• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.45-52
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to measure the first two vowel formants of the ten young female speakers from the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech [1] automatically and then to analyze various potential factors that may affect the formant distribution of the eight peripheral vowels of English. The factors that were analyzed included the place of articulation, the content versus function word information, the syllabic stress information, the location in a word, the location in an utterance, the speech rate of the three consecutive words, and the word frequency in the corpus. The results indicate that the overall formant patterns of the female speakers were similar to those of earlier works. The effects of the factors on the realization of the two formants were also similar to those from the male speakers with minor differences.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.55-64
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• 2015

Previous research on syntactic processing shows that the interpretation of a syntactically ambiguous sentence is frequently strongly biased towards one meaning over another. The current study investigated the effect of bias strength on the production of disambiguating prosody for English ambiguous sentences. In Experiment 1, 40 speakers gave default readings of 18 syntactically ambiguous sentences. Questioning was used to prove intended meanings behind default readings. Intended meanings were treated as interpretation biases when a majority of speakers read a sentence with the same intended meaning. The size of the majority was used to establish bias strength. In Experiment 2, 10 speakers were instructed to use prosody to disambiguate given alternate meanings of the sentences from Experiment 1. The results indicated an effect of bias strength on disambiguating prosody: speakers used temporal juncture cues to reliably disambiguate alternate meanings for sentences with a weak interpretation bias, but not for those with a strong bias. Overall, the results indicated that interpretation biases strongly affect the production of prosody.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.169-172
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary data on the acoustical differences of one syllable words spoken by speakers with different language backgrounds. 20 native speakers of Korean and English were asked to read 7 one-syllable words written in their native language. The phonetic and phonemic characteristics of 7 words were similar between two languages. The ratio of duration of the body (onset+nucleus) and the rhyme(nucleus+coda) relative to the duration of each syllable were calculated using CSL (Computerized Speech Laboratory). The results corresponds to the body-coda structure of the Korean syllable which is supported by the recent experimental psychological studies. More acoustic studies on the Korean syllable structure are required to establish clinical foundation for the phonological awareness and the reading intervention programs.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 1999.10e
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• pp.335-342
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• 1999

The experiments reported here investigated whether seeing a speaker's face (visible speech) affects the perception and memory of Korean speech sounds. In order to exclude the possibility of top-down, knowledge-based influences on perception and memory, the experiments tested people with no knowledge of Korean. The first experiment examined whether visible speech (Auditory and Visual - AV) assists English native speakers (with no knowledge of Korean) in the detection of a syllable within a Korean speech phrase. It was found that a syllable was more likely to be detected within a phrase when the participants could see the speaker's face. The second experiment investigated whether English native speakers' judgments about the duration of a Korean phrase would be affected by visible speech. It was found that in the AV condition participant's estimates of phrase duration were highly correlated with the actual durations whereas those in the AO condition were not. The results are discussed with respect to the benefits of communication with multimodal information and future applications.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.71-74
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• 2003

In this paper, we present some of experimental results developed in computer-based English Pronunciation Correction System for Korean speakers. The aim of the system is to detect incorrectly pronounced phonemes in spoken words and to give correction comment to users. Speech data were collected from 254 native speakers and 411 Koreans, then used for phoneme modeling and test. We built two types of acoustic phoneme models: native speaker model and Korean speaker model. We also built langugage models to reflect Koreans' commonly occurred mispronunications. The detection rate was over 90% in insertion/deletion/replacement of phonemes, but we got under 75% detection rate in diphthong split and accents.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.353-363
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• 2000

The consonant system of English is relatively uniform throughout the English-speaking countries. Accents of English are mainly known to differ in terms of their vowel systems as well as in the phonetic realisations of vowel phonemes. The results of an acoustic study of vowel phonology of Japanese English, Singapore English and Indian English are presented, and an attempt is then made to compare the vowel phonology of these non-native varieties with that of Scottish English and RP. Various native varieties of English are thus shown to differ from each other in major ways, as much, perhaps, as the non-native varieties differ from the native varieties. Nevertheless, native speakers of English appear to be mutually intelligible to a degree that does not extend to non-native varieties. Obviously there are features that various native accents have in common which facilitate their mutual intelligibility, and these features are not shared by non-native accents. It is proposed that the foreign learner adopt certain core features of English in his pronunciation if he is to use English effectively as an international language. The common core that is significant in the communication process will be discussed. In conclusion, some pragmatic implications for the English language education in the new millennium will be articulated.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.261-265
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to improve English communicative competence of elementary school students through an acoustic study For this purpose, this study investigates various postlexical phenomena which can be applied to utterence contents in elementary school English book and analyzes the application of postlexical phenomena through the spectrogram when native speakers and elementary school students speak English. The speech materials were seven sentences which contained various postlexical phenomena. This leads to the conclusion that knowing and pronouncing postlexical phenomena of English is needed for improving English communicative competence successfully.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.4
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• pp.207-228
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• 1998

This study investigated how Korean learners of English acquired the English reflexives. There is emphasis on the effects of the GCP and PAP(Wexler and Manzini, 1987). The purpose is to examine the major hypothesis that L2 learners are still constrained by Universal Grammar (UG), despite the influence of the parameter setting of their native language as well as the non-operation of the Subset Principle. The experimental group consisted of 30 middle school students (age 14-15), 30 high school students (age 16-17), and 30 university students (age 18-19) as well as 20 ESL students (age 16) studying English in the USA. Twenty native speakers of English served as a control group. The subjects responded to a test on reflexives that used a multiple-choice grammaticality judgement task. Findings show that L2 learners transfer their L1 parameter setting and, as a result, make errors in the choice of antecedents for reflexives. Therefore, I argue that the L2 learner is still constrained by UG.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.53-80
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• 2011

The study examines how Koreans' politeness is realized in a speech act, request. The main focus is to explore underlying rationale and influence involved in their performance, not just the comparison of difference in politeness realization between native and nonnative speakers of English, as previous studies did. The study employs the DCT, an attached politeness scale questionnaire, and interviews. Twenty nine university students participated in the study. Interchangeable reading of the three data yields some interesting and valuable insights. The participants heavily rely on a few formulaic expressions to express politeness, such as interrogatives with modal verbs, please and excuse me as a politeness marker. They want to use honorific address terms that is literally translated into English, and have a belief that there are honorific words in English as in Korean. The study refers to the participants' voice on indirectness, nonverbal messages, and expressions with different connotations between English and Korean.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.353-380
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to analyze the preconceptions Korean EFL learners have about team teaching in the field of English education at a secondary level. Team teaching is a method of teaching where a Korean English teacher works in co-junction with a native English speaker. Generally speaking, when we discuss teaching methods for a foreign language, the most important objective is to improve our communication skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect on communication skills when team teaching is employed, and to find ways to maximize the benefit when team teaching. The underlying issues are; firstly, what are the precedent conditions for team teaching? Secondly, what are the best teaching methods and preparations for teaching materials for improving the effectiveness of team teaching? Third, how do the programs for team teaching with native teachers assist in improving the student's communication skills? Ideally, this study will assist in overcoming the fear that foreign language learners have when communicating with real native speakers.