• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2008

Language transfer means that the speaker's first language or previously acquired language influences on the production of the target language. This study aims at examining if there is native language influence on the production of English intonation by Korean speakers. The pitch accent patterns and the values of duration, F0, and intensity of the stressed vowel of the word with emphatic accent in the sentence produced by Korean speakers are compared to those of American English speakers. The results show that when the word receives emphatic accent in the sentence, American English speakers put H* accent on the stressed syllable of the word, but Korean speakers mostly assign high pitch on the last syllable of the word and have LH tonal pattern despite the fact that primary stress does not come on the last syllable within a word. In addition, comparison of the values of duration, F0, and intensity of the stressed vowel of the word with emphatic accent to those of the word with unmarked neutral accent shows that Korean speakers do not realize the intonation of the accented word appropriately because the values decrease even though the word has emphatic accent. This study finds out that there are differences in the production of English intonation of the word with emphatic accent between native speakers of English and Korean speakers, and that there is negative transfer of Korean intonation pattern to the production of English intonation by Korean speakers.

• MALSORI
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• no.65
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• pp.51-65
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• 2008

The aim of this study is to compare ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) children with normal children in terms of the prosodic features. Materials are collected by the reading of Korean read sentences. They are composed of 10 declarative sentences, each of which was consisted of 5-6 words. Subjects are consisted of 10 ASD and 10 normal male children with a receptive vocabulary age of 5;0-6;5 years. We found out that both groups showed the differences not only in the tonal patterns at the end of the prosodic phrases, but also in both the degree of rising and falling slope related to pitch contour. While HL% and HLH% were highly emerged in sentence final position in normal group, HL% and HLH% were prominent in ASD group in the same position. LH% and LHL% IP types were observed only in ASD group in sentence medial position. The slope showing the variation in the fundamental frequency at the end of the prosodic phrase was twice as steep in the group of ASD children as in the group of normal children.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.5-27
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• 1995

Based on the given data if three experiments that measured word-by-word reading times of the Korean relative-clause sentences,parsing strategies and performance structures in comprehending Korean sentences were suggested.First,results of the significantily longer reading time of nouns than verbs suggested that Korean parsing processing would be primarily occurred at nouns.Seond,four parsing strategies were proposed to explain increased reading times,working memory loads,and parallel function effects.Third,performance structures of sentence comprehension were constructed from the interword reading time differences.The proposed strategies and structures seem to account for the patterns of word-by-word reading times of the five types of the Korean relative-clause se various ideas for further experimentation were discussed.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.133-148
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• 2001

Focus and information structure are closely related with the distribution of pitch accents. A focused word conveys new information and bears a pitch accent. A content word can usually get a pitch accent, but it can be deaccented if it is mentioned earlier in the discourse. In this paper, we test how English native speakers and Korean learners of English realize pitch accents according to focus and information structure of a sentence. The production experiment shows that English native speakers give a pitch accent to narrow-focused items, deaccenting all the other items of the sentence. For VP broad focus, native speakers give a pitch accent either to both the verb and its complement or to the complement only. On the other hand, it is found that Koreans give pitch accents to most content words regardless of focus and information structure. Moreover, the perception experiment confirms that Koreans' intonation patterns, which are not appropriate in terms of focus and information structure, may jeopardize listeners' comprehension. This paper shows that Korean speakers have little knowledge about focus and information structure for intonational realization, and that such notions should be applied to teaching of English intonation.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.172-176
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• 2008

인터넷 쇼핑몰과 같은 웹사이트에서 FAQ 검색의 중요성은 갈수록 증가되고 있다. 일반적으로 FAQ 검색을 하기 위해서 사용자가 직접 FAQ 리스트에서 FAQ를 찾거나 키워드 검색을 통해 FAQ를 찾는다. 하지만 이 방법은 FAQ 리스트를 찾는데 시간이 오래 걸리고 사용자가 만족하는 결과를 보여주지 못하는 경우가 많다. 이를 해결하기 위해 사용자의 자연어 질의에 대해 자동으로 FAQ를 찾아주는 FAQ 시스템이 필요하다. 자동화된 FAQ 시스템은 사용자의 질의 문장에 대해 FAQ 목록 중에 가장 유사한 FAQ 문장을 찾아준다. 이를 위해 각 문장을 유니그램과 바이그램 단어 집합으로 표현하여 문장 간의 유사도를 계산한다. 본 논문에서는 유니그램과 바이그램 단어 집합뿐만이 아니라 한국어 문형을 기반으로 한 문장 정규화를 통해 단어의 문장 성분 정보와 성분 내 위치 정보를 이용하여 문장을 표현함으로써 자동화된 FAQ 시스템의 성능을 향상 시키는 것을 목표로 한다.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.47-55
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• 2020

The current study was designed to investigate which type of phrase boundary tones high-intermediate Korean learners of English used in their spontaneous speech. These boundary tones were compared to those used in native speakers' spontaneous speech to examine whether the learners successfully acquired the use of boundary tones. To achieve this purpose, 10 Korean learners of English and four native speakers of English participated in the current study. The participants were asked to summarize the stories of short videos, and the tonal and the phrasing patterns of the obtained spontaneous speech were analyzed using Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) transcription conventions. The results indicated that both the native speakers and the Korean learners frequently marked their intonational phrase boundaries with high boundary tones. However, regarding the prosodic phrase positions within a sentence, Korean learners frequently used steep rising tones (i.e., H-H%) while native speakers used gradual rising tones (i.e., L-H%) for sentence-final intonational phrases. Overall, the findings suggested that high-intermediate Korean learners understood the forward-looking function of the high boundary tones and that they were able to make use of these tones to mark intonational phrases in their spontaneous speech.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.2E
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• pp.43-50
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• 2009

To get more natural synthetic speech generated by a Korean TTS (Text-To-Speech) system, we have to know all the possible prosodic rules in Korean spoken language. We should find out these rules from linguistic, phonetic information or from real speech. In general, all of these rules should be integrated into a prosody-generation algorithm in a TTS system. But this algorithm cannot cover up all the possible prosodic rules in a language and it is not perfect, so the naturalness of synthesized speech cannot be as good as we expect. ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks) can be trained to learn the prosodic rules in Korean spoken language. To train and test ANNs, we need to prepare the prosodic patterns of all the phonemic segments in a prosodic corpus. A prosodic corpus will include meaningful sentences to represent all the possible prosodic rules. Sentences in the corpus were made by picking up a series of words from the list of PB (phonetically Balanced) isolated words. These sentences in the corpus were read by speakers, recorded, and collected as a speech database. By analyzing recorded real speech, we can extract prosodic pattern about each phoneme, and assign them as target and test patterns for ANNs. ANNs can learn the prosody from natural speech and generate prosodic patterns of the central phonemic segment in phoneme strings as output response of ANNs when phoneme strings of a sentence are given to ANNs as input stimuli.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.49-54
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• 2012

Recent studies on acoustic correlates of stress in English compounds and English phrases have revealed the difference of changes in acoustic manifestation between English compounds and English phrases with different intonation patterns. However, little effort has been made to compare Korean compounds and Korean phrases in different intonational environments. Therefore, this study focuses on the analysis of acoustic characteristics of Korean compounds and Korean phrases produced in different intonational sentence patterns (Subject, Question, Clause-Final, and Statement-Final). Measurements of vowel duration, intensity (dB) and pitch (in semitones) were compared. The results of the experiment in which 30 native speakers of Korean pronounced Korean compounds and Korean phrases (obtained from $8{\times}30$ sentences) in controlled prosodic and intonational environments reveal clear patterns that distinguish Korean compounds from Korean phrases and support the evidence of acoustic salience for phrases. Duration differences turned out to be a significant cue to distinguish Korean compounds and Korean phrases in all but the Clause Final position. According to the size effect, duration ratio is the most reliable cue to distinguish Korean compounds and Korean phrases followed by the pitch differences between the first syllable and the second syllable and the intensity ratio. Implications for Korean and English intonation training were also discussed.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.411-426
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• 2015

Objective: The goal of this thesis is to design the interaction structure and framework of system to recognize sign language. Background: The sign language of meaningful individual gestures is combined to construct a sentence, so it is difficult to interpret and recognize the meaning of hand gesture for system, because of the sequence of continuous gestures. This being so, in order to interpret the meaning of individual gesture correctly, the interaction structure and framework are needed so that they can segment the indication of individual gesture. Method: We analyze 700 sign language words to structuralize the sign language gesture interaction. First of all, we analyze the transformational patterns of the hand gesture. Second, we analyze the movement of the transformational patterns of the hand gesture. Third, we analyze the type of other gestures except hands. Based on this, we design a framework for sign language interaction. Results: We elicited 8 patterns of hand gesture on the basis of the fact on whether the gesture has a change from starting point to ending point. And then, we analyzed the hand movement based on 3 elements: patterns of movement, direction, and whether hand movement is repeating or not. Moreover, we defined 11 movements of other gestures except hands and classified 8 types of interaction. The framework for sign language interaction, which was designed based on this mentioned above, applies to more than 700 individual gestures of the sign language, and can be classified as an individual gesture in spite of situation which has continuous gestures. Conclusion: This study has structuralized in 3 aspects defined to analyze the transformational patterns of the starting point and the ending point of hand shape, hand movement, and other gestures except hands for sign language interaction. Based on this, we designed the framework that can recognize the individual gestures and interpret the meaning more accurately, when meaningful individual gesture is input sequence of continuous gestures. Application: When we develop the system of sign language recognition, we can apply interaction framework to it. Structuralized gesture can be used for using database of sign language, inventing an automatic recognition system, and studying on the action gestures in other areas.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.635-662
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• 2016

Combinatorics, the basis of probabilistic thinking, is an important area of mathematics and closely linked with other subjects such as informatics and STEAM areas. But combinatorics is one of the most difficult units in school mathematics for leaning and teaching. This study, using the designed combinatorial models and executable expression, aims to analyzes the eye movement of graduate students when they translate the written combinatorial problems to the corresponding executable expression, and examines not only the understanding process of the written combinatorial sentences but also the degree of difficulties depending on the combinatorial semantic structures. The result of the study shows that there are two types of solving process the participants take when they solve the problems : one is to choose the right executable expression by comparing the sentence and the executable expression frequently. The other approach is to find the corresponding executable expression after they derive the suitable mental model by translating the combinatorial sentence. We found the cognitive processing patterns of the participants how they pay attention to words and numbers related to the essential informations hidden in the sentence. Also we found that the student's eyes rest upon the essential combinatorial sentences and executable expressions longer and they perform the complicated cognitive handling process such as comparing the written sentence with executable expressions when they try the problems whose meaning structure is rarely used in the school mathematics. The data of eye movement provide meaningful information for analyzing the cognitive process related to the solving process of the participants.