• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.113-128
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• 2005

The underlying premise of this study was that L1 production is easily transferred into L2 production. In neutral intonation, there is a consonant-tone correlation in Korean: High tone patterns are correlated with voiceless aspirated and tense consonants and Low-High tone patterns are correlated with lax or other voiced consonants. The purpose of this study was to see whether the correlation in Korean (L1) is transferred into English (L2) production and whether the degree of transfer differs depending on the degree of proficiency. Eight Korean speakers and two American speakers participated in the experiment. F0 contours of words and sentences were collected and analyzed. The results of the present study showed that there is a strong correlation between voicing and tone in L2 utterances. When utterance-initial consonant types were voiceless, the word or the sentence began with the H pattern; otherwise it had the LH pattern. The degree of interference differed depending on the degree of proficiency: less proficient speakers showed a stronger correlation in terms of the magnitude (Hz) and size (ms) of the effects on F0. The results indicate that the consonant-tone correlation in L1 is strongly transferred into L2 production and the correlation transfer can be one of the actual aspects that cause L2 speakers to produce deviant L2 accents and intonation.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.55-64
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• 2007

Laryngeal DDK involve with the rate, pattern, and regularity (periodicity) in opening and closing of vocal fold. This study was aimed at investigating the characteristics of laryngeal DDK between nonfluent and fluent speakers. One with an ataxic dysarthria (with cerebellar lesion) and the other with stuttering, and 13 normal speakers were evaluated. L-DDK were analyzed with MSP (motor speech profile, CSL 4400). Measures of DDK included: DDKavr, DDKcvp, DDKjit, DDKavp. An ataxic dysarthric speaker and a stutterer showed more reduced rate and aperiodic L-DDK (both adductory and abductory movement) than normal speakers. But the average L-DDK period (ms) in adductory movement in a speaker with stuttering showed more decreased than the other. Results from this study are preliminary. Nonetheless, results of L-DDK produced by nonfluent speakers suggested the possibility to have relation with slow rate of phonatory initiation and connected speech. In the future, perceptual studies are needed in conjuction with acoustic and speech production.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.15-21
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• 2019

Korean and English are both known to show on-focus pitch range expansion and post-focus pitch range compression (PFC). But it is not clear if this prosodic similarity would make it easy for Korean speakers to learn English focus prosody. In the present study, we conducted a production experiment using phone number strings to examine whether Korean learners of English produce a native-like focus prosody. Korean learners of English were classified into three groups (advanced, intermediate and low) according to their English proficiency and were compared to native speakers. Results show that intermediate and low groups of speakers did not increase duration, intensity, and pitch in the focus positions, nor did they compress those cues in the post-focus positions. Advanced speakers noticeably increased the acoustic cues in the focus positions to a similar extent as native speakers. However, their performance in post-focus positions was quite far from that of native speakers in terms of pitch and excursion size. These results thus demonstrate a lack of positive transfer of focus prosody from Korean to English in L2 learning, and learners may have to relearn it from scratch, which is consistent with a previous finding. More importantly, the results provide further support for the view proposed in other works that acoustic properties of PFC were not easily transferred from one language to another.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.27-39
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• 2020

This paper examines the frequency and distribution of the so-called "non-discourse marker functions" of so in essay writings produced by 200 L1 English speakers and 1,300 EFL learners in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Based on the data drawn from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English, this study compares EFL learners and L1 English speakers' uses of so, identifying four grammatical uses, as (1) an adverb, (2) part of a fixed phrase, (3) a pro-form, and (4) a conjunction phrase specifying purpose. This study aims to show the wide variability among EFL learners with different L1s, identifying the tendency of usage both common among and specific to the sub-groups of EFL learners. The findings suggest that the learners demonstrate patterns distinctively different from those of L1 English speakers, indicating an underuse of so as a marker expressing "purpose" and an overuse as part of fixed phrases. Compared to L1 English speakers, the learners also tend to overuse so in the discourse marker functions, regardless of their L1s. The study proposes pedagogical implications focusing on discourse flow and diachronic aspects of so in order to understand its multifunctionality, although the latter is primarily suggested for advanced learners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

This paper investigated the rhythmic features of speakers of English as a lingua franca in Asian contexts. A speech corpus of 150 conversations between speakers of English in Asia with different L1 backgrounds was collected and %V, ${\Delta}V$, VarcoV, and nPVI-V of each speaker were analyzed. It was found that L1 difference of the speakers and the speakers' daily use of English influenced %V, while the speakers' daily use of English influenced ${\Delta}V$. The gender difference of the speakers also affected the rhythm of the utterances in VarcoV. A weak correlation between the two speakers' rhythm in each conversation was also found in %V and ${\Delta}V$. No significant effects were found in nPVI-V. The results revealed that the speakers tended to accommodate the rhythm of their utterance to that of the interlocutors'. Further study on the speaking rate of the speakers is required to overcome some inconsistencies found in the results of the rhythmic metrics used in this study.

• 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.6 no.4
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• pp.117-123
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• 2014

This study investigated the intonation patterns of accentual phrase in Jeju dialect. 9 speakers (Experiment 1) and 6 speakers (Experiment 2) read a carrier sentence '__ youngah miwonghumnida' with a target accentual phrase varying its number of syllables from 1 to 8. The results showed that like Seoul dialect pattern could be the basic pattern of accentual phase in Jeju dialect even though several differences were observed in the realization of each tone: Flat staircase-like tones in L, M, and even in H were often observed, and a very small difference in F0 between intial L and +H was found in many speakers. For some of these differences, this paper tried to give an explanation still in the Intonational Phonology framework. However, introducing M tone as a lexical tone was also suggested as one possible solution. Finally, unlike Seoul dialect, most speakers showed pattern in an accentual phrase beginning with a strong consonant, i.e., aspirated and unaspirated obstruents including /h/ and /s/.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.345-363
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to compare the speech rate of advanced Korean(L2) learners and Korean native speakers in spontaneous utterances. Specifically, the current study investigated the difference of the two groups' speech pattern according to utterance length. Eight advanced Korean(L2) learners and eight Korean native speakers participated in this study. The data were collected by recording their conversation and physical measurements (speaking rate, articulatory rates, pause and several types of speech disfluency) were taken on extracted 120 utterances from 12 out of the 16 participants. The findings show that advanced Korean learners' speech pattern is similar to that of Koreans in the short-length utterance. However, in the long-length utterance, two groups show different speech patterns; while the articulatory rate of Korean native speakers increased in the long-length utterance, that of Korean learners decreased. This suggests that the frequency of speech disfluency factors might affect this result.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.61-68
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to investigate the prosodic aspects of ambiguous sentences in Korean produced by Chinese Korean Learners (L1: Chinese, L2: Korean). In Korean, sentence ambiguity can be caused by homonym or syntactically ambiguous structure. In spoken language however all ambiguity can be resolved by different prosodic features according to the meaning that they transmit. In this study we examined whether Chinese Korean Leaners also distinguish, in production, ambiguous sentences on the basis of prosodic characteristics. For this study 4 Korean natives speakers and 10 advanced Chinese Korean learners participated in the production test. The material analysed constituted 10 Korean sentences in which 6 sentences are lexically ambiguous and 4 sentences contain structural ambiguity. The results show that Korean native speakers produced ambiguous sentences by different prosodic structure depending on their semantic and syntactic structure. Chinese speakers also show distinct prosodic structure for different ambiguous sentences in most cases. But in the phonetic realization, the internal pitch range was greater for Korean native speakers than Chinese learners.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.25-53
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• 2018

This study examined the influence of lexical factors on verbal Eojeol recognition. To meet the goal, forty-five L2 Korean learners and twenty-two Korean native speakers took Eojeol decision tasks measured with the lexical factors such as 'number of strokes', 'number of consonants and vowels', 'number of syllables', 'number of morphemes', 'whole Eojeol frequency', 'root frequency', 'first-syllable-sharing frequency', and 'number of dictionary meanings.' As a result, 'whole Eojeol frequency' was the most effective factor to predict Eojeol recognition reaction time for native speakers and L2 learners, which supports the full-list model. Other lexical factors influencing Eojeol recognition reaction time in L2 learners were different following their proficiency level.