• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.151-163
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• 2015

In this study, we aim to describe kinematic characteristics of Korean /l/-flapping in two speech rates (fast vs. comfortable). Production data was collected from seven native speakers of Seoul Korean (four females and three males) using electromagnetic midsagittal articulometry (EMMA), which provided two dimensional data on the x-y plane. We examined kinematic properties of the vertical/horizontal tongue tip gesture, the vertical/horizontal (rear) tongue body gesture, and the jaw gesture in an /i/-/i/ context. Gestural landmarks of the vertical tongue tip gesture are directly measured. This serves as the actual anchoring time points to which relevant measures of other trajectories referred. The study focuses on velocity profiles, closing/opening spatiotemporal properties, constriction duration, and constriction minima were analyzed. The results are summarized as follows. First, gradiently distributed spatiotemporal values of the vertical tongue tip gesture were on a continuum. This shows more of a reduction in fast speech rate, but no single instance of categorical reduction (deletion). Second, Korean /l/-flapping predominantly exhibited a backward sliding tongue tip movement, in 83% of production, which is apparently distinguished from forward sliding movement in English. Lastly, there was an indication of vocalic reduction in fast rate, truncating spatial displacement of the jaw and the tongue body, although we did not observe positional variations with speech rate. The present study shows that Korean /l/-flapping is characterized by mixed articulatory properties with respect to flapping sounds of other languages such as English and Xiangxiang Chinese. Korean /l/ flapping demonstrates a language-universal property, such as the gradient nature of its flapping sounds that is compatible with other languages. On the other hand, Korean /l/-flapping also shows a language-particular property, particularly distinguished from English, in that a backward gliding movement occurs during the tongue tip closing movement. Although, there was no vocalic reduction in V2 observed in terms of jaw and tongue body height, spatial displacement of these articulators still suggests truncation in fast speech rate.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.23-34
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• 2021

This study aims to discuss how Egyptian learners of Korean perceive and categorize Korean vowels, how Koreans perceive Korean vowels they pronounce, and how Egyptian learners' Korean vowel categorization affects their perception and production of Korean vowels. In Experiment 1, 53 Egyptian learners were asked to listen to Korean test words pronounced by Koreans and choose the words they had listened to among 4 confusable words. In Experiment 2, 117 sound files (13 test words×9 Egyptian learners) recorded by Egyptian learners were given to Koreans and asked to select the words they had heard among 4 confusable words. The results of the experiments show that "new" Korean vowels that do not have categorizable ones in Egyptian Arabic easily formed new categories and were therefore well identified in perception and relatively well pronounced, but some of them were poorly produced. However, Egyptian learners poorly distinguished "similar" Korean vowels in perception, but their pronunciation was relatively well identified by native Koreans. Based on the results of this study, we argued that the Speech Learning Model (SLM) and Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) explain the L2 speech perception well, but they are insufficient to explain L2 speech production and therefore need to be revised and extended to L2 speech production.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.129-136
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• 2013

This study investigated how acoustic characteristics (i.e., duration, F1, F2) of English high front vowels /i, ɪ/ are modulated by boundary- and prominence-induced strengthening in native vs. non-native (Korean) speech production. The study also examined how the durational difference in vowels due to the voicing of a following consonant (i.e., voiced vs. voiceless) is modified by prosodic strengthening in two different (native vs. non-native) speaker groups. Five native speakers of Canadian English and eight Korean learners of English (intermediate-advanced level) produced 8 minimal pairs with the CVC sequence (e.g., 'beat'-'bit') in varying prosodic contexts. Native speakers distinguished the two vowels in terms of duration, F1, and F2, whereas non-native speakers only showed durational differences. The two groups were similar in that they maximally distinguished the two vowels when the vowels were accented (F2, duration), while neither group showed boundary-induced strengthening in any of the three measurements. The durational differences due to the voicing of the following consonant were also maximized when accented. The results are discussed further in terms of phonetics-prosody interface in L2 production.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.251-271
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• 2011

The present study analyzed Korean learners' production of English /z/-/$d{\Box}$/ and /z/-/${\Box}$/ contrasts in terms of native speaker judgments and acoustic measurements. Korean learner's production was judged to be either correct or incorrect by native English speakers. Correct and incorrect productions were then compared with productions of native speakers' in terms of acoustic analyses. The results indicated that Korean speakers' correct production was more similar to that of native speakers by sharing more acoustic cues. Incorrect production by Korean speakers indicated patterns either different or opposite from that of native speakers, confirming native speaker judgments. The results also revealed acoustic cues on which native speakers rely in judging L2 speech, thereby implying that the more consistent along with more number of acoustic cues used by native speakers may facilitate the acquisition of segment contrasts by L2 learners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

The perceptual assimilation of a nonnative phonological contrast can change with linguistic experience, resulting in naïve listeners and novice second language (L2) learners potentially assimilating the members of a nonnative contrast to different native (L1) categories. While it has been shown that this sort of change can affect the discrimination of the nonnative contrast, it has not been tested whether such a change could have consequences for the production of the contrast. In this study, L1 speakers of Mandarin Chinese who were (1) naïve to Korean, (2) novice L2 learners, or (3) advanced L2 learners participated in a Korean non-word repetition task using word-initial sibilants. The initial CVs of their repetitions were then played to L1 Korean listeners who categorized the initial consonant. The naïve talkers were more likely to repeat an initial /s^ha/ as an affricate, whereas the L2 learners repeated it as a fricative, in line with how these listeners have been shown to assimilate Korean sibilants to Mandarin categories. This result suggests that errors in the production of new words presented auditorily to nonnative listeners may be driven by how they perceptually assimilate the nonnative sounds, emphasizing the need to better understand what drives changes in perceptual assimilation that accompany increased linguistic experience.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.17-27
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• 2009

Despite many studies on the production and perception of L2 phonemes, studies on how such phonemes are encoded lexically remain scarce. The aim of this study is to examine whether L2 learners have a perceptual problem with L2 suprasegmentals which are not present in their L1, or if they are able to perceive but not able to encode them in their lexicon. Specifically, Korean learners were tested to see if they could discriminate the vowel length differences in Japanese at the psychoacoustic level through a simple AX discrimination task. Then, a speeded lexical decision task with high phonetic variability was conducted to see whether they could use such contrasts lexically. The results showed that Korean learners of Japanese have no difficulties in discriminating Japanese vowel length contrast, but they are unable to encode such contrast in their phonological representation, even with long L2 exposure.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2023

This study attempted to test the hypothesis that Korean evaluators can score L2 speech appropriately, even when speech rate features are unavailable. Two perception experiments-preliminary and main-were conducted sequentially. The purpose of the preliminary experiment was to categorize English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) speakers into two groups-advanced learners and lower-level learners-based on the proficiency scores given by five human raters. In the main experiment, a set of stimuli was prepared such that the speech rate of all data tokens was modified to have a uniform speech rate. Ten human evaluators were asked to score the stimulus tokens on a 5-point scale. These scores were statistically analyzed to determine whether there was a significant difference in utterance production between the two groups. The results of the preliminary experiment confirm that higher-proficiency learners speak faster than lower-proficiency learners. The results of the main experiment indicate that under controlled speech-rate conditions, human raters can appropriately assess learner proficiency, probably thanks to the linguistic features that the raters considered during the evaluation process.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.77-88
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• 2011

Foreign accent in second language production depends heavily on the transfer of features from the first language. This study examines acoustic variations in segments and suprasegments by native and nonnative speakers of English, searching for patterns of the transfer and plausible indexes of foreign accent in English. The acoustic variations are analyzed with recorded read speech by 20 native English speakers and 50 Korean learners of English, in terms of vowel formants, vowel duration, and syllabic variation induced by stress. The results show that the acoustic measurements of vowel formants and vowel and syllable durations display difference between native speakers and nonnative speakers. The difference is robust in the production of lax vowels, diphthongs, and stressed syllables, namely the English-specific features. L1 transfer on L2 specification is found both at the segmental levels and at the suprasegmental levels. The transfer levels measured as groups and individuals further show a continuum of divergence from the native-like target. Overall, the eldest group, students who are in the graduate schools, shows more native-like patterns, suggesting weaker foreign accent in English, whereas the high school students tend to involve larger deviation from the native speakers' patterns. Individual results show interdependence between segmental transfer and prosodic transfer, and correlation with self-reported proficiency levels. Additionally, experience factors in English such as length of English study and length of residence in English speaking countries are further discussed as factors to explain the acoustic variation.

• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.45-52
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• 2018

This study investigates the effect of Japanese (L1) on the production of the Korean rhythmic structure. Korean and Japanese have typologically different rhythmic structure as a syllable-timed language and mora-timed language, respectively. This rhythmic difference comes from the different phonological properties of the two languages. Due to this difference, Japanese speakers that are learning Korean may produce a different rhythm than native Korean speakers' rhythm. To investigate the influence of the native language's rhythm on the target language, we conducted an acoustic analysis using acoustic metrics such as %V, VarcoV, and VarcoS. Four Korean native speakers and ten advanced Japanese Korean learners participated in a production test. The analyzed material consisted of six Korean sentences that contained various syllable structures. The results showed that KS and JS's rhythms are different in %V as well as in VarcoV. In the case of VarcoS, significant rhythmic difference was observed in the VC and CVC syllable, in which the coda segment is nasal sound. This study allowed us to observe the influence of L1 on production of L2 rhythm.