• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.37-44
• /
• 2023

This study investigates perceptual confusions of English fricatives among 121 Korean elementary school English as a foreign language (EFL) learners with shorter periods of learning English. The objective is to examine how they perceive English fricative consonants and to provide educational guidelines. Two sets of English fricative identification tasks-voiceless fricatives and voiced fricatives-were administered to participants in a High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) setting. Their phonemic awareness of the fricatives was visualized in perceptual confusion maps via multidimensional scaling analysis. The findings are explored in terms of the impacts of Korean EFL learners' L1 linguistic aspects and a comparison with L1 learners. Learners' phonemic awareness patterns are then compared with their relative importance in speech intelligibility based on a functional load hierarchy. The results indicated that Korean elementary EFL learners recognized English fricatives in a manner largely akin to L1 learners, suggesting their ongoing acquisition progress. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the young EFL learners possess sufficient phonemic awareness for most high functional load segments but encounter some difficulties with one high and one low functional pair. The findings of this study offer suggestions for diagnosing language learners' phonemic awareness abilities, thereby aiding in the development of practical guidelines for language instructional design and helping educators make informed decisions regarding teaching priority in L2 classes.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.23 no.4E
• /
• pp.134-139
• /
• 2004

It is generally known that accurate segmentation is very necessary for both an individual word and continuous utterances in speech recognition. It is also commonly known that techniques are now being developed to classify the voiced and the unvoiced, also classifying the plosives and the fricatives. The method for accurate recognition of the phonemes isn't yet scientifically established. Therefore, in this study we analyze the Korean language, using the classification of 'Hunminjeongeum' and contemporary phonetics, with the frequency band, Mel band and Mel Cepstrum, we extract notable features of the phonemes from Korean speech and segment speech by the unit of the phonemes to normalize them. Finally, through the analysis and verification, we intend to set up Phonemic Segmentation System that will make us able to adapt it to both an individual word and continuous utterances.

• MALSORI
• /
• no.59
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2006

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between intelligibility and phonemic contrasts, and acoustic features in terms of speech development. A total of 212 Putonghua speaking children was participated in the experiment. There were phonemic contrasts significantly related with speech intelligibility: aspirated vs. fricative, retroflex vs. unretroflex, and front vs. back nasal vowel contrast. A regression analysis showed that 88% of the speech intelligibility could be predicted by these phonemic contrasts. Acoustic values were significantly related to the intelligibility of the Putonghua-speaking children's speech: voice onset time of unaspirated stops, and the duration of frication noise in fricatives.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2002.11a
• /
• pp.81-85
• /
• 2002

We present a statistical analysis of Korean phonological variations using automatic generation of phonetic transcription. We have constructed the automatic generation system of Korean pronunciation variants by applying rules modeling obligatory and optional phonemic changes and allophonic changes. These rules are derived from knowledge-based morphophonological analysis and government standard pronunciation rules. This system is optimized for continuous speech recognition by generating phonetic transcriptions for training and constructing a pronunciation dictionary for recognition. In this paper, we describe Korean phonological variations by analyzing the statistics of phonemic change rule applications for the 60,000 sentences in the Samsung PBS(Phonetic Balanced Sentence) Speech DB. Our results show that the most frequently happening obligatory phonemic variations are in the order of liaison, tensification, aspirationalization, and nasalization of obstruent, and that the most frequently happening optional phonemic variations are in the order of initial consonant h-deletion, insertion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonants, and deletion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonants. These statistics can be used for improving the performance of speech recognition systems.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.151-160
• /
• 2024

Through the utilization of a contrastive analysis of English consonantal phonemes and their Russian counterparts, the present study investigates the challenges faced by Russian EFL learners in pronouncing English consonantal phonemes, with a particular focus on phoneme substitution errors as a principal source of erroneous pronunciation. We comprehensively explore the characteristics of both the English and Russian consonant systems, highlighting the differences between them. Based on this examination, the study aims to present the detailed articulatory characteristics and phonetic variations of Russian speakers' common mispronunciations or improper substitutes of English consonants, rather than focusing on shared ones between the two languages. Furthermore, it seeks to provide strategies for error correction and effective pedagogical strategies to address specific phonemic challenges and enhance accuracy. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the objectives and advantages of comparative analysis within the context of phonemic awareness, the study emphasizes the significant importance of pronunciation instruction. It points out that this area still appears somewhat overlooked in specific EFL teaching situations within the context of English language education.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.233-242
• /
• 2003

A TTS(Text-To-Speech) System is a computer-based system that should be able to read any text aloud. To output a natural voice, we need a general knowledge of language, a lot of time, and effort. Furthermore, the sound pattern of english has a variable pattern, which consists of phonemic and morphological analysis. It is very difficult to maintain consistency of pattern. To handle these problems, we present a system based on phonemic analysis for vowel and consonant. By analyzing phonological variations frequently found in spoken english, we have derived about phonemic contexts that would trigger the multilevel application of the corresponding phonological process, which consists of phonemic and allophonic rules. In conclusion, we have a rule data which consists of phoneme, and a engine which economize in system. The proposed system can use not only communication system, but also utilize office automation and so on.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.21 no.7
• /
• pp.656-664
• /
• 2002

We present a statistical analysis of Korean phonological variations using a Grapheme-to-Phoneme (GPT) system. The GTP system used for experiments generates pronunciation variants by applying rules modeling obligatory and optional phonemic changes and allophonic changes. These rules are derived form morphophonological analysis and government standard pronunciation rules. The GTP system is optimized for continuous speech recognition by generating phonetic transcriptions for training and constructing a pronunciation dictionary for recognition. In this paper, we describe Korean phonological variations by analyzing the statistics of phonemic change rule applications for the 60,000 sentences in the Samsung PBS Speech DB. Our results show that the most frequently happening obligatory phonemic variations are in the order of liaison, tensification, aspirationalization, and nasalization of obstruent, and that the most frequently happening optional phonemic variations are in the order of initial consonant h-deletion, insertion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonants, and deletion of final consonant with the same place of articulation as the next consonant's, These statistics can be used for improving the performance of speech recognition systems.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.35-43
• /
• 2001

Many speech recognition systems have used pronunciation lexicon with possible multiple phonetic transcriptions for each word. The pronunciation lexicon is of often manually created. This process requires a lot of time and efforts, and furthermore, it is very difficult to maintain consistency of lexicon. To handle these problems, we present a model based on morphophon-ological analysis for automatically generating Korean pronunciation variants. By analyzing phonological variations frequently found in spoken Korean, we have derived about 700 phonemic contexts that would trigger the multilevel application of the corresponding phonological process, which consists of phonemic and allophonic rules. In generating pronunciation variants, morphological analysis is preceded to handle variations of phonological words. According to the morphological category, a set of tables reflecting phonemic context is looked up to generate pronunciation variants. Our experiments show that the proposed model produces mostly correct pronunciation variants of phonological words. Then we estimated how useful the pronunciation lexicon and training phonetic transcription using this proposed systems.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1988.07a
• /
• pp.33-36
• /
• 1988

In this paper, the starting point of affricate is detected from the first predictor coefficient of a 12-pole linear predictive coding (LPC) analysis and phonemic segmentation is done through measuring short time energy and zero crossing rate. By this segmentation method, the duration of an aspirate can be mearsured in order to detect an aspirate or not.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.59-75
• /
• 2002

Aerodynamic analysis study was performed on 14 normal subjects (2 males, 12 females) with nonsense syllables composed of Korean bilabial stops (/p, p', $p^{h}$) and their preceding and/or following vowels, /i, a, u/. That is, [pi, p'i, $p^{h}i$, pa, p'a, $p^{h}a$, pu, p'u, $p^{h}u$, ipi, apa, upu, $ip^{h}i$, $ap^{h}a$, $up^{h}u$, ip'i, ap'a, up'u]. All measures were taken and analysed using Aerophone II voice function analyzer and included peak air pressure, mean air pressure, maximum flow rate, volume, mean SPL and phonatory SPL. A t-test and one-way ANOVA were employed for analysis. A post-hoc analysis was performed with Scheffe and Bonferroni. The results were as follows: First, MSPL. and MAP of /p, p', $p^{h}$/ were significantly different in different positions (initial and medial position). In addition, different vowel environment also produced significantly different aerodynamic characteristics those consonants. Especially the lax consonant /p/ was significantly different /i, a, u/ vowel environments. The tense consonant /p'/ was significantly different only /i/ vowel environment.