• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.9-21
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• 2021

This study investigated whether Korean learners improve acoustic cue weights to identify Korean lenis and aspirated stops in the direction of native values through perception training that focused on contrasting the stops in various phonetic contexts. Nineteen native Chinese learners of Korean and two native Korean instructors for the perception training participated in the experiment. A training group and a non-training group were divided according to pretest results, and only the training group participated in the training for 5 days. To estimate the perceptual weights of the stop cues, a pretest and a posttest were conducted with stimuli whose stop cues (F0 and VOT) were systematically manipulated. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed on each learner's test results to calculate perceptual β coefficients, which estimate the perceptual weights of the acoustic cues used in identifying the stop contrast. The training group showed a statistically significant increase of 0.451 on average in the posttest for the coefficient values of the F0, which is the primary cue for the stop contrast, whereas the non-training group showed an insignificant increase of 0.246. The patterns of change in the F0 use after training varied considerably among individual learners.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.7-18
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• 2008

The purpose of the present study is to test whether VOT values of the Korean plain stops in intervocalic position are encoded differently by individual speakers. In Scobbie (2006), the VOT values to the /p/-/b/ voicing contrast in Shetland Isles English were found to demonstrate a high degree of inter-speaker variation. More importantly such variation was not arbitrary: first, there was an inverse relationship between the amount of prevoicing for /b/ and the duration of aspiration for /p/. Second, the inter-speaker variation was shown to be similar between the subjects and their parents. These results suggest that the phonetic targets for VOT are specified in fine detail by speakers. The present study further explores this issue in terms of testing 1) whether the likelihood and the amount of voicing for the intervocalic plain stops in Korean show inter-speaker variation; 2) whether the likelihood and the exact amount of voicing for the intervocalic plain stops in Korean are closely related to the amount of aspiration for the Korean intervocalic aspirated stops. The results of the study suggest that the voicing of intervocalic plain stops in Korean varied according to the individual speakers, but it did not seem to be directly interrelated with the amount of aspiration of the aspirated stop sin the same phonological position.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.47-52
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• 2014

This study investigated how the degree of attention modulates English learners' perception of Korean stop contrasts. The contributions of VOT and F0 in perceiving Korean stops were examined while availability of attentional resources was manipulated using a dual-task paradigm. Results demonstrated the attentional modulation in the use of VOT, but not in F0: under less attention, the contribution of VOT to the perception of aspirated stops decreased, whereas that of lenis stops increased, which suggests more native-like performance. This implies that the role of attention in perceiving non-native contrasts might differ depending on how equivalent the acoustic and perceptual cues are between L1 and target L2 contrasts.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.131-142
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• 2002

Place assimilation in Korean has been argued to reflect the consonantal strength hierarchy in which velar is stronger than labial which is in turn stronger than coronal. The strength relationship has been manifested in two ways in literature. One is through phonological representation as shown in Iverson and Lee (1994). The other is through perceptual salience ranking as suggested by Jun (1995). The goal of this study is to examine the perceptual salience of placed consonants through an identification experiment. The experiment conducted in this study reveals four facts. First, place identification of a prevocalic consonant is higher than that of a postvocalic one. Second, place identification of a stop in coda is more confusable than that of a nasal counterpart in Korean contrary to other previous studies. Third, velar is most confusable in place identification in contrast to Jun (1995) and Hume et al. (1999). Finally, place perception of consonants can vary depending on adjacent vocalic context. These results suggest that perceptual salience is one of the possibly several factors affecting a phonological process.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2023

This study investigated acoustic (VOT) and articulatory characteristics of Korean velar stops in monosyllabic CV structures to examine how the three-way distinction is realized in the laryngeal and supralaryngeal domains and how the distinction is manifested in male versus female speakers' speech production. EMA data were collected from 22 speakers. In line with previous studies, male speakers preserved the three-way differentiation of velar stops (/k^*/</k/</k^h/) in terms of VOT while female speakers showed only a two-way distinction (/k^*/</k/=/k^h/). As for the kinematic characteristics, a clear three-way distinction was found only in male speakers' peak velocity measure in the C-to-V opening movement (/k^h/</k/</k^*/). For the other kinematic measures (i.e., articulatory closure duration, deceleration duration of the opening movement and the entire opening movement duration), male speakers showed only a two-way distinction between fortis and the other two stops. Female speakers did not show a three-way contrast in any kinematic measure. They showed a two-way distinction between lenis and the other two stops in C-to-V deceleration duration (/k^*/=/k^h/</k/), and a two-way distinction between fortis and lenis stops in the opening movement duration. An overall comparison of VOT and articulatory analyses revealed that the lenis-aspirated kinematic distinction is diminishing, driven by female speakers, in line with the loss of the lenis-aspirated distinction in VOT that could influence supralaryngeal articulation.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-27
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• 2010

By taking the form of a fictional autobiography, a Japanese American woman writer Lydia Minatoya tries to solve the inexpressible confliction which Japanese Americans experience in their living in America. In her first published fiction, Talking to High Monks in the Snow, the writer faithfully tries to follow the Japanese I-story tradition where meandering of personal petit histories and frequent self-pities are constructed without solid action, characters and plot. Here appear many accidental others whom function as significant yet fleeting subalterns. In contrast, in the second fiction, The Strangeness of Beauty published seven years later, the I-narratives undergoes some drastic transformations by authorial intrusion, dramatic and haiku styles, and appearances of actorial agents. Just working as an invisible yet important stagehand (kuroko in Japanese) behind the stage of life, the author now handles her own self-inquiry through more controllable distance and maturity as directors or photographers often do. However, despite achieving dramatic actions and artistic elegance mainly thanks to her adoption of western masterpieces's grand narratives, Minatoya seems to stop in the midway in her tallying work of fiction with fact by delaying the larger imaginable conflict through which the temporarily gained autonomy can be turned into a disaster anytime. Nonetheless, the reader feels relieved and encouraged after recognizing the fragile Asian female self's transformation as a new, flexible and autonomous self by her unwavering contact with two contrasting cultures and providing silent minority female characters with gradually stronger and uncannier voices.