• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2024

This study investigated the variation in the intonation of Seoul Korean interjection ani across different meanings ("no" and "really?") and speech levels (Intimate and Polite) using data from Korean Intonation Corpus (KICo). The investigation was conducted in two stages. First, IP-final tones in the dataset were categorized according to the K-ToBI convention (Jun, 2000). While significant relationships were observed between the meaning of ani and its IP-final tones, substantial overlap between groups was notable. Second, the F0 characteristics of the final syllable of ani were analyzed to elucidate the apparent many-to-many relationships between intonation and meaning/speech level. Results indicated that these seemingly overlapping relationships could be significantly distinguished. Overall, this study advocates for a deeper analysis of phonetic intonation beyond ToBI-based categorical labels. By examining the F0 characteristics of the IP-final syllable, previously unclear connections between meaning/speech level and intonation become more comprehensible. Although ToBI remains a valuable tool and framework for studying intonation, it is imperative to explore beyond these categories to grasp the "distinctiveness" of intonation, thereby enriching our understanding of prosody.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.542-547
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• 1996

Prosodic characteristics of natural speech, especially intonation, in many cases represent specific feelings of the speaker at the time of the utterance, with relatively vast variations of speaking styles over the same text. We analyzed a collected speech corpus, recorded with ten Slovene speakers. Interpretation of observed intonation contours was done for the purpose of modelling the intonation contour in synthesis process. We devised a scheme for modeling the intonation contour for different types of intonation units based on the results of analyzing intonation contours. The intonation scheme uses a superpositional approach, which defines the intonation contour as the sum of global (intonation unit) and local (accented syllables or syntactic boundaries) components. Near-to-natural intonation contour was obtained by rules, using only the text of the utterance as input.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 1997

The differences in French Intonation between French and Korean learners can be applied to French intonation education. One native French speaker and three native Korean speakers who learned French language at High school were selected for this study. The subjects spoke test phrases based on the different syntactic structures. High-Speed speech Analysis system(RILP) was used for this experiment. The different intonation curves were showed at the end of phrase and at the beginning of phrase between French and Korean learners. At the end of phrases, French intonation appeared to have increasing and decending pitch contours in the case of wh-question, exclamation and finality. However, Korean learner's intonation showed only increasing pitch contours. At the beginning of phrase, French intonation shows decending pitch contours in the case of minor continuation and command. In contrast, Korean learner's intonation appeared to have increasing pitch contours. The new intonation training system using PC can have great effect on education of French as a second language.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.243-257
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• 2001

In English textbooks, there are three kinds of English intonation representations: Trager & Smith's, Weak-strong, Audio-lingual way. Each representation has its merits and demerits. Therefore, just one of them is insufficient to represent English intonation properly. Trager & Smith's representation is relevant to show holistic intonation itself. In contrast to this merit, it is not appropriate to represent downstep, declination, etc. With Weak-strong, it is good to show weak and strong point in the sentence. It is not, however, consistent with intonation. Instead of these representations, some textbooks accept Audio-lingual method. Audio-lingual method gives students more chances to hear native speakers' intonations. But it doesn't give ways to understand English intonation itself. In English textbooks, they don't have any hierarchies dependent upon students' proficiency. In spite of various intonations, they just accept a few limited intonation models. Thus, it is necessary to review all kinds of intonation representations and to develop more advanced and relevant English intonation representation.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.95-108
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• 2009

One of the learning difficulties for Korean learners of English is the intonation of English focused yes/no questions. Focused words in English yes/no questions are realized as low pitch accents which contrast with high pitch accents in Korean counterparts. In order to improve Korean students' intonation, direct and metalinguistic explanations on the intonation of English focused yes/no questions were given to Korean learners of English. In pre-tests and post-tests, students' perceptions on the target items were measured. The study results showed that phonetic explanation using intonation contour enhanced students' perception on English intonation. With respect to the position of focused words, sentence initial and medial focused questions were more difficult than sentence final focused questions. The perception was most improved in sentence initial focused questions. The study showed the immediate effects of the explicit instruction on perceptions of English intonation.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 1998

This paper investigates the phatic function of intonation in Russian by recording and analysing 11 female native speakers of standard Moscow Russian. This paper shows that differences in intonation pattern of a sentence are associated with differences in degree of listener's involvement in the speech. Intonation pattern of an utterance having phatic function appears to be determined by 1) the speaker's readiness to talk to evoke the listener's attention ; 2) the speaker's intention to continue the communication. Some emphasis is placed on the relationship between intonation pattern of an utterance and speaker-listener interaction.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2011

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the viability of employing the intonation exaggeration technique proposed in [4] in teaching English prosody to university students. Fifty-six female university students, twenty-two in a control group and the other thirty-four in an experimental group, participated in a teaching experiment as part of their regular coursework for a five-and-a-half week period. For the study material of the experimental group, a set of utterances was synthesized whose intonation contours had been exaggerated whereas the control group was given the same set without any intonation modification. Recordings from both before and after the teaching experiment were made and one sentence set was chosen for analysis. The parameters analyzed were the pitch range, words containing the highest and lowest pitch points, and the 3-dimensional comparison of the three prosodic features [2]. An AXB and subjective rating test were also performed along with a qualitative screening of the individual intonation contours. The results showed that the experimental group performed slightly better in that their intonation contour was more similar to that of the model native speaker's utterance. This appears to suggest that the intonation exaggeration technique can be employed in teaching English prosody to students.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.63-71
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• 2003

This study aims to experiment on learning French intonation, based on the visualization of melody, which was employed in the early sixties to reeducate those with communication disorders. The visualization of melody in this paper, however, was used to the foreign language learning and produced successful results in many ways, especially in learning foreign intonation. In this paper, we used the PitchWorks to visualize some French intonation samples and experiment on learning intonation based on the bitmap picture projected on a screen. The students could see the melody curve while listening to the sentences. We could observe great achievement on the part of the students in learning intonations, as verified by the result of this experiment. The students were much more motivated in learning and showed greater improvement in recognizing intonation contour than just learning by hearing. But lack of animation in the bitmap file could make the experiment nothing but a boring pattern practices. It would be better if we can use a sound analyser, as like for instance a PitchWorks, which is designed to analyse the pitch, since the students can actually see their own fluctuating intonation visualized on the screen.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.119-132
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate the intonation of Korean speakers in English sentence adverbials. The intonation of English sentence adverbials is realized by its syntactic and semantic meaning. Many Korean speakers realize falling or stylized high-rising intonation instead of fall-rising in attitudinal adverbials. In addition, Korean students don't realize deaccenting in likelihood adverbials. These results suggest that the intonation patterns in current English textbooks are not sufficient for English intonation education at school.

• MALSORI
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• no.35_36
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• pp.157-173
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• 1998

This is a pilot study on applying the Rise/Fall/connection(RFC) model to Korean intonation tot speech synthesis. RFC model contains successive intonation events, which can be pitch accents and intonation boundary tones. The intonation contour of RFC model is composed of piecewise linear curves of rise, fall, and connection elements, and each element can have any amplitude and duration. In this paper, elements of RFC model is slightly modified to accommodate the characteristics of Korean intonation. Subjective preference test was conducted to compare the modified RFC model with the original one. The results show that the intonation contour produced by the modified RFC model is perceptually indistinguishable from that of the original RFC model, while the former requires less number of labels than the latter.