• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.139-159
• /
• 1999

The purposes of this study are two-folds: to find out the acoustic features of Korean stops in various utterance positions and their influence on the neighbouring segments. Korean stops($/p,\;p',\;p^{h};\;t,\;t',\;t^{h};\;k,\;k',\;k^{h}/$) are examined from CV, $V_1CV_2,\;V_1NCV_2,\;V_1LCV_2$ sequences. Three speakers (two male and one female speakers of Seoul dialect) served as subjects for the present study. VOT, closure duration of the target stops and duration of the neighbouring segments were measured from acoustic data. The results can be summarized as follows. First, stops show different temporal aspects depending on their place of articulation as well as their voice types. Velar stops tend to have shorter closure duration and longer VOT due to relatively slower movement of the articulator (i.e. tongue body) and higher supraglottal air pressure during the closure, respectively. Second, temporal aspects of the neighbouring segments appear to be influenced by the voice type of stop. The preceding segment tends to be longer when a stop has shorter duration. On the other hand, the following segment tends to be shorter, when a stop has longer VOT.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.93-105
• /
• 2000

The English schwa sound has special characteristics which are distinct from other vowels. It is non-phonemic and occurs only in an unstressed syllable. Compared with the English schwa, the Korean /e/ is a full vowel which has phonemic contrast. This paper had three aims. One was to see whether there is any relationship between English full vowels and their reduced vowel schwas. Second was to see whether there is any possible target in the English schwa sounds which are derived from different full vowels. The third was to compare the English non-phoneme vowel schwa and the Korean full vowel /e/ in terms of articulatory positions and duration. The study results showed that there is no relationship between each of the full vowels and its schwa. The schwa tended to converge into a possible target which was F1 456 and F2 1560. The Korean vowel /e/ seemed to have its distinct position speaker-individual which is different from the neutral tongue position. The evidence that the Korean /e/ is a back vowel was supported by the Seoul dialect speaker. In duration, the English schwa was much shorter than the full vowels, but there was no significant difference in length between the Korean /e/ and other Korean vowels.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.7-23
• /
• 2024

Previous studies have highlighted the linguistic divergence between North and South Korean varieties. Although acoustic differences between North and South Korean in vowel production have been prominently observed, the vowel production in the standard varieties of Pyongyang North Korean (NK) and Seoul South Korean (SK) has had limited investigation. This study aims to explore the phonetic differences in vowel production between NK and SK speakers across two speech styles: careful and conversational speech. We analyzed a total of 13,370 vowels from each of 22 younger NK and SK speakers (16 females and 6 males in each group). Our findings reveal significant differences in the production of the vowels [æ], [ʌ], and [o] between the two varieties. Specifically, NK speakers maintained a distinction in height between the [e]-[æ] pair, a contrast that was not observed among SK speakers. Additionally, in NK, the [ʌ]-[o] pair showed considerable overlap (vowel merger) in both height and backness dimensions. These results shed light on the phonetic divergence between NK and SK varieties, offering insights into the acoustic features of NK vowel production. In further study, this understanding is crucial for supporting adaptation of NK refugees from the perspective of second dialect acquisition in South Korea.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.31-49
• /
• 1988

This study was performed to investigate the sound distortion following the alternation of the palatal plate thickness, for this study, 3 subjects who were born in Seoul and spoke Seoul dialect were recruited from K university male student population. First, their sounds of /아(a)/, 어(e)/, 오(o)/, 우(u)/, 으($\.{+}$), 이(i)/,에(e)/ without inserting plate were recorded , and then the sounds with palatal plates of different thickness were recorded, respectively. The palatal plates was constructed to cover the alveolar & palatal surfaces of the maxilla with an approximate thickness of 1.0mm, 2.5mm, and thickness of 2.5mm over the alveolar ridge & 1.0mm elsewhere and, named B, C, D-type, in succession. Series of analysis were administered through Computer (16 bit IBM PC/AT) at analyze the sound distortions. These experiments were analyzed by the LPC, Log Area Ratio. The findings led to the following conclusions: 1. Sound distortions were relatively minute in each condition and informations, however, /이(i)/ was the most distorted vowel in all conditions. 2. By and large, sound distortion was large in C, D-types. However, there was no correlation of the distortion rate on the 3 informants, and all tested vowels. 3. It was similar to LPC, Log Area Ratio distortion rates. 4. It was found that the sound distortion wit]1 plate inserted was verified to the numeric value with LPC and Log Area Ratio method.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.71-94
• /
• 1987

This study was carried out to investigate the sound distortion following the alternation of the palatal plate thickness. For this study, 2 healthy male subjects (24-year-old) were selected. Born in Seoul, they both spoke Seoul dialect. First, their sounds of /na(나)/, /da(다)/, /1a(라)/, /ja(자)/, /cha(차)/, /ta(타)/, without inserting plates were recorded, and then the sounds with palatal plates of different thickness were recorded, successively. The plate was fabricated in 3 types, each palatal thickness being 1.0mm, 2.5mm, dentoalveolar portion 2.5mm, other residual portion was 1.0mm, successively. Each type plates named B, C, D-type, in succession. Series of analysis were administered through Computer(16 bit) to analyze the sound distortions. These experiments were analyzed by the LPC (without weighting, pre-weighting, post-weighting) of the consonants, vowels portion, formant frequency of the vowels and word duration of the consonants. The findings led to the following conclusions: 1. There was no correlation of the distortion rate on the 2 informants. 2. Generally, vowels were not affected by the palatal plate thickness in the formant analysis, however, more distortion was detected in the LPC analysis, especially C, D-type plates. 3. Consonants distortion was more evident in the C, D-type plate. 4. The second formant was most disturbed and reduced in the all consonants with insertion of the palatal plate, especially C, D-type plate. 5. Word duration was shortened in the plate inserted(except /ja/, /cha/), especially C, D-type. 6. It was found that dentoalveolar, hard palatal sounds were severely distorted in plate inserted, and they were mainly affected by the dentoalveolar portion thickness. 7. There was correlation between palatal thickness and consonants quality.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.25-32
• /
• 2017

Besides their effect on the f0 contour of the following vowel, Korean stops are undergoing a sound change in which a partial or complete consonantal merger on voice onset time (VOT) is taking place between aspirated and lax stops. Many previous studies on sound change have mainly focused on group-normative effects, that is, effects that are representative of the population as a whole. Few systematic quantitative studies of change in adult individuals have been carried out. The current study examines whether the sound change holds for individual speakers. It focuses on inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability on sound change in contemporary Korean. Speech data were collected for thirteen Seoul Korean speakers studying abroad in America. In order to minimize the possible effects of speech production, socio-phonetic factors such as age, gender, dialect, speech rate, and L2 exposure period were controlled when recruiting participants. The results showed that, for nine out of thirteen speakers, the consonantal merger is taking place between the aspirated and lax stop in terms of VOT. There were also intra-speaker variations on the merger in three aspects: First, is the consonantal (VOT) merger between the two stops is in progress or not? Second, are VOTs for aspirated stops getting shorter or not (i.e., the aspirated-shortening process)? Third, are VOTs for lax stops getting longer or not (i.e., the lax-lengthening process)? The results of remarkable inter-speaker and intra-speaker variability indicate a synchronous speech sound change of the stop system in contemporary Korean. Some speakers are early adopters or active propagators of sound change whereas others are not. Further study is necessary to see whether the inter-speaker differences exceed intra-speaker differences in sound change.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.1163-1191
• /
• 2009

As many critics do, this article starts from the premise that Charles Waddell Chesnutt wrote The Conjure Woman with a distinct socio-ethical view to ameliorating white readers' racism. For this purpose of social activism, first, the author uses a racially submissive genre and narrator- antebellum plantation-dialect fiction and an old ex-slave Julius-in order to win the attention of white racists, who constituted the majority of the reading public of postbellum America. Chesnutt then allows this seemingly submissive ex-slave consecutively to wage narrative battles against a Northern white capitalist, John. This fiction's structure is thus based on interracial narrative conflict. Granted, the result of these narrative battles is Julius's defeat. Even though he sometimes has narrative success through his manipulation of either his white female auditor's sentimentalism or the white capitalist's racial prejudice, it does not lead to any fundamental change in the white audience members' awareness: John still regards Julius's tacitly reformoriented tales merely as nonsensical ghost stories invented by the absurd imagination of a subservient, entertaining, and exploitable black coachman. Admitting his defeat, Julius relinquishes his original goal of deterring John's capitalist exploitation of both racial Others and the natural environment of the South and finally decides to serve the economic power of white capitalism. This self-defeating conclusion, however, should not be identified with Chesnutt's failure as an author. Rather, it should be understood as an interim result of the black author's earnest experiment with literary media best suited to his reform project. In fact, this narrative failure reveals Chesnutt's accurate diagnosis of the postbellum literary world: a black voice is still feebly heard and even easily buried by the whites' capitalist ambition and consequently intensifying racism. Conclusively, Julius's narrative failure should be positively evaluated as Chesnutt's one step further in his gradual and lifelong progress to a narrative goopher effectively to engage whites' imagination and sympathy for a vision of equal interracial coexistence.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.38 no.6
• /
• pp.464-475
• /
• 2023

In this study, based on an analysis of two DNA barcode markers (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and cytochrome b genes), we performed species identification and monitored labeling compliance for 50 commercial pufferfish products sold in on-line markets in Korea. Using these barcode sequences as a query for species identification and phylogenetic analysis, we screened the GenBank database. A total of seven pufferfish species (Takifugu chinensis, T. pseudommus, T. xanthopterus, T. alboplumbeus, T. porphyreus, T. vermicularis, and Lagocephalus cheesemanii) were identified and we detected 35 products (70%) that were non-compliant with the corresponding label information. Moreover, the labels on 12 commercial products contained only the general common name (i.e., pufferfish), although not the scientific or Korean names for the 21 edible pufferfish species. Furthermore, the proportion of mislabeled highly processed products (n = 9, 81.8%) was higher than that of simply processed products (n = 26, 66.7%). With respect to the country of origin, the percentage of mislabeled Chinese products (n = 8, 80%) was higher than that of Korean products (n = 26, 66.7%). In addition, the market and dialect names of different pufferfish species were labeled only as Jolbok or Milbok, whereas two non-edible pufferfish species (T. vermicularis and T. pseudommus) were used in six commercial pufferfish products described as JolboK and Gumbok on their labels, which could be attributable to the complex classification system used for pufferfish. These monitoring results highlight the necessity to develop genetic methods that can be used to identify the 21 edible pufferfish species, as well as the need for regulatory monitoring of commercial pufferfish products.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.246-246
• /
• 1996

Purpose: Some of the properties of the prosodic phrasing and some acoustic and phonological effects of contrastive focus on the tonal pattern of Seoul Korean is explored based on a brief experiment of analyzing the fundamental frequency(=FO) contour of the speech of the author. Data Base and Analysis Procedures: The examples were chosen to contain mostly nasal and liquid consonants, since it is difficult to track down the formants in stops and fricatives during their corresponding consonantal intervals and stops may yield an effect of unwanted increase in the FO value due to their burst into the following vowel. All examples were recorded three times and the spectrum of the most stable repetition was generated, from which the FO contour of each sentence was obtained, the peaks with a value higher than 250Hz being interpreted as a high tone (=H). The result is then discussed within the prosodic hierarchy framework of Selkirk (1986) and compared with the tonal pattern of the Northern Kyungsang dialect of Korean reported in Kenstowicz & Sohn (1996). Prosodic Phrasing: In N.K. Korean, H never appears both on the object and on the verb in a neutral sentence, which indicates the object and the verb form a single Phonological Phrase ($={\phi}$), given that there is only one pitch peak for each $={\phi}$. However, Seoul Korean shows that both the object and the verb have H of their own, indicating that they are not contained in one $={\phi}$. This violates the Optimality constraint of Wrap-XP (=Enclose a lexical head and its arguments in one $={\phi}$), while N.K. Korean obeys the constraint by grouping a VP in a single $={\phi}$. This asymmetry can be resolved through a constraint that favors the separate grouping of each lexical category and is ranked higher than Wrap-XP in Seoul Korean but vice versa in N.K. Korean; $Align-x^{lex}$ (=Align the left edge of a lexical category with that of a $={\phi}$). (1) nuna-ka manll-ll mEk-nIn-ta ('sister-NOM garlic-ACC eat-PRES-DECL') a. (LLH) (LLH) (HLL) ----Seoul Korean b. (LLH) (LLL LHL) ----N.K. Korean Focus and Phrasing: Two major effects of contrastive focus on phonological phrasing are found in Seoul Korean: (a) the peak of an Intonatioanl Phrase (=IP) falls on the focused element; and (b) focus has the effect of deleting all the following prosodic structures. A focused element always attracts the peak of IP, showing an increase of approximately 30Hz compared with the peak of a non-focused IP. When a subject is focused, no H appears either on the object or on the verb and a focused object is never followed by a verb with H. The post-focus deletion of prosodic boundaries is forced through the interaction of StressFocus (=If F is a focus and DF is its semantic domain, the highest prominence in DF will be within F) and Rightmost-IP (=The peak of an IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$). First Stress-F requires the peak of IP to fall on the focused element. Then to avoid violating Rightmost-IP, all the boundaries after the focused element should delete, minimizing the number of $={\phi}$'s intervening from the right edge of IP. (2) (omitted) Conclusion: In general, there seems to be no direct alignment constraints between the syntactically focused element and the edge of $={\phi}$ determined in phonology; all the alignment effects come from a single requirement that the peak of IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$ as proposed in Truckenbrodt (1995).

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
• /
• no.56
• /
• pp.75-115
• /
• 2014

The text reviewed in this paper "Dongbangsaek is the Secret (Dongbangsaegi bigyeorira)" is in the collection of the Yulgok Memorial Library of Dankook University. With 13 leaves ($35.7{\times}22.3cm$) bound with thread, the booklet has been transcribed by hand. Although there is no record on the place, person and year of transcription, it is estimated to have been transcribed in the 20th century based on the use of the period, a punctuation mark. In addition, the complete absence of dialect vocabulary also shows that it was transcribed in the capital area-Seoul or Gyeonggi Province. It is assumed that the text is part of a Buddhist scripture chanted by an exorcist during a shamanistic ritual. As a booklet containing secret methods to divine what is auspicious and what is ominous in daily life, it must have been transcribed by an exorcist to use it for her ritual.