• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.19-34
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• 1998

The author collected and compared midsagittal, coronal, coronal oblique, and transversal images of Korean monophthongs /a, i, e, o, u, i, v/ produced by a healthy male speaker using 1.5 T MR, VISION. Area was measured by computer software after tracing the cross-section at different points along the tract. Results showed that the width of the oral and pharyngeal cavities varied compensatorily from each other on the midsagittal dimension. Formant frequency values estimated from the area functions of the seven vowels showed a strong correlation (r=0.978) with those analyzed from the spoken vowels. Moreover, almost all of 35 students who listened to the synthesized vowels from area data perceived the synthesized vowels as equivalent to the spoken ones. Movement of constriction points of vowel /u/ with wider lip opening sounded /i/ and led to slight changes in vowel quality. Jaw and tongue movement led to major volume variation with an anatomical limitation. Each comer vowel varied systematically from a somewhat constant volume of the average area. Thus, the author proposed that any simulation studies related to vocal tract area variation should reflect its constant volume. The results may be helpful to verify exact measurement of the vocal tract area through vowel synthesis and a simulation study before having any operation of the vocal tract.

• Proceedings of the KSLP Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.170-173
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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, /$\jmath$:/ bawd, /u/ put, /u:/ boot /$\Lambda$/ but, and /$\partial$/ about /$\Im$:ll$\Im$:r/ bird. 2) Diphthongs : /aI/ in bite, /au/ bout, /$\jmath$I/ boy, /$\Im$ullou/ boat, /er/ bait, /e$\partial$lle$\partial$r/ air, /u$\partial$llu$\partial$r/ poor, /i$\partial$lli$\partial$r/ 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.3 no.3
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• pp.77-88
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• 2011

Foreign accent in second language production depends heavily on the transfer of features from the first language. This study examines acoustic variations in segments and suprasegments by native and nonnative speakers of English, searching for patterns of the transfer and plausible indexes of foreign accent in English. The acoustic variations are analyzed with recorded read speech by 20 native English speakers and 50 Korean learners of English, in terms of vowel formants, vowel duration, and syllabic variation induced by stress. The results show that the acoustic measurements of vowel formants and vowel and syllable durations display difference between native speakers and nonnative speakers. The difference is robust in the production of lax vowels, diphthongs, and stressed syllables, namely the English-specific features. L1 transfer on L2 specification is found both at the segmental levels and at the suprasegmental levels. The transfer levels measured as groups and individuals further show a continuum of divergence from the native-like target. Overall, the eldest group, students who are in the graduate schools, shows more native-like patterns, suggesting weaker foreign accent in English, whereas the high school students tend to involve larger deviation from the native speakers' patterns. Individual results show interdependence between segmental transfer and prosodic transfer, and correlation with self-reported proficiency levels. Additionally, experience factors in English such as length of English study and length of residence in English speaking countries are further discussed as factors to explain the acoustic variation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.77-82
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• 2022

Hunminjeongeum was made by the Great King Sejong, and composed of 17 consonant and 11 vowel letters. All the 28 letters were made according to the shape of vocal organ or space at the point of articulation for each letters. This review article focused on phonetic and phoniatric consideration for explanation of the designs of the middle vowel letters, especially three main vowel letters [ • (天, heaven), ㅡ (地, earth), ㅣ (人, human)] using video-fluoroscopic evaluation as well as computed tomography scanning, etc. During articulating / • / sound, a ball-like space at frontal portion of the oral cavity was found, tongue was contracted, and sound was deep (舌縮而聲深). During /ㅡ/ sound, a flat air space between oral tongue and hard palate was created. Tongue was slightly contacted neither deep nor shallow (舌小縮而聲不深不淺). During /ㅣ/ sound, tongue was not contacted and Sound is light (舌不縮而聲淺). Tongue was moved forward making longitudinal oro-pharyngeal air space. So, I'd like to suggest that we had better change the explanation drawing from a philosophical modeling to a more scientific modeling from real vocal tract space modeling during articulating middle vowels of Hunminjeongeum.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.53-58
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to compare the first two vowel formants of the stressed and unstressed English vowels produced by ten young males (in their twenties and thirties) and ten old males (in their forties or fifties) from the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech. The results indicate that the stressed and unstressed vowels, /i/ and $/{\ae}/$ in particular, from the two groups are different in their formant frequencies. In addition, the vowel space of the unstressed vowels is somewhat smaller than that of the stressed vowels. Specifically, the range of the second formant of the unstressed vowels and that of the first formant of the unstressed front vowels were compressed. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation training for the Korean learners of English vowels. We propose that teachers of English pay attention to the stress patterns of English vowels as well as their formant frequencies.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of vowel type on the nasalance score. Twenty one male adults without VPI produced 5 types of vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) in two conditions-normal and simulated VPI condition. Nasalance scores were measured for each vowel. These data were compared between conditions and among vowel types. The results were as follow : For all vowels, nasalance scores were significantly higher in simulated VPI condition than in normal condition. The two conditions yielded different patterns in terms of the degree of nasalance across the 5 vowels. In normal condition, nasalance scores were higher in front vowels than in medial or back vowels. But in simulated VPI condition, nasalance scores were higher in high vowels than in mid or low vowels.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.495-503
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Korean speakers produce English vowels. Twenty one Korean learners produced the vowels [i, ɪ, eɪ, ɛ, æ, ɑ, ʌ, ɔ, oʊ, ʊ, u] in bVt or pVt forms of real words. Acoustic measurements were conducted for the vowel formant frequencies (F1, F2) and duration. Results showed that Korean learners tended to produce the vowel duration longer than native English speakers. Also, the front vowels produced by Korean participants tended to be produced at the more frontal part of the tongue. In addition, Korean participants distinguished the tense and lax pairs not through quality(F1, F2) but through vowel duration. This is different from the native English speakers in that they differentiate tense and lax pairs by quality(F1, F2) as well as vowel duration. Based on these results, pedagogical implications are discussed.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.133-145
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• 2006

In order to understand the various groups' perceptual pattern in both VCV trochee and iambus, this study examined the identification correctness and cue robustness for the unit intervals in light of background language, age, and English listening ability. The 4 groups of Native Speakers of English, Korean College Students of High Listening Achievement, Korean College Students of Low Listening Achievement, and Korean Elementary Students took part in the experiments. Tokens of $/d{\ae}per,\;d{\ae}per,\;d{\ae}per,\;d{\ae}per,\;d{\ae}per,\;d{\ae}per$ in trochee and of $/{\eth}{\partial}\;p{\ae}d,\;{\eth}{\partial}\;b{\ae}d,\;{\eth}{\partial}\;t{\ae}d,\;{\eth}{\partial}\;d{\ae}d,\;{\eth}{\partial}\;k{\ae}d,\;{\eth}{\partial}\;g{\ae}d/$ in iambus were extracted and modified into experimental signals composed of two digits(voiced-1, voiceless-0) by following the temporal intervals, in which the signals consisted of preceding vowel, closure, VOT, and post-vowel. In the first experiment of identification correctness in VCV iambus environment, all groups showed almost 100% correctness rate, while in trochee environment all groups were different(native speaker 87%, college high 74%, college low 70%, elementary 65%). In the second experiment of cue robustness, all groups showed the similar perceptual pattern in both environments. There was the order of robustness cues in VCV trochee: pre-vowel ${\gg}$ closure ${\gg}$ VOT ${\gg}$ post-vowel, while the order in VCV iambus: VOT ${\gg}$ post-vowel ${\gg}$ closure ${\gg}$ pre-vowel. In some condition, however, we found moderately different perceptual pattern depending on language, age and listening level.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate how deaf parents influence the speech sounds of their normal-hearing children. Twenty four normal hearing children of deaf adults (CODA) and normal hearing parents (NORMAL) aged 3 to 4 participated in the study. The F1, F2, and the vowel triangle area in 7 vowels and the voice onset times (VOTs) and closure durations in 9 stops were measured. The results of the study are as follows. First, the F1 and F2 for all vowels were higher and the vowel triangle area was larger in CODA than in NORMAL although they were not statistically significant. Second, VOTs in $C_{stop}V$ for $/t^*/$ and in $VC_{stop}V$ for $/t^*/$, $/t^h/$, and $/k^h/$ were longer in CODA than in NORMAL. Most stops in CODA appeared to be longer VOTs for most phonemes. Third, the manner and place of articulation in stops did not make a difference between CODA and NORMAL in VOTs and closed durations. CODA does not demonstrate the speech characteristics of deaf people, however, they seem to speak differently than NORMAL, which means CODA might be influenced by a different linguistic environment created by deaf parents in some way.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.79-88
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• 2015

English vowels are difficult to teach and learn because both teachers and learners cannot show or see shapes of vocal tract inside their own mouth cavities. The aim of this study is to examine what kind of changes occur in production and perception of English vowels by college students before and after lessons in order to provide fundamental materials for teaching students English vowels. Fifteen volunteer female students attending an English phonetics course participated in the lessons for one and half a month period. Formant values of vowels produced and perceived before and after the lessons were obtained using Flying Popcorn and Praat. Results showed that a produced vowel space after the lessons was greater than that before the lessons with no significant difference. Distances between some adjacent corner vowels were too close to be distinguished. Secondly, perceived vowels before and after the lessons were almost the same. Here again, some adjacent vowels were closely spaced. Thirdly, three groups which were divided by the length of the distance between the vowel /i-${\ae}$/ showed similar patterns in their perception and production. Generally the vowel space expanded from [u] to [${\ae}$]. The author concluded that there was no drastic improvement of vowel perception and production within a short period of time. Further studies would be desirable to examine how successful any long-term English vowel lessons would be and which methods should be taken to evaluate students' achievements proposed here.