• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.111-135
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• 2002

An annotation model of a non-native speech database has been devised, wherein English is the target language and Korean is the native language. The proposed annotation model features overt transcription of predictable linguistic information in native speech by the dictionary entry and several predefined types of error specification found in native language transfer. The proposed model is, in that sense, different from other previously explored annotation models in the literature, most of which are based on native speech. The validity of the newly proposed model is revealed in its consistent annotation of 1) salient linguistic features of English, 2) contrastive linguistic features of English and Korean, 3) actual errors reported in the literature, and 4) the newly collected data in this study. The annotation method in this model adopts the widely accepted conventions, Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) and the TOnes and Break Indices (ToBI). In the proposed annotation model, SAMPA is exclusively employed for segmental transcription and ToBI for prosodic transcription. The annotation of non-native speech is used to assess speaking ability for English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2021

While recent acoustic studies have reported associations of fronted sibilants (fricatives /s s⁎/ and affricates /tɕ tɕ⁎/) with gender in Seoul Korean, there have not been any studies examining the relationship of the variants with adult speakers' ages. The current study analyzes sibilant productions from 39 adult speakers born between 1942 and 2008 (19 females) in terms of spectral peak frequencies (SPFs) in frication, an acoustic index of place of articulation (POA). The results indicate some phonetic contexts where higher sibilant SPFs, i.e., fronter POAs, are associated with younger adults and those fronted variants are realized in a gender-differentiated manner -- tense affricates and word-initial tense fricatives before /i/ in the females' productions, and word-medial tense fricatives before /a/ in the males' productions. The findings confirm that the distributions of the fronted sibilants are accounted for not only by the speakers' gender but also by their ages, indicating that the fronted variants are innovative forms of realizing sibilants in Seoul Korean. In addition, the current results convincingly show that the fronted sibilant variants are not mere reflections of individuals' physiological differences since they are not observed across all of the examined phonetic contexts.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 1999.10e
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• pp.335-342
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• 1999

The experiments reported here investigated whether seeing a speaker's face (visible speech) affects the perception and memory of Korean speech sounds. In order to exclude the possibility of top-down, knowledge-based influences on perception and memory, the experiments tested people with no knowledge of Korean. The first experiment examined whether visible speech (Auditory and Visual - AV) assists English native speakers (with no knowledge of Korean) in the detection of a syllable within a Korean speech phrase. It was found that a syllable was more likely to be detected within a phrase when the participants could see the speaker's face. The second experiment investigated whether English native speakers' judgments about the duration of a Korean phrase would be affected by visible speech. It was found that in the AV condition participant's estimates of phrase duration were highly correlated with the actual durations whereas those in the AO condition were not. The results are discussed with respect to the benefits of communication with multimodal information and future applications.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1-8
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• 2023

This study investigates why Korean English speakers misunderstand the English article system, which article Korean EFL learners use more accurately in their English writings, and implications for English writing instruction from Korean EFL learners' utterances. There have been numerous studies on the acquisition of English article system by non-native English speakers. Those studies agree that acquiring English articles is difficult for learners of English as a second language. As a result, in this study, many English learners use the definite and indefinite articles a/an. Many wrote articles from their writings, and occasionally, errors of excessive use of definite articles occurred. Through this, this paper investigates how a Korean English learner whose native language has no articles chooses the English article system in speech. It is based on the elicited production of the Korean English learner and suggests some implications for teaching English writing in the classroom. When English instructors teach Korean English learners to write English, it is more important than anything else to practice the correct usage of definite articles or indefinite articles.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.169-172
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary data on the acoustical differences of one syllable words spoken by speakers with different language backgrounds. 20 native speakers of Korean and English were asked to read 7 one-syllable words written in their native language. The phonetic and phonemic characteristics of 7 words were similar between two languages. The ratio of duration of the body (onset+nucleus) and the rhyme(nucleus+coda) relative to the duration of each syllable were calculated using CSL (Computerized Speech Laboratory). The results corresponds to the body-coda structure of the Korean syllable which is supported by the recent experimental psychological studies. More acoustic studies on the Korean syllable structure are required to establish clinical foundation for the phonological awareness and the reading intervention programs.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.169-172
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• 2002

English is one of the stress-timed languages and has much more dynamic rhythm, stress and the tendency toward the isochronism of stressed syllables. It goes with various English utterance restructuring, irrespective of the pauses by syntactic boundaries, and post-lexically phonological phenomena. Specifically in the real speech acts, the natural utterances of fluent speakers or the broadcasting speech cause much more various English restructuring and phonological phenomena. This has been an obstacle for students in speaking fluent English and understanding normal speech. Therefore, this study tried to focus the most problematic factor in English speaking and listening difficulty on English restructuring and post-lexically phonological phenomena caused by stress-timed rhythm and, second, to point out the importance of teaching English rhythm bearing that in mind.

• 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.17 no.2
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• pp.59-77
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• 2011

In recent years, as many native English speakers are working in Asia to as English teachers, team teaching with local teachers has been commonly implemented within the Korean EFL classroom. Using qualitative case studies, this paper aims to explore native English-speaking teachers' (NESTs) perceptions of team teaching and their challenges at different secondary Korean schools. The study documents the challenges faced by three foreign teachers embedded in intercultural teaching teams. The data shows that common challenges include vague role distribution among teachers, problems presented by mixed levels of students, large classes, and students' low valuation during foreign teacher's classes, which go ungraded. The study calls for serious governmental efforts to change these fundamental problems and closely examine local factors that strongly affect team teaching practices before initiating a system of importing foreign teachers without proper preparation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.23-29
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• 2019

This study acoustically examines the quality of fricatives produced by ten dysarthric speakers with cerebral palsy. Previous similar studies tend to focus only on sibilants, but to obtain a better understanding of how dysarthria affects fricatives we selected a range of samples with different places of articulation and voicing. The Universal Access (UA) Speech database was used to select thirteen words beginning with one of the English fricatives (/f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ð/). The following four measurements were taken for both dysarthric and healthy speakers: phoneme duration, mean spectral peak, variance and skewness. Results show that even speakers with mild dysarthria have significantly longer fricatives and a lower mean spectral peak than healthy speakers. Furthermore, mean spectral peak and variance showed significant group effects for both healthy and dysarthric speakers. Mean spectral peak and variance was also useful for discriminating several places of articulation for both groups. Lastly, spectral measurements displayed important group differences when taking severity into account. These findings show that in general there is a degradation in the production of fricatives for dysarthric speakers, but difference will depend on the severity of dysarthria along with the type of measurement taken.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.61-81
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• 2004

This paper will look at some grammatical phenomena which will illustrate some of the questions that can be addressed with a corpus-based approach. We will use this approach to investigate the following subjects in English grammar: number ambiguity, subject-verb concord, concord with measure expressions, and (reflexive) pronoun choice in coordinated noun phrases. We will emphasize the distinctive features of the corpus-based approach, particularly its strengths in investigating language use, as opposed to traditional descriptions or prescriptions of structure in English grammar. This paper will show that a corpus-based approach has made it possible to conduct new kinds of investigations into grammar in use and to expand the scope of earlier investigations. Native speakers rarely have accurate information about frequency of use. A large representative corpus (i.e., The British National Corpus) is one of the most reliable sources of frequency information. It is important to base an analysis of language on real data rather than intuition. Any description of grammar is more complete and accurate if it is based on a body of real data.