• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
• /
• v.1 no.3
• /
• pp.387-416
• /
• 2001

In an attempt to identify highly probable causes of poor EFL performances, certain intriguing data of 11 common errors collected from 23 university students' listening and reading for correction of a short conversation of three people, with a questionnaire regarding their knowledge of the situational context, were analysed and interpreted within a theoretical framework of consciousness and the intonation unit (Chafe 1974, 1980, 1994), compatible with some important philosophical and psychological theories. The results: situational understanding does not always guarantee good EFL performances; the 11 errors were not attributable to hearing problems; consciousness appropriate for literacy and formal schooling appeared to be the major cause, which was inappropriate for a communicative use of English. Re-shaping of consciousness was suggested, with a warning against the ‘grammar consciousness raising’ approach.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.31 no.7
• /
• pp.461-471
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to provide basic data for development of Korean teaching programs for immigrant women from multicultural families through the acoustic analysis of their prosodic phrasing and intonation pattern. The results showed that immigrant women showed some differences in most of the prosodic characteristics from a Korean women's group: Immigrant women realized the first word of a sentence in an intonational phrase while Korean women did in an accentual phrase. They also haven't yet correctly learned the tone type of the first of an accentual phrase which differs depending on the type of its first segment yet. As a result, they showed many diverse intonation patterns compared to Korean women. Furthermore, the immigrant women's groups showed some differences between them in a few prosodic characteristics. Philippine women, whose residence duration in Korea is relatively longer than that of Vietnamese women, were more similar to Korean women: Vietnamese women read a sentence with a larger number of intonational phrases than Philippine women did. And they realized sentence-final boundary tone of a yes-no question not only in 'H%' but also in 'HL%' while, like Korean women, Philippine women did only in 'H%'.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.41-53
• /
• 2020

A wh-phrase in an embedded sentence may have either an embedded or a matrix scope. Interpretation of a wh-phrase with a matrix scope has tended to be syntactically unacceptable unless the sentence reads with a wh-intonation. Previous studies have found two differences in prosodic characteristics between sentences with matrix and embedded scopes. Firstly, peak F0s in wh-phrases produced with an F0 compression wh-intonation are higher than those in indirect questions, and peak F0s in matrix verbs are lower than those in sentences with embedded scope. Secondly, a substantial F0 drop is found at the end of embedded sentences in indirect questions, whereas no F0 reduction at the same point is noticed in sentences with a matrix scope produced with a high plateau wh-intonation. However, these characteristics were not found in our experiment. This showed that a more compelling difference exists in the values obtained from subtraction between the peak F0s of each word (or a word plus an ending or case marker) and the F0s at the end of the word. Specifically, the gap between the peak F0 in a word composed with an embedded verb and the F0 at the end of the word, which is a complementizer in Korean, is large in embedded wh-scope sentences and low in matrix wh-scope sentences.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.319-338
• /
• 2003

The aim of this paper is to examine the sentence final tonal patterns of English wh-questions through phonetic experiments, based on Intonational Phonology, and to explain the meaning of the final phrase tones of English wh-questions. Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg (1990) suggested that it is pitch accents rather than boundary tones which play a crucial role in the meaning of a sentence, and that most of the general questions have H-H% tonal patterns in the sentence final. However, they could not explain why wh-questions had final falling tonal patterns (L-L%). While Bartels (1999) suggested that L phrase tone has the meaning of 'ASSERTION' and it could be applied to the explanation of the meaning of wh-questions' final tonal patterns. However, her suggestions are only theoretical explanation without any experimental support. In this paper, based on Bartels (1999), the data was classified into the following three classes: 1) echo wh-questions, 2) reference questions, and 3) common wh-questions. Using this data, a production test by three English native speakers was conducted. The results show that reference questions and common wh-questions have L phrase tones in the sentence final at a high rate, and echo wh-questions have H phrase tones in the sentence final at a high rate.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.21-31
• /
• 2001

The effects of focus on prosodic phrasing, F0, and duration are investigated paying attention not only to the target of focus but also to the constituents that are outside the domain of focus in Korean. We find that the constituents preceding and following the focused word tend to be dephrased. Dephrasing does not always cover up to the Intonation Phrase boundary contrary to Jun's (1993) claim. Dephrasing caused by focus determines F0 and durational difference between focused and neutral sentences. Syntactic constituency is also shown to playa role in prosodic phrasing.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2004.05a
• /
• pp.251-255
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of using songs for the acquisition of English Prosody in elementary school. For the purpose, 8 classes were chosen to teach songs for four months, and listening tests and reading test were performed for analyzing the effect. The result is as follows : (1) The result of listening test showed that the average scores of the experimental classes were higher than those of comparative classes, and it was more effective in lower grades than in upper grades. (2) In pronunciation tests, the pronunciations of experimental classes were more similar to native speaker's pronunciation that those of comparative classes in intonation, lexical stress and sentence stress. (3) Singing songs repeatedly is more important than learning many songs. It means that to give the chances to sing as many times as possible is advisable for teaching pronunciation.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.582-590
• /
• 2020

This paper aims to analyze and introduce the primary English curriculum of North Korea reformulated according to the New Educational Program. Sources for analysis are the 4th and 5th primary school English syllabus based on the New Educational Program, explanations of the New Educational Program appeared in People's Education and Kim, Jeong-Il's selected writings. The analytical sources are classified into characteristics, objectives, contents, methods and evaluation. The findings are as follows: The primary English education aims to reach to the basis of middle school English by learning English alphabets and basic English expressions. 4th graders learn basic oral English such as pronunciation, stress and intonation for the first semester and learn English alphabets and their sounds for the second semester. 5th graders learn familiar topics in English and repeatedly practice the important components of English such as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The method is to maintain students' interests in English and encourage students to use classroom English. Also, structural practice is an important part of the method. Evaluation is primarily process-oriented and must motivate students to excel in English rather than fail in English.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.21-35
• /
• 2007

This paper attempts to investigate phonetic substances of the stress patterns of English compounds and noun phrases, showing that the theoretically derived stress structures are not consistent with the accentual patterns in real utterances. Even though it has been long claimed that compounds have the stress pattern [1 3] and that noun phrases, [2 1] as in Chomsky & Halle (1968), their difference has not been yet explored empirically or phonetically. I present a phonetic experiment conducted to see if there is any difference along the tonal contours, mostly focusing on their pitch accent distribution. 36 different compounds and 36 different noun phrases included in carrier sentences were examined, and they were varied in position within a sentence. Results showed that various accentual patterns were produced, and among them, [H* X] predominantly occurs in all three positions in both compounds and noun phrases, whereas the patterns [X H*] and [X X] appear relatively more frequently in final position than in initial and medial position. Furthermore, the pattern [Ac + No], in which the preceding element is pitch-accented with no accent on the following one, is the major stress pattern in both compounds and noun phrases and in all three sentence positions. This suggests that there seems to be no difference in accentual patterns between compounds and noun phrases, which is not consistent with the hypothesis. The results are interpreted as saying that the preceding element alone tends to be prominent with no accent following it both in compounds and noun phrases, and that therefore, theoretically speculated phonological claims are not always phonetically supported.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.63-70
• /
• 2011

Recent studies on English $L^*$ (low pitch accent) have revealed the difference of changes in acoustic manifestation between utterances produced by Koreans and those produced by native speakers of English. However, not much effort has been made to compare $L^*$ focused constituents and non-focused constituents. At the same time, most previous works on focus realization are lacking in terms of normalization of acoustic measurement. Therefore, this research is dedicated to comparing the $L^*$ focused items and non-focused items realized by Koreans and Americans and to examining the realization of English $L^*$ produced by the two language groups with improved normalization of the acoustic features (F0, intensity and duration). Within-group analysis comparing focused words and non-focused words showed both Americans and Koreans prolonged the $L^*$ focused syllables but the effect size of syllable lengthening made by Koreans was far less than that made by Americans. Furthermore, significant F0 lowering was found in Americans but not in Koreans. However, the effect of intensity change caused by $L^*$ focus was not significant within each group. The effect of focused words was tested between the two groups revealing that Koreans implemented English $L^*$ focus with higher F0, lower intensity and shorter duration than Americans. In the instances in which a significant Group x Focus Location (initial, middle and final of a sentence) interaction was found, further analysis testing the effect of Group on each Focus Location was conducted. The testing showed that the Koreans produced shorter syllables at initial and middle of a sentence and higher F0 at initial of a sentence than Americans. Implications for the intonation training were also discussed.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.303-318
• /
• 2003

This paper attempts to investigate the tonal implementations of English stress clash, arguing that a preceding stress shifts leftward when two lexical stresses conflict across word boundaries or that H* and L* pitch accents are alternatively manifested on the stressed syllables, establishing intonational peak and valley contours. We claim that the H*/L* alternation might be a tonal strategy to avoid stress clash, and that pitch could be solely manipulated to display a rhythmic effect with maintaining lexical stress. In the experiment, we examined two-word combinations whose boundaries involve stress clash, and divided them into two categories. One has the preceding words involving a heavy syllable ahead of stress to guarantee the place for a shifting stress and the other, a light syllable, in which case stress shift is completely prevented. We analyzed the distribution of pitch accents in the word combinations, focusing on the pitch configurations in the cases where stress should not be shifted. Results show that approximately 50% of the stimuli show stress shift in the heavy syllable combinations of the preceding words; the preceding stress is moved leftward within the word. The other 50% and the light syllable combinations show various pitch accents patterns; H* and L* alternation, deaccentuation of either stressed syllable, or L-insertion between two H* pitch accents, etc. We interpret this as a rhythmic effect of tone to avoid stress clash and suggest that a true stress clash would be confined into cases without H*/L* contours.