• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.171-184
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• 2001

American English vowels and Korean vowels were compared by the plotformant method. For American English vowels, six General American English speakers pronounced English words in the b_t environment. For Korean vowels eight Kyongsang dialect speakers and eight Seoul dialect speakers pronounced Korean words in the environments of k_t, p_t and t_t. The formant plots were obtained by plotting F1/F2 tokens of 13 American English vowels on the F1xF2 plane. In spite of personal variations the 13 vowel spaces of all six American English speakers maintained their relative positions with some overlaps. Clear distinctions were made between i-I, e-$\varepsilon$, u-$\sigma$, and o-c. The domain of c and $\alpha$ overlapped for three American English speakers, but it did not for three other speakers. The 8 Korean vowel spaces of Kyongsang dialect speakers and Seoul dialect speakers were very similar and maintained their relative positions. No distinction was made between e and $\varepsilon$. In contrast with American English e which is a neutral vowel, Korean e was a back vowel. The comparison of 13 American English vowel positions and 8 Korean Vowel positions is expected to shed some light on the errors of English vowel pronunciation of Korean learners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.99-107
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to examine the relative distances among English front vowels in a message produced by 47 Korean and American speakers in order to better instruct pronunciation skills of English vowels for Korean English learners. A Praat script was developed to collect the first and second formant values(F1 and F2) of eight words in each sound file which was recorded from an internet speech archive. Then, the Euclidean distances were measured between the three vowel pairs: [i-ɛ], [i-ɪ], and [ɛ-æ]. The first vowel pair [i-ɛ] was set as the reference from which the relative distances of the other two vowel pairs were measured in percent in order to compare the vowel sounds among speakers of different vocal tract lengths. Results show that F1 values of the front vowels produced by the Korean and American speakers increased from the high front vowel to the low front vowel wih differences among the groups. The Korean speakers generally produced the front vowels with smaller jaw openings than the American speakers did. Secondly, the relative distance of the high front vowel pair [i-ɪ] showed a significant difference between the Korean and American speakers while that of the low front vowel pair [ɛ-æ] showed a non-significant difference. Finally, the Korean speakers in the higher proficiency level produced front vowels with higher F1 values than those in the lower proficiency level. The author concluded that Korean speakers should produce the front high vowels distinctively by securing sufficient relative distance of the formant values. Further studies would be desirable to examine how strong the Korean speakers' English proficiency correlate with the relative distance of target words of comparable productions.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.7-17
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• 1998

The purpose of this preliminary study on Korean vowel duration was to find how different syllable types and kinds of plosives influence vowel duration. The vowel duration of the Front Mid and Low vowels (/$\varepsilon$/(에), /e/(어), /${\ae}$/(애), /a/(아)) was found to be longer than that of High and Back vowels (/i/(이), /i/(으), /u/(우), /o/(오)). Compared with single vowels (V), Vowels followed by a consonant (CV) were shortened by 79.3% and vowels between consonants (CVC) were shortened by 38.5%, respectively. These results suggest that the influence of consonants upon Korean vowel duration depend on syllble types and the manner or place of articulation.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.454-461
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• 2004

This paper describes the acoustic characteristics of 8 Korean monophthongs. Two acoustic variables were newly manipulated the distance between Fl and F2 (Δ［F2-Fl］). which might be of help for the judgement of the vowel backness. and Euclidian distance between two vowels. ［에］ & ［애］ were observed to be merged in both male vowel space and the female's. respectively. The merger of ［우］ & ［오］, on the other hand, was only seen in the female space. In case of Fl, which concerns the vowel height. the scope of the females' was 1.36 times longer than that of the males' Regarding F2, which is related to the vowel backness. the females used a space 1.29 times longer than the males. The observation of Euclidian distance between the basic 3 vowels (이. 아. 우) showed that the females have longer distance than the males: ［이-아］ 1.25 times, ［아-우］ 1.45 times, and ［이-우］ 1.35 times. respectively.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2011

This study investigates how American English high back vowels are identified. American English and Korean speakers participated in a phonetic experiment for this study. This study shows their response times of the vowels and discusses how the speakers identified them. For the experiment I used a synthesized vowel continuum between American English /u/ and /$\mho$/based on American English male speakers' voice obtained by Peterson and Barney (1952). I manipulated spectral steps and vowel duration of the stimuli. The statistical results showed that American English speakers were not able to distinguish the stimuli based on spectral quality. Instead they relied on vowel duration. This suggests that the American English high back vowels have changed since Peterson and Barney recorded them in 1952. The Korean speakers also relied on vowel duration, not spectral quality since they could not distinguish them. American speakers' response times of these vowels were not affected by both spectral quality and vowel duration. Koreans' response times were affected by vowel durations only.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.93-105
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• 2000

The English schwa sound has special characteristics which are distinct from other vowels. It is non-phonemic and occurs only in an unstressed syllable. Compared with the English schwa, the Korean /e/ is a full vowel which has phonemic contrast. This paper had three aims. One was to see whether there is any relationship between English full vowels and their reduced vowel schwas. Second was to see whether there is any possible target in the English schwa sounds which are derived from different full vowels. The third was to compare the English non-phoneme vowel schwa and the Korean full vowel /e/ in terms of articulatory positions and duration. The study results showed that there is no relationship between each of the full vowels and its schwa. The schwa tended to converge into a possible target which was F1 456 and F2 1560. The Korean vowel /e/ seemed to have its distinct position speaker-individual which is different from the neutral tongue position. The evidence that the Korean /e/ is a back vowel was supported by the Seoul dialect speaker. In duration, the English schwa was much shorter than the full vowels, but there was no significant difference in length between the Korean /e/ and other Korean vowels.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.17-26
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• 2014

The present study examined epenthetic vowels produced by Korean learners of English in read sentences, in terms of acoustic measures and extra-phonological factors. The results demonstrated three main findings. First, epenthetic vowels had relatively high F1 values and a wide range of F2 values. Most of the epenthetic vowels were inserted near Korean high central vowels, but some vowels were inserted near front vowels due to co-articulation with surrounding vowels. Second, vowel epenthesis was affected by the context. The results showed that the epenthesis was frequently seen with word junctions between obstruents (e.g., stops-fricatives). Third, Korean learners were not affected by English background and were very weakly affected by orthography. English experience, which is one of the extra-phonological factors, was not related to epenthesis production. However, orthography, the other extra-phonological factor, very weakly affected the amount of epenthesis production. Nine percent of all epenthesis production was affected by the English past-tense suffix '-ed'; approximately 70% of the participants were affected by this suffix. The findings of the present study contributed to understanding vowel epenthesis. First, the study revealed that the epenthetic vowels produced by Korean learners of English were close to the high central vowel, supporting previous studies that the epenthetic vowel is quite close to the shortest vowel. Second, the study examined the various phonetic environments of epenthetic vowels, revealing that vowel epenthesis occurred more frequently in a certain phonetic circumstance.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.15-23
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• 2020

This study examines the duration of Korean lax and tense stops in the prosodic word-medial position, their interactions with nearby segments, and the phonological implications of these interactions. It first examines the lengthening of consonants at the function of the short lax stop. Experiment 1 shows that the sonorant C1 is significantly longer before a short lax stop C2 than before a long tense stop. Experiment 2 shows that the short lax stop C1 cancels the contrast between the lax and tense obstruent at C2, making them appear as long tense obstruents (Post-Stop Tensing Rule). We suggest that such lengthening phenomena occur in Korean to robustly preserve the contrastive length difference between C and CC. Second, this study examines the vowel shortening, known as Closed-Syllable Vowel Shortening, before a long tense stop or before the consonant sequence. Experiment 3 suggests that it be interpreted as temporal adjustment to make the interval from the onset of a vowel to the onset of the following vowel of near-equal length. Conclusively, we suggest that Korean speech be planned and controlled with two specific intervals. One is the duration of contrastive consonant intervals between vowels, and the other is the duration from the onset of a vowel to the onset of the following vowel.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.9-16
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• 2023

The current study investigated the influence of age of L2 acquisition (AOA) and length of residence (LOR) in the L2 setting country on the production of voicing-conditioned vowel duration and spectral qualities in English by Korean learners. The primary aim was to explore the ways in which the language-specific phonetic features are acquired by the age of onset and L2 experience. Analyses of the archived corpus data produced by 45 native speakers of Korean showed that, regardless of AOA or LOR, absolute vowel duration was used as a salient correlate of voicing contrast in English for Korean learners. The accuracy of relative vowel duration was influenced more by onset age than by L2 experience, suggesting that being exposed to English at an early age may benefit the acquisition of temporal dimension. On the other hand, the spectral characteristics of English vowels were more consistently influenced by L2 experience, indicating that immersive experience in the L2 speaking environment are likely to improve the accurate production of vowel quality. The distinct influence of the onset age and L2 experience on the specific phonetic cues in L2 vowel production provides insight into the intricate relationship between the two factors on the manifestation of L2 phonological knowledge.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.71-73
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• 2007

The Purpose of the study is to give Korean-English leaners better knowledge on vowel sounds in their learning English. The traditional description of the cardinal vowel system developed by Daniel Johns in 1917 is not enough to provide English learners with clear ideas in producing native like vowel sounds. For the reason, three Korean-native subjects, one male, one female and one child are chosen to produce 7 cardinal vowels and compare them with native English and American speaker's vowel sounds. The difference of produced vowels sounds is quantified and visualized by employing Sona-match program. The results have been fairly remarkable. Firstly, Korean-English learner's vowel sounds are articulated differently from their intention of vowel production. Secondly, the tongue positions of Koreans are placed slightly more down and forward to the lips than those of English and Americans. However, the front vowel /i/ sound is quite close to English and Americans. Lastly the mid-vowel /${\partial}$/ sound is not produced in any articulations of Korean-native speakers. It is thought that the mid vowel, /${\partial}$/ is a type of a weak sound regarded as 'schwa' which needs a great deal of exposure to the language to acquire a physical skill of articulation.