• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.73-84
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• 2009

Despite the growing interest among researchers in the field of second language (L2) phonological acquisition and its apparent contribution to linguistic and acquisition theories, there have been concerns about the lack of pedagogical application of the research findings in L2 classrooms (Levis, 1999, Derwing & Munro, 2005). Based on the belief that meeting an existing pedagogic need is something that should receive primary attention in SLA, this study attempts to bridge the gap between L2 pronunciation research and pronunciation pedagogy. In so doing, this study provides a narrative literature review of papers on L2 pronunciation published from 1994 to 2008 in Korea. The articles for review were retrieved from five database search engines. In addition, six journals where relevant articles most frequently appeared were selected and electronic searches of these six journals were conducted. A total of 117 articles which met the selection criteria were collected, and were reviewed to answer the following three research questions: a) What are the current research trends in L2 pronunciation in Korea? b) Do the research trends reflect a shift of focus on L2 pronunciation teaching? and c) What is the range of research practices in L2 pronunciation? The review of the papers indicates that the number of studies on L2 pronunciation increased sharply from 1999 to 2003. Some changes in research topics were also noticed. Research on segmental features of English was dominant from 1994 to 1998, but became more balanced with research on suprasegmentals from 2004 to 2008. This review also discusses the range of research practices in L2 pronunciation and makes suggestions for future directions in L2 pronunciation research.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.129-134
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• 2010

Jenkins (2000, 2007) suggested lingua franca core (LFC) of English as an international language (EIL) context. According to her, intelligibility of English pronunciation of L2 English speakers and English learners is more important than pronunciation accuracy in English communication. Her suggestion has been widely accepted in Korean classroom situations, so the systematic teaching of English pronunciation has been rarely emphasized. In this paper it is argued that the LFC of English is widely misinterpreted in Korea while some of her suggestions themselves are also misleading. This paper tries to redefine Jenkins' LFC and provide suggestions for teaching LFC in Korea.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.288-291
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• 2007

The aim of this study is to clarify degrees of difficulty of the Japanese L2 (second language) learners for learning Korean sounds and phonological rules. 31 subjects took a questionnaire survey and an identification test using words. In addition, each subject's pronunciation was evaluated by 3 Korean native speakers. As for Korean sounds, the results show that Japanese L2 learners have a tendency perceiving that listening is more difficult than pronouncing, although the listening test's scores were greater than the pronunciation test's scores for a majority of the items. As for Korean phonological rules, 1) there were some difficult items for applying the phonological rules, although Japanese L2 learners had knowledge of them, and 2) there were also some items that Korean native speakers evaluated Japanese L2 learners' pronunciations as the phonological rules were applied, even though learners pronounced them without any knowledge.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.45-48
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• 2005

This study is about constructing L2 pronunciation correction system for L1 speakers using speech technology. Chinese pronunciation system consists of initials, finals and tones. Initials/finals are in segmental level and tones are in suprasegmental level. So different method could be used assessing Korean users' Chinese. The recognition rate of initials is 81.9% and that of finals is 68.7% in the standard acoustic model. Differ from native speech recognition, nonnative speech recognition could be promoted by additional modeling using L2 speakers' speech. As a first step for the those task we analysed nonnative speech and then set a strategy for modeling Korean speakers'.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.93-106
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• 2001

The pronunciation of English l and r was a consistent problem in learning English in Korea as well as Japan. This problem occurs from the fact that in Korea and Japan there is only one liquid sound. Substituting the Korean liquid for English l and r was a common error. The pronunciation of the dark l causes a further problem in pronouncing the English l sound. To see the relationship between the English l, r, and the Korean liquid sound, an electropalatographic (EPG) experiment was done. The findings were (1) there were no tongue contacts either on the alveolar ridge or on the palate during the articulation of the dark l. (2) The Korean liquid sound was different in the tongue contact points either from English l or r. The English clear l consistently touched the alveolar ridge in the forty tokens, but the Korean liquid sound in the intervocalic and word-final position touched mainly the alveopalatal area. The English r touched exclusively the velum area. The Korean intervocalic /l/ was similar to English flap in EPG and spectrographic data. There was evidence that the word-final Korean /l/ is a lateral.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.33-52
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• 2001

A bilingual sound dictionary in Korean and English has been created for a broad range of sound reference to cross-linguistic, dialectal, native language (L1)-transferred biological and allophonic variations. The paper demonstrates that the pronunciation dictionary of the lexicon is inadequate for sound reference due to the preponderance of unmarked sounds. The audio registry consists of the three-way comparison of 1) English speech from native English speakers, 2) Korean speech from Korean speakers, and 3) English speech from Korean speakers. Several sub-dictionaries have been created as the foundation research for independent development. They are 1) a pronunciation dictionary of the Korean lexicon in a keyboard-compatible phonetic transcription, 2) a sound dictionary of L1-interfered language, and 3) an audible dictionary of Korean sounds. The dictionary was designed to facilitate the exchange of the speech signal and its corresponding text data on various media particularly on CD-ROM. The methodology and findings of the construction are discussed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.35-41
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• 2017

The existence and the extent of vowel length difference before voiced/voiceless consonants in English and Korean are examined in three groups: (1) Korean-speaking Americans (group A), (2) immigrants who moved to the U.S. in their early teens (group I), and (3) Koreans who have been in the U.S. for less than 3 years (group K). 14 subjects were recorded reading 10 English and 10 Korean sentences. The results show that the three groups exhibit different patterns of the vowel length difference: Group A shows a very strong tendency of vowel lengthening before voiced consonants in both English and Korean, while Group I shows less degree of vowel lengthening, and Group K shows almost no tendency of vowel length difference in both languages. This strongly suggests that, (1) unlike English, Korean does not have the vowel length difference depending on the following consonants, and (2) the vowel lengthening effect observed in Korean (L2) speech in group A may be the result of transfer of the phonetic trait acquired in English (L1). It also implies that, in teaching pronunciation, some facts such as the vowel length difference cannot be expected to be acquired automatically for the learners of English, but have to be taught explicitly.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.51-59
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• 2002

This article discusses the teaching of listening and reading skills through enhancing the awareness of pronunciation. First, it examines the problems which take place in listening comprehension, and seeks the ways in which we can teach the skill rather than simply practise it. The approaches proposed are based on micro-listening exercises which practise individual subskills of listening, especially by using the cloze test and tracking. The issue of using authentic materials is then examined for teaching recognition of the features of natural speech. Finally, it is argued that classroom activities need to take account of the true nature of real-life L2 listening.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.223-236
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• 2003

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate characteristics of English pitch accents uttered by Korean speakers. Six English sentences were uttered five times by fifteen male undergraduate and graduate students from three groups, Seoul, Yongnam and Honam dialect speakers. We compared the subjects' data with the data of a native speaker of English as model pronunciation of English pitch accents. Acoustic features(Fo, duration, amplitude) were measured from sound spectrograms made by the PC Works. Results showed that (1) acoustic features of English pitch accents are Fo and duration for the native speaker and Korean speakers altogether, (2) Seoul dialect speakers uttered English pitch accents more similarly to the English native speaker than the other dialect speakers and (3) Korean speakers generally have difficulties in pronouncing L* accents. It appears that Korean speakers have more problems in pronouncing L* accents than H* accents.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.409-414
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• 1996

The aim of this paper is to research on the actual condition of Koreans' Spanish consonants pronunciation with an emphasis on describing the phonetic different of Korean speakers and Spanish speakers. 40 Spanish words were chosen for the speech sampling, and 10 Spanish majoring Korean students from Seoul or Kyunggi Province and 3 Spanish speakers form Castile, Spain participated in the interview. The most noticeable phonetic differences of Korean speakers' pronunciation comparing with Spanish speakers are abstracted as follows: 1) The voiced stops are pronounced voiceless or weak voiced. 2) The voiced stops are slightly aspirated. 3) The length of voiceless consonants is quite longer than the length of proceeding vowel. 4) Fricatives and affricates are somewhat fronter, and weaker in the degree of friction. 5) There is a strong tendency to geminate dental lateral /l/ such as 'pelo' and to vocalize palatal lateral /$\rightthreetimes$/ such as 'calle' 6) Unlike in Spanish speech flap $\mid$r$\mid$ and trill [r] are pronounced similarly in Korean speech.