• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-63
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• 2008

This paper examined the acoustic differences in English speech production between English native speakers and Korean learners. Korean speakers seem to produce errors by over-applying the Korean phonological rules(nasalization and lateralization) to English speech under the conditions comparable to those of Korean which contain nasal+lateral or lateral+nasal sequences. Being based on this prediction, the experimental data is grouped into three sets, [n]+[l] sequence, [l]+[n]sequence, and [m]+[l] sequence. The result shows that, Korean speakers usually nasalize or lateralize the target words or phrases in every three categories while English natives don't. In set A([n]+[l] sequence), both nasalization and lateralization were found in [n]+[l] sequence, the same circumstances where both nasalization and lateralization can be placed as in Korean. In the case of set B([l]+[n] sequence), only lateralization is observed. It is because the nasalization never occurs in the sequence of l-n in Korean. There is no lateralization in set C([m]+[l] sequence), because only nasalization occurs in the sequence of m-l in Korean. This results reconfirmed that the nasalization and lateralization rules in Korean deeply influence on the English production data. Korean speakers need to be taught not to over-apply Korean phonological rule to English production for accurate pronunciation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.53-68
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• 2012

This study investigated the speech intelligibility of Korean-accented and native English focus speech for Korean and native English listeners. Three different types of focus in English, broad, narrow and contrastive, were naturally induced in semantically optimal dialogues. Seven high and seven low proficiency Korean speakers and seven native speakers participated in recording the stimuli with another native speaker. Fifteen listeners from each of Korean high & low proficiency and native groups judged audio signals of focus sentences. Results showed that Korean listeners were more accurate at identifying the focal prominence for Korean speakers' narrow focus speech than that of native speakers, and this suggests that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit-talker (ISIB-T) held true for narrow focus regardless of Korean speakers' and listeners' proficiency. However, Korean listeners did not outperform native listeners for Korean speakers' production of narrow focus, which did not support for the ISIB-listener (L). Broad and contrastive focus speech did not provide evidence for either the ISIB-T or ISIB-L. These findings are explained by the interlanguage shared by Korean speakers and listeners where they have established more L1-like common phonetic features and phonological representations. Once semantically and syntactically interpreted in a higher level processing in Korean narrow focus speech, the narrow focus was phonetically realized in a more intelligible way to Korean listeners due to the interlanguage. This may elicit ISIB. However, Korean speakers did not appear to make complete semantic/syntactic access to either broad or contrastive focus, which might lead to detrimental effects on lower level phonetic outputs in top-down processing. This is, therefore, attributed to the fact that Korean listeners did not take advantage over native listeners for Korean talkers and vice versa.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-49
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• 2022

This study examines crosslinguistic influence on the use of concessive conditionals by Japanese EFL learners. Contrastive analysis suggests that Japanese native speakers may overuse the concessive conditional even if due to partial similarities to Japanese concessive conditionals, whose formal and semantic restrictions are fewer than those of English concessive conditionals. This hypothesis is tested using data from the written module of the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). Comparison of Japanese native speakers with English native speakers and Chinese native speakers reveals the following trends. First, Japanese native speakers tend to overuse concessive conditionals compared to native speakers, while similar overuse is not observed in Chinese native speaker data. Second, non-nativelike uses of even if appear in contexts allowing the use of concessive conditionals in Japanese. Third, while overuse and infelicitous use of even if is observed at all proficiency levels, formal errors are restricted to learners at lower proficiency levels. These findings suggest that crosslinguistic influence does occur in the use of concessive conditionals, and that its particular realization is affected by L2 proficiency, with formal crosslinguistic influence mediated at an earlier stage than semantic cross-linguistic influence.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.19-28
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• 2022

The current study was designed to explore whether taking English pronunciation classes could improve the realization of English rhythm by Korean learners of English. Specifically, this study used various rhythm metrics to examine the extent to which the learners' speech became rhythmically similar to the target language after taking classes that focused on English pronunciation. Sixteen learners who took a 15-week English pronunciation course at a university read an English passage twice (at the beginning and the end of the semester). The rhythm metrics such as Deltas, Varcos, and Pairwise Variability Indices were calculated for the learners' speech, as well as that of 8 native speakers of English. The results demonstrated that the learners' speech was slower, and they put more frequent within-sentence pauses than the native speakers even after the classes. The analyses also indicated that the speech recorded at the beginning of the semester was rhythmically much more different from the target language than at the end of the semester. After the classes, however, the learners' consonantal intervals became much more target-like, while the vocalic intervals were rhythmically even further from those in the target language. Overall, the findings suggested that the pronunciation classes helped the learners to produce English speech that was rhythmically similar to the native speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.7-27
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• 2006

This study explored the discrimination of synthesized English vowel pairs by twenty-seven American and Korean, male and female listeners. The average formant values of nine monophthongs produced by ten American English male speakers were employed to synthesize the vowels. Then, subjects were instructed explicitly to respond to AX discrimination tasks in which the standard vowel was followed by another one with the increment or decrement of the original formant values. The highest and lowest formant values of the same vowel quality were collected and compared to examine patterns of vowel discrimination. Results showed that the American and Korean groups discriminated the vowel pairs almost identically and their center formant frequency values of the high and low boundary fell almost exactly on those of the standards. In addition, the acceptable range of the same vowel quality was similar among the language and gender groups. The acceptable thresholds of each vowel formed oval to maintain perceptual contrast from adjacent vowels. The results suggested that nonnative speakers with high English proficiency could match native speakers' performance in discriminating vowel pairs with a shorter inter-stimulus interval. Pedagogical implications of those findings are discussed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.125-141
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• 2002

This paper examines the pragmatic features of the thanking and apologizing moves which appear in requestive email of Korean speakers of English as a foreign language and American English native speakers. It is important for second language learners to behave appropriately in a target language when communicating with other English speakers who have different cultural backgrounds. The result of this study revealed the differences in the use of thanking and apologizing moves in the requestive email between Koreans and Americans. Koreans used fewer moves of thanking and more moves of apologizing than Americans in three different situations. Koreans' underuse of thanking which is a routine and formulaic expression for Americans could be a marked phenomenon to a recipient of the email in English bringing about a minus effect.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.81-87
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• 2019

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the realization of speech rhythm in English as spoken by Korean learners of English. The study particularly aims to examine the rhythm metrics of English read speech by learners who speak Busan or the South Kyungsang dialect of Korean. Twenty-four learners whose L1 is Busan Korean and eight native speakers of English read a passage wherein five sentences were segmented and labeled as vocalic and intervocalic intervals. Various rhythm metrics such as %V, Varcos, and Pairwise Variability Indexes (PVIs) were calculated. The results show that Korean learners read English sentences with significantly more vocalic and consonantal intervals at a slower speech rate than native English speakers. The analyses of rhythm metrics revealed that when the speech rate was not normalized, Korean learners' English showed more variability in the length of consonantal and vocalic intervals. However, speech-rate-normalized rhythm metrics for vocalic intervals indicated that Korean learners transferred their L1 rhythmic structures (a syllable-timed language) into their L2 speech (a stress-timed language). Overall, the results suggest that Korean learners' English reflects the rhythmic characteristics of their L1. The effect of the learners' L1 dialect on the realization of L2 speech rhythm is also speculated.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.75-83
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• 2012

The aims of this study were three. First, to examine the degree of deviation from dictionary prescribed symbols and actual speech made by American English speakers. Second, to measure the frequency of vowel and consonant production of American English speakers. And third, to investigate gender differences in the segmental sounds in a speech corpus. The Buckeye Speech Corpus was recorded by forty American male and female subjects for one hour per subject. The vowels and consonants in both the phonemic and phonetic transcriptions were extracted from the original files of the corpus and their frequencies were obtained using codes of a free software R. Results were as follows: Firstly, the American English speakers produced a reduced number of vowels and consonants in daily conversation. The reduction rate from the dictionary transcriptions to the actual transcriptions was around 38.2%. Secondly, the American English speakers used more front high and back low vowels while three-fourths of the consonants accounted for stops, fricatives, and nasals. This indicates that the segmental inventory has nonlinear frequency distribution in the speech corpus. Thirdly, the two gender groups produced vowels and consonants similarly even though there were a few noticeable differences in their speech. From these results we propose that English teachers consider pronunciation education reflecting the actual speech sounds and that linguists find a way to establish unmarked segmentals from speech corpora.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.335-357
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• 2007

This study aims to investigate the pragmatic features of Korean EFL learners' interlanguage in the communicative act of complaining. Since a complaint, by its nature, is likely to cause offence, thereby threatening the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer, making a complaint in a polite manner is of crucial importance in maintaining harmonious social relationships. However, very little research has been carried out on the complaint speech act performances of Korean EFL learners. In particular, studies which attempt to examine the effect of social status on the choice of complaint speech act strategies are rare. The present study compared the complaint speech act performances of Korean EFL learners and those of native speakers of English with respect to social status. 24 Korean EFL learners and 28 native speakers of English participated and the data were collected via a Discourse Completion Test. The findings revealed that Korean EFL learners differed from native English speakers in the use of complaint strategies. These results indicate that Korean EFL learners lack certain important skills necessary to make complaints appropriately, suggesting the need for the foreign language learners to develop a more extensive pragmatic knowledge of complaint strategies.

• MALSORI
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• no.57
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• pp.1-14
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• 2006

This study examines personal factors that affect Korean speakers' English pronunciation. Personal factors which are examined here are as follows: personality type, cognitive system, motivational orientation type, interest in English, how often they listen to tapes, and academic achievements. Data were collected through MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) Test, Group Embedded Figural Test, and a Questionnaire. The participants consisted of 65 college students. All the results were statistically analyzed: Korean students' personality type and cognitive system are not related with their pronunciation, but motivational orientation type, how often they listen to tapes, academic achievements, and interest in English study are correlated with their pronunciation.