• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.21-27
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• 1999

In this paper, we propose an improved MLP-based English pronunciation dictionary generator to apply to the variable vocabulary word recognizer. The variable vocabulary word recognizer can process any words specified in Korean word lexicon dynamically determined according to the current recognition task. To extend the ability of the system to task for English words, it is necessary to build a pronunciation dictionary generator to be able to process words not included in a predefined lexicon, such as proper nouns. In order to build the English pronunciation dictionary generator, we use context-dependent grapheme-to-phoneme multi-layer perceptron(MLP) architecture for each grapheme. To train each MLP, it is necessary to obtain grapheme-to-phoneme training data from general pronunciation dictionary. To automate the process, we use dynamic programming(DP) algorithm with some distance metrics. For training and testing the grapheme-to-phoneme MLPs, we use general English pronunciation dictionary with about 110 thousand words. With 26 MLPs each having 30 to 50 hidden nodes and the exception grapheme lexicon, we obtained the word accuracy of 72.8% for the 110 thousand words superior to rule-based method showing the word accuracy of 24.0%.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.47-63
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• 2010

This study provides a description of the glottal characteristics of the word-initial low vowels /a, $\ae$/ in terms of a set of acoustic parameters and discusses glottal configuration as their acoustic correlates. Furthermore, it examines the effect of prosodic boundary on the glottal properties of the vowels, seeking an account of the possible role of prosodic structure based on prosodic theory. Acoustic parameters reported to indicate glottal characteristics were obtained from the measurements made directly from the speech spectrum on recordings of Korean and English collected from 45 speakers. They consist of two separate groups of native Korean and native English speakers, each including both male and female speakers. Based on the three acoustic parameters of open quotient (OQ), first-formant bandwidth (B1), and spectral tilt (ST), comparisons were made between the speech of males and females, between the speech of native Korean and native English speakers, and between Korean and English produced by native Korean speakers. Acoustic analysis of the experimental data indicates that some or all glottal parameters play a crucial role in differentiating the speech groups, despite substantial interspeaker variations. Statistical analysis of the Korean data indicates prosodic strengthening with respect to the acoustic parameters B1 and OQ, suggesting acoustic enhancement in terms of the degree of glottal abduction and the glottal closure during a vibratory cycle.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.239-265
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• 2010

This study investigates the effects of corpus-based vocabulary tasks on the acquisition of English vocabulary in an attempt to explore the influence of corpus use on EFL pedagogy. For this to be realized, a total of 40 Korean high school students participated in the study over a 4-week period. An experimental group used a set of corpus-based tasks for vocabulary learning, whereas a control group carried out a traditional task (i.e., the L1-L2 translation) for vocabulary learning. To assess learning gains, the students were asked to complete the pre- and post-treatment tests measuring the word form, meaning, and use aspects of target lexical items. Results of the study indicate that in the experimental group the corpus-based vocabulary tasks were beneficial for the learning of word forms and use. In particular, corpus-based benefits were greatest in the low-proficiency EFL learners' collocational aspects of vocabulary use. On the other hand, in the control group, the traditional vocabulary tasks benefited the meaning aspects of target vocabulary items the most. In addition, survey results revealed that most students were positive about the corpus-based learning experience although some expressed reservations about the heavy cognitive load and the time-consuming nature of the analysis of corpus data primarily due to learners' lack of language proficiency.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.364-364
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• 2000

It has been widely discussed in phonology that syllable structure of mother tongue influences one's acquisition of foreign language. However, the topic was hardly examined experimentally. So, we investigated effects of Korean syllable structure when Korean speakers pronounce English words, especially focusing on consonant strings that are not allowed in Korean. In the experiment, all the subjects are divided into 3 groups, that is, native, experienced, and inexperienced speakers. Native group consists of 1 male English native speaker. Experienced and inexperienced are each composed of 3 male Korean speakers. These 2 groups are divided by the length of residence in the country using English as a native language. 41 mono-syllable words are prepared considering the position (onset vs. coda), characteristic (stops, affricates, fricatives), and number of consonant. Then, the length of the consonant cluster is measured. To eliminate tempo effect, the measured length is normalized using the length of the word 'say' in the carrier sentence. Measurement of consonant cluster is the relative time period between the initiation of energy (onset I coda) which is acoustically representative of noise (consonant portion) and voicing. bar (vowel portion) in a syllable. Statistical method is used to estimate the differences among 3 groups. For each word, analysis of variance (ANDY A) and Post Hoc tests are carried out.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.241-254
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• 2003

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the sentence comprehension strategies used by Korean/English bilingual children when they listened to sentences of their first language, i.e., Korean. The framework of competition model was employed to analyze the influence of the second language, i.e., English, during comprehension of Korean sentences. The participants included 10 bilingual children (ages 7;4-13;0) and 20 Korean-speaking monolingual children(ages 5;7-6;10) with similar levels of development in Korean language as bilingual children. In an act-out procedure, the children were asked to determine the agent in sentences composed of two nouns and a verb with varying conditions of three cues (case-marker, animacy, and word-order). The results revealed that both groups of children used the case marker cues as the strongest cue among the three. The bilingual children relied on case-marker cues even more than the monolingual children. However, the bilingual children used animacy cues significantly less than the monolingual children. There were no significant differences between the groups in the use of word-order cues. The bilingual children appeared less effective in utilizing animacy cues in Korean sentence comprehension due to the backward transfer from English where the cue strength of animacy is very weak. The influence of the second language on the development of the first language in bilingual children was discussed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.65-70
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• 2021

This paper proposes a method for designing a large recording script for open domain English speech synthesis. For read-aloud style text, 12 domains and 294 sub-domains were designed using text contained in five different news media publications. For conversational style text, 4 domains and 36 sub-domains were designed using movie subtitles. The final script consists of 43,013 sentences, 27,085 read-aloud style sentences, and 15,928 conversational style sentences, consisting of 549,683 tokens and 38,356 types. The completed script is analyzed using four criteria: word coverage (type coverage and token coverage), high-frequency vocabulary coverage, phonetic coverage (diphone coverage and triphone coverage), and readability. The type coverage of our script reaches 36.86% despite its low token coverage of 2.97%. The high-frequency vocabulary coverage of the script is 73.82%, and the diphone coverage and triphone coverage of the whole script is 86.70% and 38.92%, respectively. The average readability of whole sentences is 9.03. The results of analysis show that the proposed method is effective in producing a large recording script for English speech synthesis, demonstrating good coverage in terms of unique words, high-frequency vocabulary, phonetic units, and readability.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.591-609
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• 2024

In this study, preprocessings with all combinations were examined in terms of the effects on decreasing word number, shortening the duration of the process and the classification success in balanced and imbalanced datasets which were unbalanced in different ratios. The decreases in the word number and the processing time provided by preprocessings were interrelated. It was seen that more successful classifications were made with Turkish datasets and English datasets were affected more from the situation of whether the dataset is balanced or not. It was found out that the incorrect classifications, which are in the classes having few documents in highly imbalanced datasets, were made by assigning to the class close to the related class in terms of topic in Turkish datasets and to the class which have many documents in English datasets. In terms of average scores, the highest classification was obtained in Turkish datasets as follows: with not applying lowercase, applying stemming and removing stop words, and in English datasets as follows: with applying lowercase and stemming, removing stop words. Applying stemming was the most important preprocessing method which increases the success in Turkish datasets, whereas removing stop words in English datasets. The maximum scores revealed that feature selection, feature size and classifier are more effective than preprocessing in classification success. It was concluded that preprocessing is necessary for text classification because it shortens the processing time and can achieve high classification success, a preprocessing method does not have the same effect in all languages, and different preprocessing methods are more successful for different languages.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2017

This study examined how early bilingual children produce sounds in their two languages articulated with the same manner of articulation but at different places of articulation. English affricates are palato-alveolar and Korean affricates are alveolar. This study analyzed the frequencies of center of gravity (COG), spectral peak (SP), and the second formant (F2) of word-initial affricates in English and Korean produced by twenty-four early Korean-English bilingual children (aged 4 to 7), and compared them with those of monolingual counterparts in the two languages. If early Korean-English bilingual children produce palato-alveolar affricates in English and alveolar affricates in Korean, they may produce Korean affricates with higher COGs, SPs, and F2s than English affricates. The early Korean-English bilingual children at the age of 4 produced English and Korean affricates with similar COGs, SPs, and F2s, and the COGs, SPs, and F2s of their Korean affricates were similar to those of the Korean monolingual counterparts. However, the early bilingual children at the age of 5 to 7 had lower COGs and SPs for English affricates with higher F2s compared to Korean affricates, and the COGs, SPs, and F2s of their English affricates were similar to those of the English monolingual counterparts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.508-512
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• 2003

In 2000, the economy of Asia made a V-character type recovery from the currency and financial crisis in 1997. The increase in exports is assumed to be one of the causes. To negotiate with foreign countries, English must be indispensable in many cases. In this study, we investigated how English education is performed in East Asian countries while focusing on English textbooks. We metrically analyzed some textbooks used junior high schools and high school in Japan and Korea, and elementary schools in China and Singapore to compare them with U.S.A and U.K textbook. We investigated some characteristics of character-and word-appearance of English textbook using an exponential function. Moreover we derived the degree of difficulty far each material through the variety of words and their frequency on the basis of the required English vocabulary in Japanese junior high schools. As a result we could show at which level of U.S.A. or U.K the English textbooks used in East Asian countries are.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.17-20
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• 2005

The purpose of this project is to develop a device that can automatically measure pronunciation of English speech produced by Korean learners of English. Pronunciation proficiency will be measured largely in two areas; suprasegmental and segmental areas. In suprasegmental area, intonation and word stress will be traced and compared with those of native speakers by way of statistical methods using tilt parameters. Durations of phones are also examined to measure speakers' naturalness of their pronunciations. In doing so, statistical duration modelling from a large speech database using CART will be considered. For segmental measurement of pronunciation, acoustic probability of a phone, which is a byproduct when doing the forced alignment, will be a basis of scoring pronunciation accuracy of a phone. The final score will be a feedback to the learners to improve their pronunciation.