• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.367-374
• /
• 2016

In this study, we proposed the development of smart application for English speaking effectively. First, to develop English learning application, we applied the TTS feature to record your own sounds and learning theory repeated listening and speaking that is the basis of English learning. To analyze the effectiveness of the application, we applied a lesson to elementary students for 4 months. In the test result, we found that all students have advanced to the English speaking ability and the test results of the affective factors showed a positive response to most students.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.59-67
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to scientifically examine Kuhl's (2011), originally Johnson and Newport's (1989) critical period graph, from a perspective of auditory perception and linguistic discrimination. This study utilizes two types of experiments (auditory perception and linguistic phoneme discrimination) with five different age groups (5 years, 6-8 years, 9-13 years, 15-17 years, and 20-26 years) of Korean English learners. Auditory perception is examined via ultrasonic sounds that are commonly used in the medical field. In addition, each group is measured in terms of their ability to discriminate minimal pairs in Chinese. Since almost all Korean students already have some amount of English exposure, the researchers selected phonemes in Chinese, an unexposed foreign language for all of the subject groups. The results are almost completely in accordance with Kuhl's critical period graph for auditory perception and linguistic discrimination; a sensitive age is found at 8. The results show that the auditory capability of kindergarten children is significantly better than that of other students, measured by their ability to perceive ultrasonic sounds and to distinguish ten minimal pairs in Chinese. This finding strongly implies that human auditory ability is a key factor for the sensitive period of language acquisition.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.57 no.4
• /
• pp.675-693
• /
• 2011

In its restricted sense, 'sound poetry' refers to the poetic performance that rejects words and verbal meaning and instead foregrounds the aural materiality of poetry. Behind this seeking for materiality lies a quest for a 'language of presence,' which operates through a denial of signification toward an ideal of the Adamic tongue, a purely emotional and universal language. In the same light, it is argued that sound poetry is a unique and unrepeatable event devoid of meaning due to its directness to the body allowing no intervention of intellectual and semiotic process. But language may involve perceptual meaning as well as verbal or conceptual meaning ascribed to words. This implies that even though devoid of conceptual meaning by means of using grammatically non-articulated sounds, sound poetry cannot but have meaning whose articulation is differently, i.e., iconically made about the aural features of the sounds. Perceptual meaning is unavoidable because everything we are conscious of is a reduced form, a repeatable pattern that works as a sign. 'Language of presence' is then actually impossible, and therefore sound poetry should be seen rather as a fest of diverse perceptual meanings.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.56 no.6
• /
• pp.1191-1210
• /
• 2010

This article claims that English liquid consonants are characterized by the presence of complex place nodes, regardless of dialectal varieties. The primary difference between rhotic and laterals can be pursued in a phonological sense. The level of subbranching nodes is in charge of the disparities among two types of liquids: the branching immediately below the Coronal node with laterals, while branching at the secondary sublevel with rhotics. In this context, the processes of rhotic deletion and lateral vocalization can be understood as those motivated to get rid of complex place nodes. That is, those processes take place as part of phonological attrition. Next, the onset/coda asymmetry regarding liquids stems from the dispreference of vocoid at the onset position, which is readily accounted for by the series of constraints on the well-formedness on the onset, namely Harmonic Onset. The rationale of gradualness and harmonic improvement proposed by Harmonic Serialism is useful to separate the attested outputs from unattested ones across the whole gamut of English varieties. All in all, the primary benefits of our analysis can be found in the consistence in the explanation for the operations running through the sounds regarded as belonging to liquid consonants, comprising the whole range of rhotic and lateral consonants.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.151-163
• /
• 2015

In this study, we aim to describe kinematic characteristics of Korean /l/-flapping in two speech rates (fast vs. comfortable). Production data was collected from seven native speakers of Seoul Korean (four females and three males) using electromagnetic midsagittal articulometry (EMMA), which provided two dimensional data on the x-y plane. We examined kinematic properties of the vertical/horizontal tongue tip gesture, the vertical/horizontal (rear) tongue body gesture, and the jaw gesture in an /i/-/i/ context. Gestural landmarks of the vertical tongue tip gesture are directly measured. This serves as the actual anchoring time points to which relevant measures of other trajectories referred. The study focuses on velocity profiles, closing/opening spatiotemporal properties, constriction duration, and constriction minima were analyzed. The results are summarized as follows. First, gradiently distributed spatiotemporal values of the vertical tongue tip gesture were on a continuum. This shows more of a reduction in fast speech rate, but no single instance of categorical reduction (deletion). Second, Korean /l/-flapping predominantly exhibited a backward sliding tongue tip movement, in 83% of production, which is apparently distinguished from forward sliding movement in English. Lastly, there was an indication of vocalic reduction in fast rate, truncating spatial displacement of the jaw and the tongue body, although we did not observe positional variations with speech rate. The present study shows that Korean /l/-flapping is characterized by mixed articulatory properties with respect to flapping sounds of other languages such as English and Xiangxiang Chinese. Korean /l/ flapping demonstrates a language-universal property, such as the gradient nature of its flapping sounds that is compatible with other languages. On the other hand, Korean /l/-flapping also shows a language-particular property, particularly distinguished from English, in that a backward gliding movement occurs during the tongue tip closing movement. Although, there was no vocalic reduction in V2 observed in terms of jaw and tongue body height, spatial displacement of these articulators still suggests truncation in fast speech rate.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.11-19
• /
• 2014

The focus of this study was to investigate whether there is a position effect on identification accuracy of L2 consonants by Korean listeners and to examine how Korean listeners perceive the phonetic properties of initial and final consonants produced by a Korean learner of English and an English native speaker. Most studies examining L2 learners' perception of L2 sounds have focused on the segmental level but very few studies have examined the role of prosodic position in L2 learners' perception. In the present study, an identification test was conducted for English consonants /p, t, k, f, ɵ, s, ʃ/ in CVC prosodic structures. The results revealed that Korean listeners identified syllable-initial consonants more accurately than syllable-final consonants. The perceptual accuracy in syllable initial consonants may be attributable to the enhanced phonetic properties in the initial consonants. A significant correlation was found between error rates and F2 onset/offset for stops and fricatives, and between perceptual accuracy and RMS burst energy for stops. However, the identification error patterns were found to be different across consonant types and between the different language speakers. In the final position, Korean listeners had difficulty in identifying /p/, /f/, /ɵ/, and /s/ when they were produced by a Korean speaker and showed more errors in /p/, /t/, /f/, /ɵ/, and /s/ when they were spoken by an English native speaker. Comparing to the perception of English consonants spoken by a Korean speaker, greater error rates and diverse error patterns were found in the perception of consonants produced by an English native speaker. The present study provides the evidence that prosodic position plays a crucial role in the perception of L2 segments.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.399-403
• /
• 1996

This paper addresses issues of perceptual constancy in speech perception through the use of a spatial metaphor for speech sound identity as opposed to a more conventional characterisation with multiple interacting acoustic cues. This spatial representation leads to a correlation between phonetic, acoustic and auditory analyses of speech sounds which can serve as the basis for a model of speech perception based on the general auditory characteristics of sounds. The correlations between the phonetic, perceptual and auditory spaces of the set of English voiceless fricatives /f $\theta$ s $\int$ h / are investigated. The results show that the perception of fricative segments may be explained in terms of 2-dimensional auditory space in which each segment occupies a region. The dimensions of the space were found to be the frequency of the main spectral peak and the 'peakiness' of spectra. These results support the view that perception of a segment is based on its occupancy of a multi-dimensional parameter space. In this way, final perceptual decisions on segments can be postponed until higher level constraints can also be met.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.96-104
• /
• 2000

The Bodysonic system was invented on the basis of 'Bone Conduction Theory,' which states that people feel sounds with their whole body. The Bodysonic system is used for L2 (English) learning at Aichi Women's Junior College. In recent years we have developed some unique methodology related to use of the Bodysonic system. In Japan it is difficult for adult L2 learners to acquire the prosody of a foreign language. A language laboratory using the Bodysonic system has been suggested as one way to eradicate such adult L2 problems. The Bodysonic system changes sounds into vibrations. It makes it easy for learners to acquire the prosody of a foreign language because humans can convey information, through their tactile organs. In addition, this system was originally designed to make people relax, so it can also help minimize learner anxiety. The effect of Bodysonic vibrations on language learning has already been proven by some experiments. The Bodysonic system appears to be an ideal teaching method for adult to learn a foreign language.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.21-28
• /
• 2012

Many previous studies reported acoustic parameters of English vowels produced by a clear speaking style. In everyday usage, we actually produce speech sounds with various speaking styles. Different styles may yield different acoustic measurements. This study attempts to examine pitch and formant trajectories of eleven English vowels produced by nine American males in order to understand acoustic variations depending on clear and conversational speaking styles. The author used Praat to obtain trajectories systematically at seven equidistant time points over the vowel segment while checking measurement validity. Results showed that pitch trajectories indicated distinct patterns depending on four speaking styles. Generally, higher pitch values were observed in the higher vowels and the pitch was higher in the clear speaking styles than that in the conversational styles. The same trend was observed in the three formant trajectories of front vowels and the first formant trajectories of back vowels. The second and third trajectories of back vowels revealed an opposite or inconsistent trend, which might be attributable to the coarticulation of the following consonant or lip rounding gestures. The author made a tentative conclusion that people tend to produce vowels to enhance pitch and formant differences to transmit their information clearly. Further perceptual studies on synthesized vowels with varying pitch and formant values are desirable to address the conclusion.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.247-252
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to suggest the visual teaching method for the English vowel pronunciation, especially for the hearing-impaired who mostly rely on the visual aids, based on the SVM technique. By extracting phonetic features using the SVM technique from the sounds that are hard to hear by ear, the lip shapes for each vowel were refined. The lip shape refinement for vowels is advantageous in that language learners can easily see the movement of articulators by eye, and it is helpful for learning and teaching English vowels for the hearing-impaired.