean vowel categorization affects their perception and production of Korean vowels. In Experiment 1, 53 Egyptian learners were asked to listen to Korean test words pronounced by Koreans and choose the words they had listened to among 4 confusable words. In Experiment 2, 117 sound files (13 test words×9 Egyptian learners) recorded by Egyptian learners were given to Koreans and asked to select the words they had heard among 4 confusable words. The results of the experiments show that "new" Korean vowels that do not have categorizable ones in Egyptian Arabic easily formed new categories and were therefore well identified in perception and relatively well pronounced, but some of them were poorly produced. However, Egyptian learners poorly distinguished "similar" Korean vowels in perception, but their pronunciation was relatively well identified by native Koreans. Based on the results of this study, we argued that the Speech Learning Model (SLM) and Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) explain the L2 speech perception well, but they are insufficient to explain L2 speech production and therefore need to be revised and extended to L2 speech production.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.75-87
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study was to investigate, longitudinally, interruption behavior which children who do stutter (CWS), children who do not stutter (CWNS) and their mothers and relationship with disfluency of children showed during interactions with their mothers. Subjects for this study consisted of 2-5 year old CWS (male 2 and female 4), an age-matched group of CWNS (male 3 and female 3), and their mothers. Frequencies of normal disfluency (ND) and abnormal disfluency (AD) in children group and frequency of interruption and simultalk duration in children and mothers group were measured two times (initial visit and 12 months later) over the course of one year. As a result, no significant difference was observed in frequency of interruption and simultalk duration both between two mother groups and between two child groups at initial visit and 12 months later. However, frequency of interruption increased significantly over the course of one year in CWS group. A significant group difference was found in frequency of interruption of mothers but, no significant difference was observed in simultalk duration of mothers at initial visit. In the CWS·mothers group, no factors were related with disfluency of children at initial visit and 12 months later. These findings suggest that interruption is not just negative behavior, and that reducing interruption should be considered in child·parent interaction therapy for CWS.