• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.11-20
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• 2016

It is well known that vowels are shorter before voiceless consonants than voiced ones in English, as in many other languages. Research has shown that the ratio of vowel durations in voiced and voiceless contexts in English is in the range of 0.6~0.8. However, little work has been done as to whether the ratio of vowel durations varies depending on English variety. In the production experiment in this paper, seven speakers from three varieties of English, New Zealand, British, and American English, read 30 pairs of (C)VC monosyllabic words which differ in coda voicing (e.g. beat-bead). Vowel height, phonemic vowel length, and consonant manner were varied as well. As expected, vowel-shortening effects were found in all varieties: vowels were shorter before voiceless than before voiced codas. Overall vowel duration was the longest in American English and the shortest in New Zealand (NZ) English. In particular, vowel duration before voiceless codas is the shortest in New Zealand English, indicating the most radical degree of shortening in this variety. As a result, the ratio of vowel durations in varying voicing contexts is the lowest in NZ English, while American and British English do not show a significant difference each other. In addition, consonant closure duration was examined. Whereas NZ speakers show the shortest vowel duration before a voiceless coda, their voiceless consonants have the longest closure duration, which suggest an inverse relationship between vowel duration and closure duration.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.69-76
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• 2017

The current study investigated the productions of /ɨ/ and /${\Lambda}$/ in Kyungsang Korean, which is known for undergoing a dispersion for the younger generation. Specifically, to identify the nature of /ɨ/ and /${\Lambda}$/ in Kyungsang Korean, this study examined the linguistic and social factors affecting directions and degrees of the /ɨ/-/${\Lambda}$/ dispersion. Sixteen young speakers of Kyungsang Korean repeated 112 (near) minimal pairs containing the two target vowels. The formant values of each production as well as the Euclidean distance between the two vowels were analyzed for four manipulated factors: gender (male vs. female), the existence of carrier phrases (words in isolation vs. words with a carrier phrase), the lexical status of stimulus words (real-word pairs vs. nonsense-word pairs), and the vowel position within a word (word-initial positions vs. word-final positions). The results indicated that the female speakers produced the two target vowels more distinctively than the male speakers, and so did when the words were produced in isolation. The results also revealed that the Euclidean distances were greater for the real-word pairs and in word-initial positions. Overall, the results suggested that the Kyungsang Korean speakers in their 20s could distinctively produce the two vowels /ɨ/ and /${\Lambda}$/, but this vowel dispersion is not a completed process, but an ongoing one.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.187-209
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• 2003

In this paper, we examine if the lexical information of the verb and its noun object affects the pitch accent patterns of the verb phrase focus. Three types of verb-object combinations with different semantic weights are discussed: when the verbs have optional direct objects, when the objects have the greater semantic weight relative to verbs, and when the verbs and the objects have equal semantic weight. Argument-structure-based works note that the pitch accent location in a focused phrase is closely related to the argument structure and contextual information. For example, it has been argued that contextually new noun objects receive accent while given noun objects don't. Contrary to nouns, verbs can be accented or not in verb phrase focus regardless of whether they are given information or new information (Selkirk 1984, 1992). However, the production experiment in this paper shows that the accenting of verbs is not fully optional, but influenced by the lexical semantic information of the verbs. The accenting of noun objects with given information is possible and the deaccenting of new noun objects also occurs depending on the lexical information of the noun objects. The results demonstrate that in addition to argument structure and information by means of context sentences, the lexical semantic information of words influences the pitch accent location in focused phrase.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.105-117
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• 2004

Recently, many scholars have emphasized the importance of English listening ability for smoother communication. Most audio materials, however, were recorded in a quiet sound-proof booth. Therefore, students who have spent so much time listening to the ideal audio materials are expected to have difficulty communicating with native speakers in the real life. In this study, we examined how well thirty three Korean university students and five native speakers will repeat the recorded English sentences under noise and speed conditions. The subjects' production was scored by listening to each recorded sentence and counting the number of words correctly produced and determined the percent ratios of correctly produced words to the total words in each sentence. Results showed that the student group correctly repeated around 65% of all the words in each sentence while the native speakers demonstrated almost perfect match. It seemed that the students had difficulty perceiving and repeating function words in various conditions. Also, high-proficiency student group outperformed the low-proficiency student group particularly in their repetition of function words. In addition, the student subjects' accuracy of repetition remarkably dropped when the normal sentences were both sped up and mixed with noise. Finally, it was observed that the Korean students' percent correct ratio fell down as the stimulus sentence became longer.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.229-247
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to examine the improvement effect of articulation of the fricative consonant /s/(ㅅ), when applying the Articulation Modification Program (AMP) to hearing disordered students. Three hearing disordered students were selected for this study by the consonant picture and Korean Articulation Sentence tests. They have no defect in their emotion, behavior and sight. This program applied the multiple baseline design across subjects to examine the improvement effect of articulation of fricative consonant /s/(ㅅ). Also I designed th$\sim$s program with an advanced pre-test and post-test in order to research the improvement difference of articulation by articulation position and language unit. It was executed 32 sessions over three months, four sessions a week, one session taking forty minutes. The results according to the study subject are as follow; First, as result of AMP, articulation of all students was developed after applying this program. Second, as result of AMP, articulation in fore-word was one-hundred percent efficiency and articulation in middle-word was 97.7% efficiency by position. Third, as result of AMP, articulation in the word reached 98.7% efficiency, in phrase 97.7% efficiency, in the sentence 97.7% efficiency and in the story was 98.3% efficiency by language unit.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2011

This study examined the production of aspirated stop consonants in Korean and English words to address how the influences differed particularly in terms of proficiency in L2 English. Voice onset times (VOTs) were measured from two American monolinguals and seven Korean speakers. The results showed that VOT patterns for both L1 and L2 stops differed according to their proficiency in L2 English. In L2 English, high proficient speakers produced VOTs that were similar to those of native speakers of English whereas low proficient speakers produced VOTs that were significantly longer than those of proficient speakers. In L1 Korean and L2 English, most of the proficient speakers produced VOTs similarly. Unlike previous findings, Korean VOTs were even shorter than English counterparts. The VOT shortening of aspirated stops in Korean was found for most of the proficient speakers. The findings of the present study suggest that cross language phonetic influences as well as the ongoing VOT shortening in Korean aspirated stops may be correlated with L2 proficiency. Since this is a pilot study with a small number of subjects for each proficiency group, further quantitative study is necessary to generalize.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.57-62
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• 2011

Focused items in English sentences are usually accompanied by changes in acoustic manifestation. This paper investigates the acoustic characteristics of $H^*$ in English utterances produced by natives speakers of English and Korean learners of English. To obtain more reliable results, the changes of the acoustic feature values (F0, intensity, syllable duration) were normalized by a median value and a whole duration of each utterance. Acoustic values of sentences with no focused words were compared with those of sentences with focused words within each group (Americans vs. Koreans). Sentences with focused words were compared between the two groups, too. In the instances in which a significant Group x Focus Location (initial, middle and final of a sentence) interaction was obtained, further analysis testing the effect of Group on each Focus Location was conducted. The analysis revealed that Korean learners of English produced focused words with lower F0, lower intensity and shorter syllable duration than native speakers of English. However, the effect of intensity change caused by focus was not significant within each group. Further analysis examining the interaction of Group and Focus Location showed that the change in F0 produced by Korean group was significantly lower in the middle and the final positions of sentences than by American group. Implications for the intonation training were also discussed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.15-24
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• 2018

Earlier studies reported that the /o/ and /u/ phonemes of Seoul Korean were currently merging in the F1/F2 space. However, studies on perception tests have shown that rates of correctness were high, even in cases where the two vowels overlapped. This study explores whether there is another acoustic parameter that differentiates /o/ from /u/, besides the F1/F2 contrast. Seventy-five native speakers of Seoul Korean, born between 1953 and 1999, participated in a production test. The data collected were analyzed in terms of F1 and F2, H1-H2, and F0. The result shows that the /o/ and /u/ of female speakers almost overlap in the F1/F2 space for all ages, while H1-H2 values are significantly different between the two vowels regardless of age. On the other hand, the /o/ and /u/ of male speakers are largely well separated in the F1/F2 space, while the H1-H2 values between the two vowels are very close at all ages. F0 effect is relatively small for both male and female speakers, even though there is a statistically significant difference. The result of this study provides evidence that female speakers use phonation differences to distinguish /o/ from /u/, and that the F1/F2 contrast has been replaced by H1-H2 values.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.353-358
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• 2012

This paper describes acoustic phonetic parameters for detecting nasal place in a knowledge-based speech recognition system. Initial acoustic phonetic parameters are selected by studying nasal production mechanisms which are radiation of the sound through the nasal cavity. Nasals are produced with differing articulatory configuration which can be classified by measuring acoustic phonetic parameters such as band energy ratio, band energy differences, formants and formant differences. These acoustic phonetic parameters were tested in a classification experiment among labial nasal, alveolar nasal and velar nasal. An overall classification rate of 57.5% is obtained using the proposed acoustic phonetic parameters on the TIMIT database.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.141-152
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• 2005

This paper shows the tonal patterns of English conjunctive utterances produced by Korean speakers of English, presenting that Korean speakers realize either the H - phrase tone or the H% boundary tone at the phrase-final part of the conjunctive utterances. Based on Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg's (1990) claim that either H- or H% tone indicates that a phrase is related to the following one, Korean speakers seem to produce the satisfactory patterns of edge tones in conjunctive sentences. In the experiment, we made up conjunctive sentences including both coordinate conjunctions such as and, but, or, and so and subordinate conjunctions like if, when and though. We varied the stimuli according to the existence of a comma and the lengths of connecting words and phrases. We also divided the subjects into two levels of English proficiency based on their English written test scores to see if Korean speakers' performance ability of edge tones is related with their general competence of English. Results show that Korean speakers produced 84% of the H- phrase tone in intermediate phrases and H-L% and L-H% boundary tones in intonational phrases. Also, coordinate and subordinate conjunctions show little difference in their tonal contours, and the existence of a comma or the lengths of connecting words and phrases do not affect Korean speakers' production of the H- phrasal tone and the H% boundary tone. This may suggest that pitch accents, rather than edge tones, should be put more focus on in teaching English intonation in Korea as much work has already shown that Korean speakers have serious problem with producing pitch accents in speaking English.