• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.35-43
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• 2019

This study examines the voice onset times (VOTs) of Korean stops produced by Korean learners of English with high language proficiency and long L2 exposure (i.e., Korean-English bilinguals) to assess whether the VOTs of their lax and aspirated stops are merging and, if so, which types of stops are being changed. Thirteen Korean speakers (six female and seven male) who had studied in the USA for more than three to ten years participated. The results show that the speakers in this study with long L2 exposure are participating in the VOT merger, in which VOTs for aspirated stops are reduced while those for lax stops are increased. In other words, change in VOT affects not only aspirated stops but also lax stops. The results indicate that L1 phonetic drift may not be primarily affected by the amount of L2 exposure, and language contact may not be the primary factor triggering a sound change in the Korean stop system. Further study is necessary focusing on the phonetic shift of the "lax" category because it may play a pivotal role in a tonogenetic-like sound change in present-day Korean.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-36
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• 2017

This study investigated the correlation between learners' psychological and social factors and their syntactic complexity of speaking. The study collected samples of Korean spoken production of 61 learners with English, Chinese, Japanese and other L1 backgrounds and applied mini-TOPIK, mini-AMTB, and SASIQ for 70 minutes. The study found that: (i) integrative motivation showed positive correlation with a number of simple complex clauses, but instrumental motivation correlated negatively with a number of adverbial clauses, indicating that high motivation hindered producing highly complex clauses although it triggered producing simple complex clauses, (ii) social contact with L2 native speakers showed positive correlation with general L2 development and a number of simple complex clauses, but revealed negative correlation with double or triple complex clauses, (iii) hours of L2 listening showed very strong positive correlation with producing triple complex clauses and general proficiency, but indicated negative correlation with a number of simple complex clauses. The study reported that high motivation toward Korean learning and active social activities with Korean native speakers helped produce simple complex clauses while hours of listening to Korean helped produce triple complex clauses.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.91-112
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• 1998

This paper aimed at examining the influence of L1 (native language) phonology when speakers of L1 perceive L2 (foreign language) sounds. Korean and Japanese learners of English took a perception test of Australian English words 'work', 'walk' and 'wok'. Based on Korean and Japanese phonology, it was predicted that Korean subjects would face more difficulties than Japanese subjects. The results of the experiment substantiated the influence of L1 phonology in L2 learners' L2 sound perception.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2019

This study explored the relationship between accurate vowel production and proficiency levels in L2 English produced by Korean EFL adult learners. To this end, nine English vowels /i, ɪ, ɛ, æ, ʌ, ɔ, ɑ, ʊ, u/ were selected and adjacent vowels paired up (e.g., /i/-/ɪ/, /u/-/ʊ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, /ʌ/-/ɔ/, /ɔ/-/ɑ/). The spectral features of the pairs were measured instrumentally, namely F1 (indicating tongue height) and F2 (indicating tongue backness). Meanwhile, the durations as well as spectral features of the tense and lax counterparts in /i/-/ɪ/ and /u/-/ʊ/ were measured, as both temporal and spectral features are important in distinguishing them. The findings of this study confirm that higher-rated speakers were better able to distinguish the contrasts in the front vowel pairs /i/-/ɪ/ and /ɛ/-/æ/ than lower-rated learners, but in the central and back vowel pairs /u/-/ʊ/and /ʌ/-/ɔ/ (though not /ɔ/-/ɑ/), Korean EFL learners generally showed difficulty distinguishing adjacent vowels with spectral cues. On the other hand, the durations of the tense and lax vowels showed that the lower-rated speakers were less able to use the temporal feature to differentiate tense vowels from their lax counterparts, unlike previous studies that found that in general Korean learners depend excessively on the temporal cue to distinguish tense and lax vowels.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2004

The informative or important entities in utterances are focused and the focused items are usually accompanied by changes in phonetic manifestation. Phonetic realizations triggered by focus include changes of tonal contours as well as segmental strengthening. Focus in Korean is characterized by new phrase initiation, dephrasing, and initial tone contour with an enlarged pitch range in addition to segmentally lengthened initial segment. Focusing on the prosodic cues which play an important role in delivering the speakers' intention, this study aims to find out what intonational characteristics of Korean focus are realized by English learners of Korean. The English learners are divided into two groups according to their fluency in Korean, and the differences in focus realization between each group are discussed. Furthermore, the phonological and phonetic realizations of focus by English learners of Korean are compared to those by Korean native speakers. The results of this study yields two suggestions for Korean intonation education of L2 learners. First, the comparison between the two speaker groups can give better understanding in how and why the Korean intonation of English speakers is different from that of Koreans. Second, each phonological and phonetic characteristic of focus realization can weigh differently and its realization provides a criterion for evaluation of L2 Korean proficiency.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.71-79
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• 2019

This study aims to investigate the rhythmic patterns in the English speech produced by Chinese learners of English who learn English as a foreign language (EFL learners). Utilizing interval-based rhythm metrics, namely, VarcoC, VarcoV, nPVI-C, nPVI-V, and %V, the study compared the rhythmic differences in English speech between ten native speakers from the United States and forty Chinese EFL learners from mainland China. A sentence elicitation task consisting of thirty picture prompts and corresponding thirty stimuli sentences with at least five vocalic and four consonantal intervals was conducted. Statistical results reveal that both Chinese advanced learners and beginners had significantly lower degree of stress-timed in their English speech, indicating that the acquisition of the L2 speech rhythm was influenced by the learners' L1 rhythmic pattern. In addition, the results also show that the Chinese advanced learners had significantly higher degree of stress-timed in their English speech than beginners and showed no significant difference with native speakers in VarcoC and nPVI-C. These results indicate that the direction of L2 speech rhythm development was from more syllable-timed to more stress-timed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.77-97
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• 2007

To compare data on the speech act of requests from two different methods, a study was conducted in which both native and non-native speakers of English participated as subjects, and data were collected by means of actual e-mail writing and DCT (discourse completion test). The analysis of requests from the two different data-gathering methods showed that despite some similarities, considerable differences existed between e-mail and DCT requests in several important aspects of requests such as amount of talk, directness level, downgraders and supportive moves which play an important role in making a given request sound less imposing and more polite. Also it was shown that requests of non-native speakers differed considerably from requests of native speakers in terms of the four aspects of requests across type of data-gathering methods. Based on the findings, some suggestions were made for both further research and L2 classrooms.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.71-78
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Japanese(L1) on the production of Korean accentual phrases(L2). Korean and Japanese have a similar prosodic structure. But different from Korean, Japanese is a pitch accent language. So each word has its own pitch accent. And pitch accents are maintained in the sentence intonation. This difference will have a negative influence on the production of Korean sentence intonation. For this study 4 Korean natives speakers and 10 advanced Japanese learners of Korean participated in the production test. The material analysed constituted 11 Korean sentences, six of which contain formally identical Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese words. The results show that the initial pitch pattern of Korean accentual phrases was affected by Japanese pitch accent types and this interference was greater for formally identical Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese words. But besides initial tones of accentual phrase, some positive interference was observed in the internal tonal pattern of accentual phrase. In the phonetic realization, the internal pitch range and initial pitch rising of accentual phrases was greater for Japanese learners of Korean than native speakers of Korean.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.3
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• pp.55-70
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• 1997

This paper aims at showing firstly, that the parameterized Universal Grammar is also accessible in second language acquisition based on the data found in the English Agreement acquisition by Korean speakers and secondly, that the theoretical claim that the acquisition of Agreement is related to the Subject Drop phenomenon can be supported by the second language acquisition data. The functional category AGRP which is crucial here can be parameterized according to its features with Korean of - Agr and English of + Agr. Two groups of 40 each were tested and the result shows that the parameter resetting is possible in terms of the Agreement feature. In addition to Agreement test, three more tests for the distribution of Subject Drop, Subject Raising and NPI (Negative Polarity Items) were conducted in order to find the correlation among those grammatical phenomena. The result is that the acquisition of Agreement and the Subject Drop possibility are correlated but that they are not related to the obligatory Subject Raising process. Finally, NPI distribution test which is supposedly related to the Subject Raising turned out to carry little information since the average grades from both groups were very low.