• 한국어교육
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-23
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• 2018

This paper investigates how adult Mandarin- and English- speaking learners of Korean perceive Korean vowels, with focus on the effect of the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) acoustic relationship, as well as the influence of Korean language experience. For this study, native Mandarin and Canadian English speakers who have learned Korean as a foreign language, as well as a control group of native Korean speakers, participated in two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to examine acoustic similarities between Korean and English vowels, as well as Korean and Mandarin vowels to predict which Korean vowels are relatively easy, or difficult for L2 learners to perceive. The linear discriminant analysis (Klecka, 1980) based on their L1-L2 acoustic similarity predicted that L2 Mandarin learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e/ >> /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ (most difficult), whereas L2 English learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e, ɨ, ʌ/ >> /o, u/ (most difficult). The goal of Experiment 2 was to test how accurately L2 Mandarin and English learners perceive Korean vowels /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ which are considered to be difficult for L2 learners. The results of a mixed-effects logistic model revealed that English listeners showed higher identification accuracy for Korean vowels than Mandarin listeners, indicating that having a larger L1 vowel inventory than the L2 facilitates L2 vowel perception. However, both groups have the same ranking of Korean vowel perceptual difficulty: ɨ > ʌ > u > o. This finding indicates that adult learners of Korean can perceive the new vowel /ɨ/, which does not exist in their L1, more accurately than the vowel /o/, which is acoustically similar to vowels in their L1, suggesting that L2 learners are more likely to establish additional phonetic categories for new vowels. In terms of the influence of experience with L2, it was found that identification accuracy increases as Korean language experience rises. In other words, the more experienced English and Mandarin learners of Korean are, the more likely they are to have better identification accuracy in Korean vowels than less experienced learners of Korean. Moreover, there is no interaction between L1 background and L2 experience, showing that identification accuracy of Korean vowels is higher as Korean language experience increases regardless of their L1 background. Overall, these findings of the two experiments demonstrated that acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 sounds using the LDA model can partially predict perceptual difficulty in L2 acquisition, indicating that other factors such as perceptual similarity between L1 and L2, the merge of Korean /o/ and /u/ may also influence their Korean vowel perception.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제3권3호
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• pp.115-121
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• 2011

This paper examines how L2 speech production varies according to learner's L2 proficiency level. L2 speech production variations are analyzed by quantitative measures at word and phone levels using Korean learners' English corpus. Word-level variations are analyzed using correctness to explain how speech realizations are different from the canonical forms, while accuracy is used for analysis at phone level to reflect phone insertions and deletions together with substitutions. The results show that speech production of learners with different L2 proficiency levels are considerably different in terms of performance and individual realizations at word and phone levels. These results confirm that speech production of non-native speakers varies according to their L2 proficiency levels, even though they share the same L1 background. Furthermore, they will contribute to improve non-native speech recognition performance of ASR-based English language educational system for Korean learners of English.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.11-16
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• 2023

The present study examines how a cognitive attention affects Korean learners of English (L2) in perceiving the English stop voicing distinction (/d/-/t/). This study tested the effect of attentional distractor on primary and non-primary acoustic cues, focusing on the role of Voice Onset Time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0). Using the dual-task paradigm, 28 Korean adult learners of English participated in the stop identification task carried with (distractor) and without (no-distractor) arithmetic calculation. Results showed that when distracted, Korean learners' sensitivity to VOT decreased as priorly reported with native English speakers. Furthermore, as F0 is a primary cue for a L1 Korean stop laryngeal contrast, its role in L2 English voicing distinction was also affected by a distractor, without compensating for the reduced VOT sensitivity. These findings suggest that flexible use of multiple cues in L1 is not necessarily beneficial for L2 phonological processing when coping with a adverse listening condition.

• 한국컴퓨터정보학회논문지
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• 제25권11호
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• pp.27-40
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• 2020

본 논문은 장단기기억신경망(LSTM)이 영어를 배우면서 학습한 암묵적 통사 관계인 필러-갭 의존 관계를 조사하여 영어 문장 학습량과 한국인 영어 학습자(L2ers)의 문장 처리 패턴 간의 상관관계를 규명한다. 이를 위해, 먼저 장단기기억신경망 언어모델(LSTM LM)을 구축하였다. 이 모델은 L2ers가 영어 학습 과정에서 잠재적으로 배울 수 있는 L2 코퍼스의 영어 문장들로 심층학습을 하였다. 다음으로, 이 언어 모델을 이용하여 필러-갭 의존 관계 구조를 위반한 영어 문장을 대상으로 의문사 상호작용 효과(wh-licensing interaction effect) 즉, 정보 이론의 정보량인 놀라움(surprisal)의 정도를 계산하여 문장 처리 양상을 조사하였다. 또한 L2ers 언어모델과 상응하는 원어민 언어모델을 비교 분석함으로써, 두 언어모델이 문장 처리에서 필러-갭 의존 관계에 내재된 추상적 구문 구조를 추적할 수 있음을 보여주었을 뿐만 아니라, 또한 선형 혼합효과 회귀모델을 사용하여 본 논문의 중심 연구 주제인 의존 관계 처리에 있어서 원어민 언어모델과 L2ers 언어모델간 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 존재함을 규명하였다.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.63-70
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• 2019

This study investigated individual variability of L2 learners' categorical judgments of L2 stops by exploring English learners' perceptual processing of two acoustic cues (voice onset time [VOT] and f0) and working memory capacity as sources of variation. As prior research has reported that English speakers' greater use of the redundant cue f0 was responsible for gradient processing of native stops, we examined whether the same processing characteristics would be observed in L2 learners' perception of Korean stops (/t/-/t^h/). 22 English learners of L2 Korean with a range of L2 proficiency participated in a visual analogue scaling task and demonstrated variable manners of judging the L2 Korean stops: Some were more gradient than others in performing the task. Correlation analysis revealed that L2 learners' categorical responses were modestly related to individuals' utilizations of a primary cue for the stop contrast (VOT for L1 English stops and f0 for L2 Korean stops), and were also related to better working memory capacity. Together, the current experimental evidence demonstrates adult L2 learners' top-down processing of stop consonants where linguistic and cognitive resources are devoted to a process of determining abstract phonemic identity.

• 영어어문교육
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.193-206
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• 2011

The purpose of the study is to examine the use of emotion vocabulary by Korean English learners. Three basic emotion fields, pleasure, anger, and fear were selected to elicit the participants' responses. L1 English speakers' data was also collected for comparison. The major results are as follows. First, English learners responded with various inappropriate verb forms like I feel~, I am~ while the majority of English native speaking teachers responded with subjunctive forms like I would feel~. In addition, L2 English learners used mostly simple and coordination sentences. Second, the lexical richness, measured through type/token ratio, was higher in English L1 data than in English L2 data. The proportion of emotion lemmas reflects the lexical richness or the diversity of the emotion words. Lastly, L2 English learners' responses focused on a few typical adjectives like happy, angry and scared. This structural and semantic distinctiveness of Korean English learners' emotion words was discussed from pedagogical perspectives.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 2000년도 7월 학술대회지
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• pp.178-178
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• 2000

This paper IS concerned with adults' foreign language aquisition and intends to research the relationship between the mother tongue's phonetic system (L1) and the perception of the foreign language (L2), in this paper Polish and Korean. The questions that are to help to define the aforementioned relationship are I) how Polish perceive Korean vowels, 2) how Koreans perceive Polish vowels, and 3) how Koreans perceive Korean vowels pronounced by Poles. In order to identify L2's vowels, the listeners try to fit them into the categories of their own language (L1). On the one hand, vowels that are the same in both languages and those that are articulated where no other vowel is articulated, have the best rate of recognition. For example, /i/ in both languages is a front close vowel and in both languages there are no other front close vowels. Therefore, vowels /i/ (and /a/) have the best rate of recognition in all three experiments. On the other hand, vowels that are unfamiliar to the listeners do not seem to have the worst rate of recognition. The vowels that have the worst rate of recognition are those, that are similar, but not quite the same as those of L1. This research proves that "equivalence classification prevents L2 learners from producing similar L2 phones, but not new L2 phones, authentically" (Flege, 1987). Polish speakers can pronounce unfamiliar L2 vowels "more authentically" than those similar to L1 vowels. However, the difference is not significant and this subject requires further research (different data, more informants).

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.63-69
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• 2016

Twenty five English native speakers with two different L2 experienced groups and nineteen native Koreans heard both Korean word-initial nasals (/m/ and /n/) in three vowel contexts (low, mid, and high) produced by a native Korean speaker. The experiment examined the hypothesis that Korean nasals are more likely to be judged or perceived correctly by the L2-experienced English learners of Korean than the unexperienced counterparts. The result showed that L2 experienced group was more sensitive to effects of vowel height in judging the Korean nasals in which the perception of nasals before the high vowels was more subject to it. In addition, place of nasal articulation causes asymmetry relations - bilabial nasal /m/ is more likely to be perceived as plosives rather than alveolar nasal /n/. The study found that the L2 experience has a somewhat limited role in perceiving the nasals correctly in the word-initial position, especially before the high vowels, in that even the L2 experienced English subjects have difficulty in identifying the Korean nasals correctly in this environment. Nevertheless, low L2 proficiency might be accounted for the difficulty in the bilabial nasal identification observed by the L2 experienced group.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제3권4호
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

This paper investigates whether listeners perceive a different level of politeness when the duration of the Korean sentence-final auxiliary particle '-yo' is varied. A total of 10 Korean sentences were manipulated by lengthening and shortening '-yo' by 10%, 20%, and 30%. The participants included native Korean speakers and Chinese and Japanese learners of Korean (n=10, respectively). They were asked to rate the level of politeness of the stimuli on a 9-point scale. It was found that Korean listeners perceived decreased politeness as the duration of '-yo' was shortened and increased politeness as it was lengthened. However, Chinese and Japanese listeners did not perceive a different level of politeness from the manipulated sentences. This finding suggests that it is important to teach L2 speakers that the duration of the auxiliary particle '-yo' plays a role in Korean listeners' perception of politeness.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.77-83
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• 2011

The present study reports the results of an acoustic study of nasal assimilation at word boundaries in Chinese-Korean interlanguage. Twelve Chinese learners of Korean and four Korean native speakers recorded obstruent#nasal sequences in noun compounds and verb phrases, and their different production patterns were examined in detail. While nasalization of the word-final obstruents occurred only in 11.7% of the obstruent#nasal sequences for the Chinese learners, the Korean native speakers showed complete nasalization of those sequences. However, there was small, but consistent effect of learning on the production of external sandhi in L2, because there were shown to be differences in the rate of nasalization between the two proficiency groups of Chinese participants. On average, the intermediate level learners nasalized the target stops at the rate of 16%, and the beginning level learners showed the 7% nasalization rate. In addition, it was found that the context difference such as noun compounds versus verb phrases does not influence the nasalization pattern across word boundaries.