• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Cognitive Science Conference
• /
• 2010.05a
• /
• pp.60-65
• /
• 2010

Language learning involves linguistic environments around the learner. So the variation in training input to which the learner is exposed has been linked to their language learning. We explore how linguistic experiences can cause differences in learning linguistic structural features, as investigate in a probabilistic graphical model. We manipulate the amounts of training input, composed of natural linguistic data from animation videos for children, from holistic (one-word expression) to compositional (two- to six-word one) gradually. The recognition and generation of sentences are a "probabilistic" constraint satisfaction process which is based on massively parallel DNA chemistry. Random sentence generation tasks succeed when networks begin with limited sentential lengths and vocabulary sizes and gradually expand with larger ones, like children's cognitive development in learning. This model supports the suggestion that variations in early linguistic environments with developmental steps may be useful for facilitating language acquisition.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2004.05a
• /
• pp.205-208
• /
• 2004

The aim of this study is to analyse the adjustment of the proportion of segment duration in imitating voice. When imitating others' voices, how far is his/her original proportion of segment duration adjusted, and what is this adjustment like under various segments? In this study, I classified segments into consonants and vowels and consonants classified into obstruents and sonorants. The result of the analysis is as follows. ; (1)Individual variation in the proportion of obstruent is not significant, and when imitating, and its distribution is not typicalized. (2) Vowels has individual variation in the proportion of segment duration even under imitating. (3) Nasal has the most distinct individual variation even under imitating, compared with vowel and obstruent. For the further study, I should examine the characteristics of quantitative and qualitative changes in liquid (among sonorant) to find out which segment can best describe personnel characteristics of the proportion of segment duration in imitating voice.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.89-91
• /
• 1996

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
• /
• autumn
• /
• pp.365-368
• /
• 1999

This study analyzes different types of pauses in French language - silent pauses and filled pauses -, focussing on their distribution and duration in utterances from a radio interview. Pauses combined with intonation which precede and succeed influence the variability of intonation patterns; initial rising and penultima rising of French intonation. These two patterns characterize contemporary French, specially in face-to-face situation.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.316-324
• /
• 2020

It has experienced how difficult People with foreign language learning, it is to pronounce a new language different from the native language. The goal of various foreigners who want to learn Korean is to speak Korean as well as their native language to communicate smoothly. However, each native language's vocal habits also appear in Korean pronunciation, which prevents accurate information transmission. In this paper, the pronunciation of Chinese learners was compared with that of Korean. For comparison, the fundamental frequency and its variation of the speech signal were examined and the spectrogram was analyzed. The Formant frequencies known as the resonant frequency of the vocal tract were calculated. Based on these characteristics parameters, the classifier of the Supporting Vector Machine was found to classify the pronunciation of Koreans and the pronunciation of Chinese learners. In particular, the linguistic proposition was scientifically proved by examining the Korean pronunciation of /ㄹ/ that the Chinese people were not good at pronouncing.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.35-46
• /
• 2021

In this study, we examined the interactive aspects between pitch reduction phenomena considered a universal language phenomenon and native language interference in the production of L2 intonation performed by Chinese learners of Korean. To investigate their interaction, we conducted an acoustic analysis using acoustic measures such as pitch span, pitch level, pitch dynamic quotient, skewness, and kurtosis. In addition, the correlation between text comprehension and pitch was examined. The analyzed material consisted of four Korean discourses containing five and seven sentences of varying difficulty. Seven Korean native speakers and thirty Chinese learners who differed in their Korean proficiency participated in the production test. The results, for differences by language, showed that Chinese had a more expanded pitch span, and a higher pitch level than Korean. The analysis between groups showed that at the beginner and intermediate levels, pitch reduction was prominent, i.e., their Korean was characterized by a compressed pitch span, low pitch level, and less sentence internal pitch variation. Contrariwise, the pitch use of advanced speakers was most similar to Korean native speakers. There was no significant correlation between text difficulty and pitch use. Through this study, we observed that pitch reduction was more pronounced than native language interference in the phonetic layer.

• Language and Information
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.77-96
• /
• 2007

This paper investigates syntactic variations in English such as Dative Alternation, Particle Inversion, and Object Postposition (Heavy NP Shift) within the framework of Optimality Theory, and shows that the same set of morphological, informational, and processing constraints affect all these variations. In particular, it shows that the variants that used to be regarded as ungrammatical are in fact used fairly often in reality, especially when processing or informational conditions are met, and therefore, grammatical judgment may not be always categorical but sometimes gradient. It is argued that the notion of distance in constraint ranking in stochastic OT can effectively explain the gradience and variability of grammaticality in the variation phenomena.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.56 no.6
• /
• pp.1163-1190
• /
• 2010

Korean EFL learners' stylistic sensitivity was examined through the two types of letter writing, professional and personal. The base of comparison with the English native speakers' stylistic sensitivity was the linguistic style markers that were statistically found by Biber's (1988) multi-dimensional model of variation of English language. The main finding was that Korean university students were sensitive to stylistic difference in the correct direction, though their linguistic repertoire was limited to the easy and simple linguistic features. Also, the learners were skewed in the involved style in both types of the letters unlike the native speakers and it was interpreted as due to the general developmental direction from informal to formal linguistic style. Learners were also skewed in the explicit style in both types of letters unlike the native speakers and it was interpreted as due to the learners' heavy reliance on one particular linguistic feature. As a whole, the learners' stylistic sensitivity heavily relied on the small number of linguistic features that they have already acquired, which happen to be simple and basic linguistic features.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.54 no.4
• /
• pp.483-509
• /
• 2008

For the last decades, criticism on Frankenstein has tried to make a link between Victor's Creature and Rousseaurean "man in a state of nature." Like the Rousseaurean savage in a state of animal, the monster has only basic instincts least needed for his survival, i.e. self-preservation, but turns into a civilized man after learning language. Most critics argue that, despite the monster's acquisition of language, his failure in entry into a cultural and linguistic community is the outcome of a lack of sympathy for him by others, which displays the stark existence of epistemological barriers between them. That is to say, the monster imagines his being the same as others in the pre-linguistic stage but, in the linguistic stage, he realizes that he is different from others. Interpreting the Rousseaurean idea of language, which appears in his writings, as much more focused on emotion than many critics think, I read the dispute between Victor and his Creature as a variation of parent-offspring conflict. Shelley criticizes Rousseau's parental negligence in putting his children into a foundling hospital and leaving them dying there. The monster's revenge on uncaring Victor parallels the likely retaliation Rousseau's displaced children would perform against Rousseau, which Shelley imaginatively reproduces in her novel. The conflict between the monster and Victor is due to a disrupted attachment between parent and child in terms of Darwinian developmental psychology. Affective asynchrony between parent and child, which refers to a state of lack of mutual favorable feelings, accounts for numerous dysfunctional families. This paper shifts a focus from a semiotics-oriented perspective on the monster's social isolation to a Darwinian perspective, drawing attention to emotional problems transpiring in familial interactions. In doing so, it finds that language is a means of communicating one's internal emotions to others along with other means such as facial expressions and body movements. It also demonstrates that how to promote emotional well-being in either familial or social relationships entirely depends on the way in which one employs language that can entail either pleasure or anger on hearers' part.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.69-76
• /
• 2017

The current study investigated whether Korean learners' English-learning environments, especially target English accent (General American English (GAE) vs. Southern British English (SBE)) and English-language experience affected their production of English vowels. Thirty six EFL learners, 27 ESL-US learners, and 33 ESL-UK learners produced 8 English vowels with a bVt frame (beat, bit, bet, bat, bought, bot, boat, boot). The learners' productions were acoustically analyzed in terms of F1 and F2 frequencies. The overall results revealed that the learners' target accent had an effect on their production of some English vowels. The EFL and ESL-US learners' (especially, female learners') production of bought, bot, boat, and boot, which show characteristic differences between the GAE and SBE accents, was closer to that of the native American English (AE) speakers than the native British English (BE) speakers. In contrast, the ESL-UK learners' production of bought and bot demonstrated the opposite pattern. Thus, the impact of target accent was not demonstrated across the board. The effect of the learners' different English-language experience was also rather limited. This was because the EFL learners' production was not much different from the ESL-US learners' production, in spite of the ESL-US learners' residence in the US for more than 9 years. Furthermore, the Korean learners, irrespective of their different English-language experience, tended to produce bit and bat with lower F1 than the native AE and BE speakers, thus resulting in bit and bat to be produced similarly to beat and bet, respectively. This demonstrates the learners' persistent L1 effects on their English vowel production despite the learners' residence in the English speaking countries or their high English proficiency.