• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.169-178
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• 2009

In this study, we suggest Korean nonlinear fitting formula (KNFF) to maximize speech intelligibility for digital hearing aids based on NAL-NL1 (NAL-nonlinear, version 1). KNFF was derived from the same procedure which is used for deriving NAL-NL1. KNFF consider the long-term average speech spectrum of Korean instead of English because the frequency characteristic of Korean is different from that of English. New insertion gains of KNFF were derived using the SII (speech intelligibility index) program provided by ANSI. In addition, the insertion gains were modified to maximize the intelligibility of high frequency words. To verify effect of the new fitting gain, we performed speech discrimination test (SDT) and preference test using the hearing loss simulator from NOISH. In the SDT, a word set as test material consists of 50 1-syllable word generally used in hearing clinic. As a result of the test, in case of moderate hearing loss with severe loss on high frequency, the SDT scores of KNFF was more improved about 3.2% than NAL-NLl and about 6% in case of the sever hearing loss. Finally we have obtained the result that it was the effective way to increase gain of mid-high frequency bands and to decrease gain of low frequency bands in order to maximize speech intelligibility of Korean.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.129-141
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• 2002

Editors of medieval texts that are translated from other languages face difficulties when the translation differs significantly from the original. Are the differences unintended, the result of misunderstanding and mistranslation\ulcorner Or do they proceed from a conscious decision on the translator's part to change the meaning of the original\ulcorner Is it possible to be sure one knows the difference\ulcorner This paper discusses three test cases encountered in preparing for the Early English Text Society a critical edition of Sidrak and Bokkus, the fifteenth-century English verse translation of the Old French prose book of knowledge, Le livre de Sidrac.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1-22
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• 2007

The study examined the effects of explicit derivational morphology instruction (henceforth DMI) on the incidental vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension of 132 Korean 1st-year high school students who responded to a battery of tests (two vocabulary tests and a reading comprehension test). Multiple statistical tools were used to analyze the data: Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Simple Regression Analysis, Tests of Simple Main Effects, and effect size computation using Cohen's d. The results indicated that (a) DMI enhanced students' ability to infer word meanings in context, (b) DMI promoted high proficiency students' reading comprehension, whereas it impeded intermediate proficiency students' reading comprehension, (c) vocabulary knowledge has a strong positive predictive value for reading comprehension, and (d) the gaps of vocabulary knowledge across proficiency levels were still substantial, despite the observation that DMI promoted students' vocabulary acquisition. These results have a bearing on English as Foreign Language (EFL) reading pedagogy.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.77-97
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• 2007

To compare data on the speech act of requests from two different methods, a study was conducted in which both native and non-native speakers of English participated as subjects, and data were collected by means of actual e-mail writing and DCT (discourse completion test). The analysis of requests from the two different data-gathering methods showed that despite some similarities, considerable differences existed between e-mail and DCT requests in several important aspects of requests such as amount of talk, directness level, downgraders and supportive moves which play an important role in making a given request sound less imposing and more polite. Also it was shown that requests of non-native speakers differed considerably from requests of native speakers in terms of the four aspects of requests across type of data-gathering methods. Based on the findings, some suggestions were made for both further research and L2 classrooms.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• spring
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• pp.119-122
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• 2000

In this paper, we implement an elementary system to correct accent, pronunciation, and intonation in English spoken by non-native English speakers. In case of the accent evaluation, energy and pitch information are used to find stressed syllables, and then we extract the segment information of input patterns using a dynamic time warping method to discriminate and evaluate accent position. For the pronunciation evaluation. we utilize the segment information using the same algorithm as in accent evaluation and calculate the spectral distance measure for each phoneme between input and reference. For the intonation evaluation. we propose nine pattern of slope to estimate pitch contour, then we grade test sentences by accumulated error obtained by the distance measure and estimated slope. Our result shows that 98 percent of accent and 71 percent of pronunciation evaluation agree with perceptual measure. As the result of the intonation evaluation. system represent the similar order of grade for the four sentences having different intonation patterns compared with perceptual evaluation.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.101-124
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• 2011

This paper investigated the relationships among Korean EFL learners' listening anxiety, listening strategy use, and listening proficiency. One hundred and forty four Korean college students who were enrolled in the required practical English classes participated in this study. Questionnaires related to students' listening strategy use and listening anxiety were administered and a TOEIC listening comprehension test was given to measure the students' listening proficiency. The one-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. The findings of this study are that the students' listening performance is positively correlated with their strategy use and negatively correlated with their anxiety level, and their strategy use is negatively correlated with their anxiety level. The results suggest that successful learning will occur when anxiety is reduced and when the use of strategies is encouraged more often. The pedagogical implications for EFL educators and teachers are described.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.69-89
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• 2006

This study investigated whether and how semantic nature of intransitive verbs can be related to the L2 overpassivization errors. A total of 126 Korean high school students participated in a grammaticality judgment test on English sentences in which seven semantically different types of intransitive verbs were passivized. The results showed that there was an effect of semantic type on the students' judgment on overpassivization errors. Overall, it was shown that the students experienced the lowest degree of difficulty with the Controlled Process-Motional type verbs while experiencing the high degree of difficulty with the Change of State, Existence of State, Continuation of Pre-existing State, and Uncontrolled Process types. Two interlanguage patterns were also identified: the students at higher proficiency level and those at lower-proficiency level showed distinctive patterns on the task. It was argued that the simple dichotomy of unaccusative-unergative distinction does not suffice for the explanation of the complex phenomenon of L2 overpassivization.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.37-40
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• 2003

This paper presents the preliminary result of the automatic pronunciation scoring for non-native English speakers, and shows the developmental process for an English speech recognizer for the educational and evaluational purposes. The proposed speech recognizer, featuring two refined acoustic model sets, implements the noise-robust data compensation, phonetic alignment, highly reliable rejection, key-word and phrase detection, easy-to-use language modeling toolkit, etc., The developed speech recognizer achieves 0.725 as the average correlation between the human raters and the machine scores, based on the speech database YOUTH for training and K-SEC for test.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.83-88
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• 2003

This study carried out an experimental English pronunciation assessment to see the differences in the relationship between the different rater categories. The result shows that i) correlation between Korean and Native American raters is high(r=.98) enough to be considered reliable, ii) previous instructions about assessment rubric and the knowledge about English phonetics and phonology exert little influence on the rating scores, iii) correlation between the automatic ILT(Interactive Language Tutor) rating using speech recognition technology and Natives' rating is stronger than that between ILT and Koreans' rating.

• MALSORI
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• no.42
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• pp.25-36
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• 2001

Stress assignment has been much discussed in the literature on English compound nouns. The general view of the stress pattern of English compound nouns is that a main stress falls on the first element and a secondary stress on the second element; however, a stress pattern is often employed that provides counterevidence to the traditional pedagogical approach. A new idea is suggested by Ladd(1984) that 'compound stress represents the deaccenting of the head of the compound.' Recent studies show that initial stressing does not indicate compounds and syntactic phrases are not always characterized by final stressing. In his pilot test Pennanen comments on the frequent variation of stress patterns on individual items, on the basis of which Bauer confirms Pennanen's results with different informants. This paper is an attempt to justify Bauer's analysis with the same data as Bauer's and different subjects. It turns out that the competences of native-speaker informants do not rovide clear-cut answers. Some factors should be taken into account in assigning appropirate stress to compound nouns.