• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.15-22
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• 2016

This study aims to examine whether the fundamental frequency (F0) varies depending on languages or distinguishes between L1 (first language) and L2 (second language) speech and whether the type of materials which vary in control of consonant voicing affects the use of F0-especially, mean F0. For this purpose, we compared productions of two languages produced by Korean L2 learners of English to those of Korean-English bilingual speakers. Twelve Korean L2 speakers of English and twelve Korean-English bilingual speakers participated in this study. The subjects read aloud 22 declarative sentences-balanced and unbalanced-once in English and once in Korean. Mean F0 of Korean was higher than that of English for both speaker groups, and the difference in the value of mean F0 between the Korean and English sentences was different depending on the type of materials that the participants read. With regard to F0 range, the L2 speakers had a larger F0 range in English than in Korean; however, the effect of language on F0 range was not statistically significant for the bilingual speakers. These results indicate that language-specific properties may affect the use of F0, in particular, mean F0.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.49-61
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• 2016

The present study investigates the perception of Korean phonation types by native speakers of Aymara. Perception tests were conducted on two sets of Korean speech materials to determine correspondence between Korean and Aymara 3-way contrasts and to find out which of the consonantal and vocalic part of the syllable is more influential in the perception of Korean phonation types. A set of manipulated stimuli, as well as a set of 12 spontaneous words, were prepared for the tests. The first syllable of the 12 Korean bisyllabic words of 3 series of phonation types(Lenis, Aspirated, and Fortis) in 4 places of articulation were split into consonantal and vocalic parts. And then the two parts were combined to form 9 tokens of CV sequences respectively for each place of articulation. Native speakers of Aymara were forced to match Korean stimuli with one of the 15 Aymara words which represent 3 series of consonant types(plain, aspirated, and ejective) in 5 places of articulation(bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular). Results showed that the consonantal part is more influential than the vocalic part to the Aymara subjects' perception of Korean phonation types when the consonantal part is Aspirated in its phonation type, but the vocalic part is more influential than the consonantal part when the consonantal part is Lenis or Fortis in its phonation type. Response analysis showed that Aymara subjects tend to match Korean stops to Aymara ones in such a way that Lenis corresponds to aspirated, Aspirated to aspirated, and Fortis to plain.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.49-59
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate vocal hygiene habits and Korean Voice-Related Quality of Life (K-VRQOL) among classical singers. A total of 128 classical singers filled an online voice and K-VRQOL questionnaire, and the results were analyzed. In order to investigate the characteristics of K-VRQOL according to age groups, and the presence or absence of a history of voice problems, we conducted a two-way ANOVA. The results are as follows. Of the 128 classical singers, 28 (21.9%) with a history of voice problems said that excessive conversation, singing practice, and yelling were the causes of their voice problems. The symptoms of voice problems were fatigue, loss of range, hoarseness, and breathiness. In addition, classical singers were less likely to smoke, or to drink alcohol or caffeine. The K-VRQOL was highly correlated with all sub-domains. There was a statistically significant difference according to age groups (p<.05) and history of voice problems (p<.01). There was no correlation between age groups and history of voice problems. Voice management is important because classical singers can ruin their voice by speaking, and the risk of voice disorder is high. Voice problems affect quality of life. In future studies, it is necessary to obtain information on the subjective voice characteristics of classical singers by examining the relationship between their voice hygiene habits and VHI, SVHI, and K-VRQOL.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.11-22
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to find the influence of Chinese falling-rising tone on the pitch pattern of corresponding Sino-Korean words delivered by Chinese learners of Korean and to examine how the falling-rising tone of corresponding Chinese words affect the pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words. The scope of this research is limited to Chinese learners of Korean, especially when they pronounce same-form-same-meaning Sino-Korean words. In this study, Chinese learners pronounced both Chinese words and corresponding Sino-Korean words. Learners' pitch patterns were recorded and analyzed using software and compared with the tone of corresponding Chinese words. Experimental results showed that Sino-Korean words were affected by Chinese 'falling-rising tone - high and level tone' when they started with lenis sounds. On the other hand, when Sino-Korean words started with aspirated sounds they were affected by Chinese 'falling-rising tone - high and level tone', 'falling-rising tone - falling-rising tone', and 'falling-rising tone - falling tone'. In conclusion, the Chinese learners' pitch patterns of Sino-Korean words are affected by Chinese falling-rising tone, especially when Sino-Korean words start with aspirated sounds.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.37-52
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• 2011

This study investigates patterns of the alignment of the accentual peaks in bisyllabic words of the CVNCV, CVNV, and CVNNV structures in North Kyungsang Korean. Based on the tonal alignment, patterns of the F0 pitch excursion are discussed relative to one another. Issues are addressed concerning how the tonal targets are aligned, and how the tonal specifications of nasals in postvocalic, intervocalic, and prevocalic environments are supplied in the LH, HL, and HH classes. Tonal specification of nasals in various environments is accounted for by extension of the L target, displacement of the pitch peak, and interpolation between two tonal targets, depending on the tonal class. The results in this study provide preliminary evidence that the categorical alignment of the tonal targets is implemented by simply checking the presence or absence of a nasal before or after the nucleus vowel on the segmental string, without reference to the constituency of the nasal in the syllable structure. However, the prosodic structure has a key role to play in explaining speaker-dependent variations in the tonal alignment. Sensitivity to tautosyllabicity has an effect on the shape of the F0 contour, and disparity in the patterns of the pitch excursion is represented as a function of syllable structure correlated with segmental composition of the nasal.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2011

The present work is a follow-up study to that of Han, Choi, Lim and Lee (2011), where an asymmetry in the source segments eliciting the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) was found such that the vowels which did not match any vowel of the Korean language were likely to elicit more ISIB than matched vowels. In order to identify the source of the stronger ISIB in non-matched vowels, acoustic analyses of the stimuli were performed. Two pairs of English front vowels [i] vs. [I], and $[{\varepsilon}]$ vs. $[{\ae}]$ were recorded by English native talkers and two groups of Korean learners according to their English proficiency, and then their vowel duration and the frequencies of the first two formants (F1, F2) were measured. The results demonstrated that the non-matched vowels such as [I], and $[{\ae}]$ produced by Korean talkers seemed to show more deviated acoustic characteristics from those of the natives, with longer duration and with closer formant values to the matched vowels, [i] and $[{\varepsilon}]$, than those of the English natives. Combining the results of acoustic measurements in the present study and those of word identification in Han et al. (2011), we suggest that relatively better performance in word identification by Korean talkers/listeners than the native English talkers/listeners is associated with the shared interlanguage of Korean talkers and listeners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.99-105
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• 2011

The treatment for patients with mutational dysphonia typically is useful with vegetative phonation, but has not yet been studied. This study attempts to identify the effect of $SKTCLP^{(R)}$ using throat clearing and laughing in patients with mutational dysphonia. The study, which was designed by the author, included 26 patients aged from 14 to 32 years (mean: 18.7 years) who had been diagnosed with mutational dysphonia between January 2007 and June 2010. Voice therapy for these patients included $SKTCLP^{(R)}$, ranging from two to seven sessions (mean: 3.8 sessions). Results were evaluated by videostroboscopy, perceptual evaluation of GRBAS scale, aerodynamic test, and acoustic analysis before and after therapy. Most patients could phonate with low pitch from the beginning and sustain with normal pitch sound in the last session. We had found that glottic gap reduced after therapy and anterior-posterior compression of superior laryngeal part at the first time, and these patients had complete closure of the glottis after treatment. The results of acoustic and aerodynamic measures after treatment indicated significant decreases in Fo, Jitter, Shimmer, SFF, and SPI, and increases in MPT, Psub, and vocal efficiency (p<.05). $SKTCLP^{(R)}$ may be a useful treatment method in managing mutational dysphonia. We can suggest this technique may be useful in improving the voice quality of other functional dysphonia having glottal chink or functional aphonia.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.77-83
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• 2015

Voice complication without the laryngeal nerve injury can occur after thyroidectomy. The purpose of this study is to investigate voice changes according to extent of thyroidectomy with acoustic analysis. Thirty-five female patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma took voice evaluation at before and 1 month, and 3 months after thyroidectomy. Acoustic analysis parameters were speaking fundamental frequency(SFF), min $F_0$, max $F_0$, dynamic range $F_0$, jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonic ratio(NHR), and Cepstral prominence peak(CPP). Repeated-measured analysis of variance was applied. Time-related voice changes showed significant differences in all parameters except NHR. At 1 month after surgery, voice quality was worse and pitch was decreasing, but voice quality and pitch were improving at 3-month follow-up. Voice changes according to the extent of surgery were in SFF, max $F_0$, and dynamic range $F_0$. Time by surgery-related voice change existed only in min $F_0$. The result showed that the severity of voice complication depended on the extend of thyroidectomy which had a negative impact on $F_0$-related parameters. The deterioration of voice quality at 1 month after thyroidectomy may be affected by the loss of thyroid hormone in the blood. The descent of $F_0$-related parameters may be impacted by laryngeal fixation of surgical site adhesion.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.27-33
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• 2015

This paper proposes an audio event classification method using Deep Neural Networks (DNN). The proposed method applies Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) to generate event probabilities of ten audio events (dog barks, engine idling, and so on) for each frame. For each frame, mel scale filter bank features of its consecutive frames are used as the input vector of the FFNN. These event probabilities are accumulated for the events and the classification result is determined as the event with the highest accumulated probability. For the same dataset, the best accuracy of previous studies was reported as about 70% when the Support Vector Machine (SVM) was applied. The best accuracy of the proposed method achieves as 79.23% for the UrbanSound8K dataset when 80 mel scale filter bank features each from 7 consecutive frames (in total 560) were implemented as the input vector for the FFNN with two hidden layers and 2,000 neurons per hidden layer. In this configuration, the rectified linear unit was suggested as its activation function.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.111-121
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• 2015

The present study examines the auditory boundary between Korean /o/ and /u/ on a synthesized vowel continuum by Chinese learners of Korean language. Preceding researches reported that the Chinese learners have difficulty pronouncing Korean monophthongs /o/ and /u/. In this experiment, a nine-step continuum was resynthesized using Praat from a vowel token from a recording of a male announcer who produced it in isolated form. F1 and F2 were synchronously shifted in equal steps in qtone (quarter tone), while F3 and F4 values were held constant for the entire stimuli. A forced choice identification task was performed by the advanced learners who speak Mandarin Chinese as their native language. Their experiment data were compared to a Korean native group. ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) analysis and logistic regression were performed to estimate the perceptual boundary. The result indicated the learner group has a different auditory criterion on the continuum from the Korean native group. This suggests that more importance should be placed on hearing and listening training in order to acquire the phoneme categories of the two vowels.