• MALSORI
• /
• no.48
• /
• pp.127-139
• /
• 2003

An automatic pronunciation correction system provides learners with correction guidelines for each mispronunciation. In this paper we propose an HMM based speech recognizer which automatically classifies pronunciation errors when Korean speak Japanese. For this purpose we also develop phoneme recognizers for Korean and Japanese. Experimental results show that the machine scores of the proposed recognizer correlate with expert ratings well.

• MALSORI
• /
• no.65
• /
• pp.13-36
• /
• 2008

This paper attempts to analyze the characteristics of Korean vowel production by 12 Korean native speakers and 36 adult learners. The analyses have been performed with investigations of F1and F2 values. Results showed that there's no significant difference between /ㅔ/ and /H/ and between /ㅗ/ and /ㅜ/ in Korean native speakers' pronunciations. The distinguishing tendencies found in the analyses of foreign learners' pronunciations are fronting and lowering of /ㅗ/ by English speakers, backing and heightening of /ㅓ/ by Japanese speakers and backing and lowering of /ㅏ/ by Chinese speakers. For the limitations of this paper, it has a meaning of a preliminary study and could be developed into further research to show the order of acquisition and L1 transference.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.39-56
• /
• 2005

This study is a small-scale replication study of Kubota (1998). Kubota discovered that L1 rhetoric was not the main cause of L2 writing problems. The conclusion of Kubota's study was in contrast to that of contrastive rhetoric research that claimed that the use of L1 rhetorical styles in L2 writing negatively affects the quality of L2 writing, in particular, at the organizational level. According to Kubota(1998), the use of Japanese rhetorical styles did not deteriorate the quality of English writing. By investigating Korean ESL learners, this replication study examined whether L1 and L2 writings have the same rhetorical styles and how L1 rhetorical styles affect the L2 writing quality. The study analyzed Korean and English persuasive writings written by 12 Korean ESL learners in terms of organization. The results show that Korean learners of English used different rhetorical styles in their L1 Korean writing and L2 English writing. However, there was a positive relationship between L1 Korean and L2 English organization scores.

• Journal of Korean language education
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.49-78
• /
• 2017

This study aims to analyze the effect of attitudes of Korean residents in Japan towards learning the Korean language and their motivational intensity on their Korean proficiency. Data for this study came from a survey on language use of Korean residents in Japan which was conducted in 2016, and questionnaire items referred to language attitude, language use and the degree of understanding language; language use; language learning and Korean ethnic identity. The main results are as follows. First, there were significant differences in Korean language proficiency depending on age, education levels and generation. Second, the control for socio-demographic characteristics, the influence of attitudes towards Korean language on Korean proficiency was statistically significant. However, Korean proficiency was not significantly influenced by motivational intensity. Lastly, moderated effects of immigrant generation in the relation between Korean language attitudes and Korean proficiency were significant. Therefore, the effect of Korean language attitudes on Korean proficiency was more influential on second and third generation Korean-Japanese learners than first generation Korean-Japanese learners. Based on these results, this study suggests that in order to promote Korean language education for Korean residents in Japan, it is required to build positive attitudes toward Korean language, and to consider immigrant generation as a major factor.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.45-52
• /
• 2018

This study investigates the effect of Japanese (L1) on the production of the Korean rhythmic structure. Korean and Japanese have typologically different rhythmic structure as a syllable-timed language and mora-timed language, respectively. This rhythmic difference comes from the different phonological properties of the two languages. Due to this difference, Japanese speakers that are learning Korean may produce a different rhythm than native Korean speakers' rhythm. To investigate the influence of the native language's rhythm on the target language, we conducted an acoustic analysis using acoustic metrics such as %V, VarcoV, and VarcoS. Four Korean native speakers and ten advanced Japanese Korean learners participated in a production test. The analyzed material consisted of six Korean sentences that contained various syllable structures. The results showed that KS and JS's rhythms are different in %V as well as in VarcoV. In the case of VarcoS, significant rhythmic difference was observed in the VC and CVC syllable, in which the coda segment is nasal sound. This study allowed us to observe the influence of L1 on production of L2 rhythm.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2018

Stressed vowels in English are usually produced using longer duration, higher pitch, and greater intensity than unstressed vowels. However, many English as a foreign language (EFL) learners have difficulty producing English lexical stress because their mother tongues do not have such features. In order to investigate if certain non-native English speakers (Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese-Chinese native speakers) are able to produce English lexical stress in a native-like manner, speech samples were extracted from the L2 learners' corpus known as AESOP (the Asian English Speech cOrpus Project). Sixteen disyllabic words were analyzed in terms of the ratio of duration, pitch, and intensity. The results demonstrate that non-native English speakers are able to produce English stress in a similar way to native English speakers, and all speakers (both native and non-native) show a tendency to use duration as the strongest cue in producing stress. The results also show that the duration ratio of native English speakers was significantly higher than that of non-native speakers, indicating that native speakers produce a bigger difference in duration between stressed and unstressed vowels.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.149-154
• /
• 1996

Since the 1980s, a number of professionals in the ESL/EFL field have investigated the role of pronunciation in the ESL/EFL curriculum. Applying the insights gained from the second language acquisition research, these efforts have focused on the integration of pronunciation teaching and learning into the communicative curriculum, with a shift towards overall intelligibility as the primary goal of pronunciation teaching and learning. The present study reports on the efficacy of audio-visual aids and hyper-pronunciation training method in teaching the productions of English consonants to Japanese college students. The talk will focus on the implications of the present study, and the presenter makes suggestions to teaching pronunciation to Japanese learners.

• Journal of Korean language education
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.1-36
• /
• 2017

This study investigated the correlation between learners' psychological and social factors and their syntactic complexity of speaking. The study collected samples of Korean spoken production of 61 learners with English, Chinese, Japanese and other L1 backgrounds and applied mini-TOPIK, mini-AMTB, and SASIQ for 70 minutes. The study found that: (i) integrative motivation showed positive correlation with a number of simple complex clauses, but instrumental motivation correlated negatively with a number of adverbial clauses, indicating that high motivation hindered producing highly complex clauses although it triggered producing simple complex clauses, (ii) social contact with L2 native speakers showed positive correlation with general L2 development and a number of simple complex clauses, but revealed negative correlation with double or triple complex clauses, (iii) hours of L2 listening showed very strong positive correlation with producing triple complex clauses and general proficiency, but indicated negative correlation with a number of simple complex clauses. The study reported that high motivation toward Korean learning and active social activities with Korean native speakers helped produce simple complex clauses while hours of listening to Korean helped produce triple complex clauses.

• Journal of Korean language education
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.123-159
• /
• 2012

This study investigates relationships between TOPIK ratings and measures of grammaticality judgement competence in the acquisition of Korean as a second language. Data were collected on the linguistic abilities of learners' at 3 to 6 on the TOPIK scale, focusing on perception in grammar-mostly morphology and syntax, some lexis, and a few of collocation. The results show that (i) proficiency and grammaticality judgement competence show high correlation, (ii) individual accuracy scores correlate strongly with levels on the TOPIK proficiency scale on most linguistic features in the test, and (iii) Japanese speakers outperform Chinese speakers at the same levels of proficiency on most linguistic features. The findings indicate that global proficiency scales like the TOPIK can be deconstructed using grammaticality judgement test that provides detailed measures of learners' control of linguistic features.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.7-16
• /
• 2000

It is a great honour for me to speak to you today on the Korean's problems in learning English pronunciation. First of all I would like to thank Prof. H. B. Lee, President of the Phonetic Society of Korea for calling upon me to make a keynote speech at this International Conference on Phonetic Sciences. The year before last when the 1 st Joint Summit on English Phonetics was held at Aichi Gakuin University in Japan, the warm hospitality given to me and my colleagues by the English Phonetic Society of Japan was so great that I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the English Phonetic Society of Japan and especially to Prof. Masaki Tsuzuki, President of the Society. Korean learners of English have a lot of problems in learning English pronunciation. Some vowel problems seem to be shared by Japanese learners but other problems, especially in consonants, are peculiar to Koreans owing to the nature of phonological rules peculiar to the Korean language. Of course, there are other important problems like speech rhythm and intonation besides vowels and consonants. But they will not be included here because of limited time.