• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.27-36
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• 2014

This study provided longitudinal examination of the Chinese learners' acquisition of Korean vowels. Specifically, I examined the Chinese learners' Korean monophthongs /i, e, ɨ, ${\Lambda}$, a, u, o/ that were created at the time of 1 month and 12 months, tried to verify empirically how they learn by dealing with their mother tongue, and Korean vowels through dealing with pattern of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (henceforth PAM) of Best (Best, 1993; 1994; Best & Tyler, 2007) and the Speech Learning Model (henceforth SLM) of Flege (Flege, 1987; Bohn & Flege, 1992, Flege, 1995). As a result, most of the present results are shown to be similarly explained by the PAM and SLM, and the only discrepancy between these two models is found in the 'similar' category of sounds between the learners' native language and the target language. Specifically, the acquisition pattern of /u/ and /o/ in Korean is well accounted for the PAM, but not in the SLM. The SLM did not explain why the Chinese learners had difficulty in acquiring the Korean vowel /u/, because according to the SLM, the vowel /u/ in Chinese (the native language) is matched either to the vowel /u/ or /o/ in Korean (the target language). Namely, there is only a one-to-one matching relationship between the native language and the target language. In contrast, the Chinese learners' difficulty for the Korean vowel /u/ is well accounted for in the PAM in that the Chinese vowel /u/ is matched to the vowel pair /o, u/ in Korean, not the single vowel, /o/ or /u/.

• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.71-79
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• 2013

This study provided longitudinal examination of the Chinese learners' acquisition of the Korean vowels. Specifically the author examined whether Korean monophthongs are acquired rapidly in early stages of learning (Flege, Munro and Skelton, 1992; Munro and Derwing, 2008) or they develop rather gradually in proportion to the learners' experience (Byee, 2001; Ellis, 2006). This study collected the Korean vowel production by 23 Chinese learners for a year, and then analysed F1 and F2 of each Korean vowel. The results showed that 1) Most of the second language (L2) vowels were rapidly improved during the first six or nine months of Korean learning before reaching the constant stage; and 2) The exact acquisition trajectories varied across the seven vowels. Specifically the vowels which were acquired in the early stage of learning were /i, e, ɨ/ for F1 and /ʌ, e, o, u/ for F2. Thus this study supports the hypothesis of Flege et al. (1992) and Munro and Derwing (2008) except the fact that each vowel showed the different learning route.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.23-31
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• 2011

This paper examines the production patterns of the acquisition of coda consonants in monosyllabic words in English-speaking children with cochlear implants. The data come from the transcribed speech of children with cochlear implants. This study poses three questions. First, do children with cochlear implants acquire onset consonants earlier than codas? Second, do children's productions have a bimoraic-sized constraint that maintains binary feet? Third, what patterns emerge from production of coda consonants? The results revealed that children with cochlear implants acquire onset consonants earlier than codas. With regard to the bimoraic-sized constraints, the productions of vowel type (i.e., monomoraic and bimoraic) were more accurate for monomoraic vowels than bimoraic ones for some children with cochlear implants, although accuracy in vowel productions showed high proportion regardless of vowel types. The variations of coda production exhibited individual differences. Some children produced less sonorant consonants with high frequency and others produced more sonorant ones. The results of this study were similar to those pertaining to children with normal hearing. In the process of coda consonant acquisition, the error patterns of prosody-sensitive production may be regarded as articulatory challenges to produce higher-level prosodic structures.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.33-51
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• 2008

Difference of learner speech and loanword phonology is investigated in terms of Korean learners' speech and their loanword adaptation of English words with a post-vocalic word-final stop. When we compared the speech of 12 Korean learners in mid-intermediate level with that of eight English speakers, the learner speech did not reflect loanword phonology of the vowel insertion after a voiced word-final stop (e.g., rib$[\dotplus]$, bad$[\dotplus]$, gag$[\dotplus]$ vs. tip[=], cat[=], book[=]), but, instead, the target phonology of vowel lengthening before a voiced word-final stop (e.g., rib[r.I:b], CAD$[k{\ae}:d]$, bag$[b{\ae}:g]$ vs. rip[rI.p], cat$[k{\ae}t]$, back$[b{\ae}k])$. A longitudinal study of learner speech before and after instruction showed some development toward the acquisition of target phonology. The results indicate that learner speech departs from loanword phonology, and approaches to target speech in a faster rate than direct ratio. Thus, native phonology predicts loanword phonology, but lends little support to learner speech. Our results also indicate that loanword phonology is constant, while learner speech changes toward the acquisition of target phonology.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.11-17
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• 2024

The goal of the current study is to investigate whether L2 learners' perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is interconnected with other aspects of speech recognition, such as lexical stress, sentence focus, and vowel recognition. Twenty-five Korean L2 learners of English participated in perception experiments assessing vowel epenthesis oddity, lexical stress oddity, sentence focus oddity, and vowel identification. Results indicate that accuracy on the vowel epenthesis oddity test is influenced by both lexical stress and sentence focus, suggesting that perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is influenced by the acquisition of L2 rhythmic structure at both word and sentence levels. Additionally, this study identifies a proficiency effect on vowel epenthesis recognition, implying that the influence of L1 phonotactics diminishes as L2 proficiency increases. Taken together, this study illustrates the interaction between perceptual abilities in vowel epenthesis and prosodic stress in the field of L2 speech perception.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2004

The aim of this study is to reveal the order and the age of mastery of phonemic contrast in vowel sounds of Korean. For this purpose, we made an observation of the correspondences between the sounds produced by children of 12-35 months and the target sounds produced by adults. The provisional order and the age of contrast acquisition shown from the results of this study are as follows. First, the differential production of vowels by the feature relating to the body of the tongue precedes the differential production of vowels by the feature relating to the lip rounding. Second, as for the differential production of vowels by the feature relating to the body of the tongue, the contrast between the low vowels and the others is accomplished first, and the contrast between the high and low vowels and the contrast between the front and the back vowels are established around the age of 24 months. Third, as for the differential production of vowels by the feature relating to the lip rounding, the contrast between the rounded and the unrounded vowel is not accomplished until 36 months. Finally, we observed, prior to the completion of the differential production of phonemes, children use a specific phoneme excessively. This passing phrase could be interpreted as a result of over-application of a distinctive feature in the course of acquisition of it.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.19-33
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• 2006

This study explores whether Russian, known to have a process of syllable-final devoicing, reveals differences in vowel duration as a function of the underlying voicing of the coda stop. This paper also examines whether non-native speakers of Russian and English learn typical L2 values in vowel duration. The results indicate that vowels in Russian have a slightly longer mean duration before a voiced stop than before a voiceless stop (a mean difference of 9.52 ms), but in most cases the differences did not exhibit statistical significance. In English the mean difference was 60.05 ms, and the differences were in most cases statistically significant. All native Russian speakers of English produced larger absolute differences in vowel duration for English than for Russian, and all native English speakers of Russian produced smaller absolute differences for Russian than for English. More experienced learners seemed to achieve more native-like values of vowel duration than less experienced learners did, suggesting that learning occurs gradually as the learners gain more experience with the L2.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.199-199
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• 2000

Korean stops are 3 system: aspirated, fortis, lenis, whereas English stops are 2 system: voiced, voiceless. Because in Korean, lenis stop is realized by slight aspirated voiceless stop, it is likely to produce English word initial voiced stop as voiceless stop. We divide subjects into three group-native, experienced, unexperienced- and investigate differences between group. VOT of experienced group IS same as native group, but VOT of unexperienced group is longer than native group. VOt of unexperienced group is 1.8 times than native group. We survey whether the height of following vowel influences VOT of initial stop. As a result, for all group, VOT followed by low vowel is shorter than VOT followed by high vowel. But this tendency is more salient in unexperienced group. For high vowel, VOT of unexperienced group is 2.05 times than native group, whereas for low vowel, it is just 1.55 times. The unexperienced pronounce well English word initial voiced stop followed by low vowel than high vowel. Samples are divided into two group according to type of coda consonant- nasal and voiceless stop. But average of VOT is similar and there is no significant difference between two groups. There is no influence by type of coda consonant. The average of phrases is compared to the average of isolated words. In the case of natives and experienced, there is no significant differences between phrases and words, but in the case of unexperienced, VOT of phrases becomes shorter than words. But VOT of unexperienced is still longer than native group.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.579-587
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Korean learners perceive English vowels and further to test SLM which claims that new L2 vowel categories are more easily acquired than similar L2 vowel categories. Twenty Korean learners participated in English-to-Korean mapping test and English vowel identification test with target vowels /i, ɪ, u, ʊ, ɛ, æ/. The result revealed that Korean participants mapped the English pairs /i/-/ɪ/ and /u/-/ʊ/ onto single Korean vowel /i/ and /u/, respectively. in addition, both of English /ɛ/ and /æ/ were simultaneously mapped onto Korean /e/ and /ɛ/. This indicated that the Korean participants seemed to have perceptual difficulty for the pairs /i-ɪ/, /u-ʊ/, and /ɛ-æ/. The result of the forced-choice identification test showed that the accuracy of /ɪ, ʊ, æ/(ɪ: 81.3%, ʊ: 62.5%, æ: 60.0%) was significantly higher than that of /i, u, ɛ/(i: 28,8%, u: 28.8%, ɛ: 32.4%). Thus, the claim of SLM is confirmed given that /ɪ, ʊ, æ/ are new vowel categories whereas /i, u, ɛ/ are similar vowel categories. Further, the conspicuously low accuracy of the similar L2 vowel categories /i, u, ɛ/ was accounted for by over-generalization whereby the Korean participants excessively replaced L2 similar /i, u, ɛ/ with L2 new /ɪ, ʊ, æ/ as the participants were learning the L2 new vowel categories in the process of acquisition. Based on the findings this study, pedagogical suggestions are provided.