• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.189-192
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• 2005

This study investigates the asymmetry effect between acoustics and perception. The examined cues are closure duration, closure voicing, VOT, release, pre-vowel duration, post-vowel duration. Five native speakers of English and 30 Korean college students participated in the present study. The results showed that high level Korean English learners parallels native speakers in their responses, while mid and low level Korean learners are substantially different from natives.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.3-12
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• 2012

The primary goal of the current study was to examine category solidity of Korean alveolar fricatives in the Busan and Seoul dialects of Korean. Considering the common belief of $/s^h/-/s^*/$ neutralization in Kyungsang speech, plain $/s^h/$ and fortis $/s^*/$ fricatives of Busan speakers were examined against the same fricatives of Seoul speakers. Perceptual distance between Korean $/s^h/$ and $/s^*/$ on the one hand and English /s/ on the other was investigated by use of across-linguistic mapping method. Two experiments of a perceptual mapping task of English /s/ to Korean $/s^h/$ and $/s^*/$ and a $/s^*/$-production task were conducted on users of the Busan and Seoul dialects of Korean. The results from the perception and production experiments suggested that at a micro-level, younger Busan speakers have less solid category stability for Korean $/s^*/$ compared with Seoul speakers, although their production of $/s^h/$ and $/s^*/$ was as highly distinctive from each other as that of Seoul speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2014

This study investigates twenty four Korean females' production of English front vowels focusing on the distinction in /i/ vs /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vs /${\ae}$/ and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels compared with those of native English speakers. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes ten sentences including target vowels. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean learners have trouble producing a distinct version (tense and lax) of front vowels in the paragraph reading; (2) The vowel space of the stressed vowels in a paragraph is smaller than that of embedded sentences; and (3) The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the Korean learners is similar to that of the native English speakers. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation teaching for the Korean learners of English vowels and realization of English stress.

• MALSORI
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• no.60
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• pp.47-66
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• 2006

This study examined the effect of English-language experience on Korean- and Japanese-English late learners' production of English unstressed vowels in terms of four acoustic phonetic features: F0, duration, intensity and vowel reduction. The learners manifested some improvement with experience. The native-like attainment of a phonetic feature, however, was related to the phonological status of that feature in the speakers' native language. The results suggest that the extent to which the non-native speakers' production of English unstressed vowels improved with English-language experience varied as a function of their native language background.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.479-496
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• 2012

English is an important tool of information literacy in terms of global information sharing environment. This impacts readers advisory services of public libraries in many ways. In order to identify status of English reading programs in public libraries, this paper investigated 50 public librarries' services for non-English speakers in California, which has long history serving readers advisory services to them. As a result, it is suggested that public libraries have to play a key role to help adult users to be competent in English with English reading programs. Public libraries also need to support families to build English reading environment at home to expand reading activities in libraries. In addition, reading habit in mother tongue is also important for English reading ability, so public libraries consider to build a bridge between them to provide effective English reading programs.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.11-20
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• 2016

It is well known that vowels are shorter before voiceless consonants than voiced ones in English, as in many other languages. Research has shown that the ratio of vowel durations in voiced and voiceless contexts in English is in the range of 0.6~0.8. However, little work has been done as to whether the ratio of vowel durations varies depending on English variety. In the production experiment in this paper, seven speakers from three varieties of English, New Zealand, British, and American English, read 30 pairs of (C)VC monosyllabic words which differ in coda voicing (e.g. beat-bead). Vowel height, phonemic vowel length, and consonant manner were varied as well. As expected, vowel-shortening effects were found in all varieties: vowels were shorter before voiceless than before voiced codas. Overall vowel duration was the longest in American English and the shortest in New Zealand (NZ) English. In particular, vowel duration before voiceless codas is the shortest in New Zealand English, indicating the most radical degree of shortening in this variety. As a result, the ratio of vowel durations in varying voicing contexts is the lowest in NZ English, while American and British English do not show a significant difference each other. In addition, consonant closure duration was examined. Whereas NZ speakers show the shortest vowel duration before a voiceless coda, their voiceless consonants have the longest closure duration, which suggest an inverse relationship between vowel duration and closure duration.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.73-79
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• 2003

There are more than five systems for transcribing English vowels. Because of this diversity, teachers of English and students are confronted with not a little problems with the English vowel symbols used in the English-Korean dictionaries, English text books, books for Phonetics and Phonology. This study was designed to suggest criterions for the phonemic transcription of English vowels on the basis of phonetic properties of the vowels and a system of English vowel transcription based on the criterions in order to minimize the problems with inter-system differences. A speaker (phonetician) of RP English uttered a series of isolated minimal pairs containing the vowels in question. The suggested vowel symbols are as follows: (1) Simple vowels: /i:/ in beat, /I/ bit, /$\varepsilon$/ bet, /${\ae}$ bat, /a:/ father, /Dlla/ bod, /c:/ bawd, /$\upsilon$ put, /u:/ boot /$\Lambda$/ but, and /e/ about /$\varepsilon:ll3:r$/ bird. (2) Diphthongs: /aI/ in bite, /a$\upsilon$/ bout, /cI/ boy, /3$\upsilon$llo$\upsilon$/ boat, /eI/ bait, /eelleer/ air, /uelluer/ poor, /iellier/ beer. Where two symbols are shown corresponding to the vowel in a single word, the first is appropriate for most speakers of British English and the second for most speakers of American English.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2009

An emphasis on teaching suprasegmental features of English, specifically English rhythm, is essential in order to improve the 'intelligibility' of the pronunciation of Korean EFL learners among interlocutors who use English as a Lingua Franca(ELF). By redefining the ELF suggested by Jenkins (2000, 2002), this paper argues that Lingua Franca Core (LFC) must include suprasegmental features such as 'stress-based rhythm' and word stress. However, because 'isochrony' is difficult to measure in a foot, the rhythm unit must be expanded to an intonational phrase which has prominence in it and the rhythm of the unit can be measured by calculating the duration of each segment in context The rhythmic pattern of Korean learners of English and that of native speakers or other non-native English speakers can then be calculated and compared by using correlation coefficients of the segmental duration. In terms of sociolinguistic factors, improving the 'comprehensibility' and 'accentedness' of Korean EFL learners' pronunciation is also important in international communication, which calls for more emphasis on suprasegmental features.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-87
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• 2005

In this study I investigate how native Korean listeners perceive English vowels /i/, /I/, and /$\epsilon$/. I extend Flege et al's (1997) study with synthesized /i/-/I/ and /I/-/$\epsilon$/ continua, and apply the results to Flege's (1995) Speech Learning Model (SLM). The statistical results show that native speakers of English rely more on spectral steps than on vowel duration when they identify the /i/-/I/ continuum, whereas native speakers of Korean rely more on vowel duration than on spectral steps when they identify the same continuum. In the case of the /I/-/$\epsilon$/ continuum, both groups rely on spectral steps when they identify the /$\epsilon$/, which supports the SLM; Koreans identified the /$\epsilon$/ categorically since Korean has the equivalent vowel. However, there was not statistical difference between Korean subjects with more English experience (KE) and those with less English experience in the identification of both continua. This contradicts the SLM, which posits that experienced L2 learners are better than inexperienced L2 learners in perception of L2 sounds. The exact nature of this should be further investigated in the SLM.