• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.3 no.9
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• pp.381-388
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• 2014

In this paper, we deal with implementation issues of an unknown word classifier for middle-school level English writing test. We define the type of unknown words occurred in English text and discuss the detection process for unknown words. Also, we define the type of swear words occurred in students's English writings, and suggest how to handle this type of words. We implement an unknown word classifier with a swear detection module for developing an automatic English writing scoring system. By experiments with actual test data, we evaluate the accuracy of the unknown word classifier as well as the swear detection module.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.43-51
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• 2013

English native listeners have a tendency to treat strong syllables in a speech stream as the potential initial syllables of new words, since the majority of lexical words in English have a word-initial stress. The current study investigates whether Korean (L1) - English (L2) late bilinguals perceive strong syllables in English continuous speech as word onsets, as English native listeners do. In Experiment 1, word-spotting was slower when the word-initial syllable was strong, indicating that Korean listeners do not perceive strong syllables as word onsets. Experiment 2 was conducted in order to avoid any possibilities that the results of Experiment 1 may be due to the strong-initial targets themselves used in Experiment 1 being slower to recognize than the weak-initial targets. We employed the gating paradigm in Experiment 2, and measured the Isolation Point (IP, the point at which participants correctly identify a word without subsequently changing their minds) and the Recognition Point (RP, the point at which participants correctly identify the target with 85% or greater confidence) for the targets excised from the non-words in the two conditions of Experiment 1. Both the mean IPs and the mean RPs were significantly earlier for the strong-initial targets, which means that the results of Experiment 1 reflect the difficulty of segmentation when the initial syllable of words was strong. These results are consistent with Kim & Nam (2011), indicating that strong syllables are not perceived as word onsets for Korean listeners and interfere with lexical segmentation in English running speech.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.323-355
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• 2015

This study examined grapheme-to-phoneme regularity effect among late Korean-English bilinguals by using whole word level task (lexical processing) and two meta-phonological tasks(sub-lexical processing): [1] English word naming task(whole word level), [2] rhyme judgement task(rhyme level), and [3] phoneme deletion task(phoneme level). Forty-three late Korean-English bilinguals participated in all three tasks. In these tasks, participants showed better performance in regular word conditions compared to irregular word conditions, demonstrating a clear English regularity effect. Post-hoc correlational analysis revealed strong correlation between word naming task and rhyme judgement task, which is different from the results reported with English monolinguals. The contradicting results might be due to the relevantly low English proficiency level among late Korean-English bilingual speakers. In conclusion, this study suggests that late Korean-English bilinguals make use of L2 grapheme-to-phoneme conversion (GPC) rule when reading L2 English words.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.67-87
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to show how the coda of a syllable and word-final clusters are represented in the English syllable structure. Previous theories on the syllable assume that there is only one segment in the coda position. And, as we know, the theories that license only one segment in the coda make it difficult to syllabicate the word-final cluster appropriately when more than two segments in the word-final cluster are encountered. I considered three approaches: the previous syllable structure (Selkirk, 1982; Borowsky 1989), sonority sequencing (Giegerich, 1992; Roca, 1999) and feature analysis (Goldsmith, 1990), But, all the considered methods don't give us a satisfactory explanation regarding word-final clusters. Finally, I will suggest a modified syllable representation as an alternative by placing two different appendixes under the Phonological Word which forms a constituent above the syllable node. From this it is possible to explain the former problematic word-final clusters including morphological information asan inflectional suffix in the structure.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.17-35
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of an explicit word instruction for EFL beginning readers and their perception on the learning experience. Data were attained from 16 fourth graders who took English class as a development activity. Data include the results of pre- and post-test of high frequency sight word recognition, oral reading ability, students' survey responses, and teacher observation. The descriptive statistics were obtained for the result of the pre- and post-test. The findings from the student survey and teacher observation were also provided and interpreted to better understand the result of project and students' perception on the learning experience. The followings are the results of this study. The word recognition ability of the students was dramatically improved after the project. The students were satisfied with the overall learning experience perceiving it as helpful and fun learning. They expressed that the explicit word instruction helped their word recognition and reading ability. The results also supported that the confidence of students on their reading ability were heightened. Several suggestions are made for teachers and researchers on the word instruction for young EFL learners who are beginning readers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.115-128
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• 2007

The purposes of this paper were to develop an automatic script to collect such acoustic parameters as duration, intensity, pitch and the first two formant values of English words produced by two native Canadian speakers either alone or in a two-word phrase at a normal speed and to compare those values by the position in the phrases. A Praat script was proposed to obtain the comparable parameters at evenly divided time point of the target word. Results showed that the total duration of the word in the phrase was shorter than that of the word produced alone. That was attributed to the pronunciation style of the native speakers generally placing the primary word stress in the first word position. Also, the reduction ratio of the male speaker depended on the word position in the phrase while the female speaker didn't. Moreover, there were different contours of intensity and pitch by the position of the target word in the phrase while almost the same formant patterns were observed. Further studies would be desirable to examine those parameters of the words in the authentic speech materials.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.131-135
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• 2005

Previous studies on the bilinguals' lexical selection have suggested some evidence in favor of language-specific hypothesis. The purpose of this study was to see whether Korean-English bilinguals' semantic systems of Korean and English are shared or separated between the two languages. In a series of picture-word interference tasks, participants were to name the pictures in Korean or in English with distractor words printed either in Korean or English. The distractor words were either semantically identical, related, unrelated to the picture, or nonexistant. The response time of naming was facilitated when distractor words were semantically identical for both same-(Naming pictures in English/korean with English/Korean distractor words) and different-language pairs(Naming pictures in English with Korean distractor words and vice versa). But this facilitation effect was stronger when naming was produced in their native language, which in this case was Korean. Also, inhibitory effect was shown when the picture and its distractor word were semantically related in both same- and different-language paired conditions. These results show that bilinguals'two lexicons compete to some extent when selecting the target word. In this viewpoint, it can be concluded that the lexicons of either languages may not be entirely but partly overlapping in bilinguals.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.73-77
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to observe how Korean learners of English perceive a weak syllable in words with WS syllable pattern. According to the automated discrimination task using E-Prime, the proportion of right answer and reaction time of the stimuli with same word pairs (a-a, b-b) was more and faster respectively than that with different word pairs (a-b, b-a). Specifically, in a-b or b-a stimuli structure, familiarity(word frequency) of stressed word succeeding weak syllable and whether the weak syllable had coda in it was two important factors in distinguishing between a word with and without weak syllable. Even though the high English proficiency Koreans had faster reaction time than the low English proficiency Koreans, all Korean learners somewhat had difficulty perceiving the weak syllable at the beginning of the word.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.7-24
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• 1999

Eleven Korean learners of English took part in an experiment where the production and perception of English /r/ and /l/ in four different word positions was investigated. Overall the subjects made more errors on /l/ in both production and identification tests. The frequency of the subjects' errors was also sensitive to word positions in which the two English liquids occur. Especially the subjects made noticeably fewer errors in intervocalic medial position. It is suggested that the Korean subjects' acquisitional pattern in this particular case of foreign phone learning can be explained more by language particular 'interference' effects rather than 'universal' acoustic arguments such as those given in Dissosway et a1. (1982) and Sheldon and Strange (1982). The results of the experiment also support the minority position among second language educators that in some cases of non-native phone acquisition, learners' production abilities can be developed earlier than their perceptual abilities.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.183-186
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• 2007

This study analyzes Korean high school students' pronunciation errors in word-initial onglides in English. For this study, 24 Korean high school students read 34 English words including glide-vowel sequences in word-initial positions and vowel-initial words in a frame sentence. The results showed 2 different error types: glide deletion and vowel distortion. After the analysis of the first recording, the subjects were taught how to pronounce glide-vowel sequences properly in a 60-minute class. Comparison of the analyses of the first and second recordings showed that the subjects improved on the pronunciation of glide-vowel sequences. After the training, the pronunciation errors of diphthongs unique to English, [$j_I$], decreased substantially. However, most subjects still had difficulties in pronouncing [$w{\mho}$], [wu], and [wo]. There was no significant correlation between English course grade and error reduction.