• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.93-106
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• 2001

The pronunciation of English l and r was a consistent problem in learning English in Korea as well as Japan. This problem occurs from the fact that in Korea and Japan there is only one liquid sound. Substituting the Korean liquid for English l and r was a common error. The pronunciation of the dark l causes a further problem in pronouncing the English l sound. To see the relationship between the English l, r, and the Korean liquid sound, an electropalatographic (EPG) experiment was done. The findings were (1) there were no tongue contacts either on the alveolar ridge or on the palate during the articulation of the dark l. (2) The Korean liquid sound was different in the tongue contact points either from English l or r. The English clear l consistently touched the alveolar ridge in the forty tokens, but the Korean liquid sound in the intervocalic and word-final position touched mainly the alveopalatal area. The English r touched exclusively the velum area. The Korean intervocalic /l/ was similar to English flap in EPG and spectrographic data. There was evidence that the word-final Korean /l/ is a lateral.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2022

The English word-final /rl/ cluster poses a particular problem for Korean learners of English because it is the sequence of two sounds, /r/ and /l/, which are not contrastive in Korean. This study compared the similarity distances between English and Korean speakers' /rl/ productions using the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm. The words with /rl/ (pearl, world) and without /rl/ (bird, word) were recorded by four English speakers and four Korean speakers, and compared pairwise. The F2-F1 trajectories, the acoustic correlate of velarized /l/, and F3 trajectories, the acoustic correlate of /r/, were examined. Formant analysis showed that English speakers lowered F2-F1 values toward the end of a word, unlike Korean speakers, suggesting the absence of /l/ in Korean speakers. In contrast, there was no significant difference in F3 values. Mixed-effects regression analyses of the DTW distances revealed that Korean speakers produced /r/ similarly to English speakers but failed to produce the velarized /l/ in /rl/ clusters.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to examine the English l sound in an English short story produced by 16 Korean students in order to determine various allophones of the sound using acoustic visual displays and perceptual judgments. The subjects read the story in a quiet office at normal speed. Each word included the lateral sound in onset or coda positions and before a vowel of the following word. Results showed as follows: Firstly, there was a durational difference between the two major groups. Also the majority of the subjects produced the clear l regardless of the contexts. Some students produced the sound as the Korean flap or the English glide [r]. A few missing cases were also seen. The dark l was mostly produced by the subjects of English majors in coda position with a few cases before a vowel in a phrase. Visual displays using the computer analysis were very helpful in distinguishing lateral variants but sometimes perceptual process would be necessary to judge them in fast and weak production of the target word. Further studies would be desirable to test the discrepancies between the acoustical and perceptual decisions.

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