• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.109-113
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• 2007

Second language learners' variable degree of production difficulty according to the cluster type has previously been accounted for in terms of sonority distance between adjacent segments. As an alternative to this previous model, I propose a Phonetically Based Consonant Cluster Acquisition Model (PCCAM) in which consonant cluster markedness is defined based on the articulatory and perceptual factors associated with each consonant sequence. The validity of PCCAM has been tested through Korean speakers' production of English consonant clusters.

• MALSORI
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• no.42
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• pp.37-46
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• 2001

Recently speech technologies have shown notable advancements and they now play major roles in computer-aided language learning systems. In the current paper, use of speech recognition technologies is viewed with our system for teaching English pronunciation to Japanese speakers.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.17-28
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• 2000

Recently speech technologies have shown notable advancements and they now play major roles in computer-aided language learning systems. In the current paper, use of speech recognition technologies is viewed with our system for teaching English pronunciation to Japanese speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

The vowel /o/ in Seoul Korean has been undergoing a sound change by altering the acoustic weighting of F2 and F1. Studies documented that this on-going change redefined the nature of a /o/-/u/ contrast as F2 differences rather than as F1 differences. The current study examined two cognitive factors namely executive function capacity (EF) and autistic traits, in terms of their roles in explaining who in speech community would adapt new acoustic forms of the target vowels, and who would retain the old forms. The participants, 55 college students speaking Seoul Korean, produced /o/ and /u/ vowels in isolated words; and completed three EF tasks (Digit N-Back, Stroop, and Trail-Making Task), and an Autism screening questionnaire. The relationships between speakers' cognitive task scores and their utilizations of F1 and F2 were analyzed using a series of correlation tests. Results yielded a meaningful relationship in participants' EF scores interacting with gender. Among the females, speakers with higher EF scores were better at retaining F1, which is a less informative cue for females since they utilized F2 more than they did F1 in realizing /o/ and /u/. In contrast, better EF control among male speakers was associated with more use of the new cue (F2) where males still utilized F1 as much as F2 in the production of /o/ and /u/ vowels. Taken together, individual differences in acoustic realization can be explained by individuals' cognitive abilities, and their progress in the sound change further predicts that cognitive ability influences the utilization of acoustic information which is non-primary to the speaker.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.25-32
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• 2017

Besides their effect on the f0 contour of the following vowel, Korean stops are undergoing a sound change in which a partial or complete consonantal merger on voice onset time (VOT) is taking place between aspirated and lax stops. Many previous studies on sound change have mainly focused on group-normative effects, that is, effects that are representative of the population as a whole. Few systematic quantitative studies of change in adult individuals have been carried out. The current study examines whether the sound change holds for individual speakers. It focuses on inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability on sound change in contemporary Korean. Speech data were collected for thirteen Seoul Korean speakers studying abroad in America. In order to minimize the possible effects of speech production, socio-phonetic factors such as age, gender, dialect, speech rate, and L2 exposure period were controlled when recruiting participants. The results showed that, for nine out of thirteen speakers, the consonantal merger is taking place between the aspirated and lax stop in terms of VOT. There were also intra-speaker variations on the merger in three aspects: First, is the consonantal (VOT) merger between the two stops is in progress or not? Second, are VOTs for aspirated stops getting shorter or not (i.e., the aspirated-shortening process)? Third, are VOTs for lax stops getting longer or not (i.e., the lax-lengthening process)? The results of remarkable inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability indicate a synchronous speech sound change of the stop system in contemporary Korean. Some speakers are early adopters or active propagators of sound change whereas others are not. Further study is necessary to see whether the inter-speaker differences exceed intra-speaker differences in sound change.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.1-24
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• 2000

Listening comprehension is an integrative and creative process of interaction through which listeners receive speakers' production of linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge. Compared with reading comprehension, it may arouse difficulties and thus impose more burdens on foreign learners. The Audio-Lingual Method focused primarily on speaking. Mimicry, repetition, rote memory, and transformation drills actually interfered with listening comprehension. So learners lost interest and were not highly motivated. Improving listening comprehension requires continual attentiveness and interest. Listening skill can be extended systematically only when students are frequently exposed to a wide range of listening materials with an affective, cultural, social, and psycholinguistic approach. Therefore, teachers should help students learn how to comprehend intactly the overall meaning of intended messages. The literature on teaching listening skill suggests various useful activities: TPR, dictation, role playing, singing, picture recognition, completion, prediction, seeking specific information, summarizing, labeling, humor, jokes, cartoons, media, and so on. Practical classroom teaching necessitates a systematic procedure in which students should take part in meaningful tasks/activities. In addition to this, learners must practice listening comprehension trough a self-study process.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• spring
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• pp.317-320
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• 2000

본 논문은 영어 모국어 화자(남, 여)들이 발성한 영어 모음 12개를 가지고 모음의 길이와 포만트 값(Fl, F2)을 측정하고, 인지실험에 사용할 시료를 만들어 원광대학교 학부생을 대상으로 음성학 수강반 학생 90명, 비 수강반 64명 두 그룹으로 나누어 총 154명을 대상으로 인지실험(Identification test)를 실시하였다. 인지실험결과 음성학 수강반 학생들의 모음인지율이 비 수강반 학생들 보다 대체적으로 좋았으며, 여자화자의 모음인지율이 남자화자의 인지율보다 대체적으로 높았다. 학생들의 인지율 가장 좋은 모음은 hayed, hard였으며, 인지율이 가장 낮은 모음은 head, had 등이였다.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2002

Linguistically, 'Focus' is the element which includes new or unpresupposed information. It is usually signalled by prosodic prominence called the 'pitch accent'. The purpose of this study is to observe the realization of the focal accent in VP-ellipsis, especially, to affect the meaning recovery of elided VP. Asher (1999) gave evidence that focal stress should be on the higher verb and the AUX in order to recover the elided VP to the lower one. In this paper, the systematic patterning of focal accent to decide the elided meaning in VP-ellipsis is to be observed. The realization of focal accent by English native speakers is set as the criteria for the meaning recovery of the elided VP and is compared to Koreans'. Moreover, the focal accents of Koreans are observed and compared with respect to their English proficiency levels.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2015

The purpose of this paper is to extract the vowel formants of the ten adult male speakers in their twenties and thirties from the Korean Corpus of Spontaneous Speech [4], also known as the Seoul corpus, and to analyze them by comparing to earlier works on the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech [1] in terms of the various linguistic factors that are expected to affect the formant distribution. The vowels extracted from the Korean corpus were also compared to those of the read Korean. The results showed that the distribution of the vowel formants from the Korean corpus was very different from that of read Korean speech. The comparison with English corpus and read English speech showed similar patterns. The factors affecting the Korean vowel formants were the interviewer sex, the location of the target vowel or the syllable containing it with respect to the phrasal word or utterance and the speech rate of the surrounding words.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 2018

The vowel/consonant ratio is a well-known cue for the voicing of postvocalic consonants. This study investigates how this ratio changes as a function of speaking rate. Seven speakers of North American English read sentences containing target monosyllabic words that contrasted in coda voicing at three different speaking rates. Duration measures were taken for the voice onset time (VOT) of the onset consonant, the vowel, and the coda. The results show that the durations of the onset VOT and vowel are longer before voiced codas, and that the durations of all segments increase monotonically as speaking rate decreases. Importantly, the vowel/consonant ratio, a primary acoustic cue for coda voicing, was found to pattern asymmetrically for voiced and voiceless codas; it increases for voiced codas but decreases for voiceless codas with the decrease in speaking rate. This finding suggests that there is no stable ratio in the duration of preconsonantal vowels that is maintained in different speaking styles.