• MALSORI
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• no.67
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• pp.61-77
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to blow the characteristics of disfluency in childhood. The subjects were 144 normal children at the age of between 3 to 8 years who lived in Seoul. All the subjects provided spontaneous conversational speech samples during free-play interactions with their friends. We investigated the patterns and the frequency of disfluency and its relevance with subject's age, speaking rate and MLU(mean length of utterance). The results of this study can be summarized as follows. (1) There was no difference in the frequency of disfluency with the speaker's age or speaking rate. (2) Interjection was the most frequently occurring pattern of disfluency. (3) Prolongation, revision, interjection increased with age while part-word repetition, single-syllable word repetition, multi-syllable word repetition decreased gradually. (4) A significant effect of MLU on the frequency of disfluencies were demonstrated. The regression analysis has shown that more disfluencies occurred in utterances of children whose MLU is longer.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.33-36
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• 2007

In this paper, we investigate a fast speaker adaptation method based on eigenvoice in several noisy environments. In order to overcome its weakness against noise, we propose a noisy environment clustering method which divides the noisy adaptation utterances into utterance groups with similar environments by the vector quantization based clustering using a cepstral mean as a feature vector. Then each utterance group is used for adaptation to make an environment dependent model. According to our experiment, we obtained 19-37 % relative improvement in error rate compared with the simultaneous speaker adaptation and environmental compensation method

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.542-547
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• 1996

Prosodic characteristics of natural speech, especially intonation, in many cases represent specific feelings of the speaker at the time of the utterance, with relatively vast variations of speaking styles over the same text. We analyzed a collected speech corpus, recorded with ten Slovene speakers. Interpretation of observed intonation contours was done for the purpose of modelling the intonation contour in synthesis process. We devised a scheme for modeling the intonation contour for different types of intonation units based on the results of analyzing intonation contours. The intonation scheme uses a superpositional approach, which defines the intonation contour as the sum of global (intonation unit) and local (accented syllables or syntactic boundaries) components. Near-to-natural intonation contour was obtained by rules, using only the text of the utterance as input.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.143-148
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• 2002

This study examined the foreign accent of Korean speakers of English concerning vowel length and utterance position. It then attempts to explain the foreign accent of Koreans when they speak English. The method was to measure the sentence-initial and sentence-final vowels as spoken by Koreans. I chose these two positions, sentence-initial and sentence-final, in order to know if Korean speakers of English, compared with native English speakers, show a difference in sentence stress. I chose English diphthongs, because most Koreans have difficulty pronouncing these sounds. I found that Korean speakers of English as a second language do not know English sentence stress patterns and show a foreign accent, especially when using diphthongs.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.89-104
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• 2004

This paper investigates previous theories on English focus realization and attempts to find out the overall acoustic characteristics of English focus. It has been argued in previous studies that English focus can be defined as a new information that is not recoverable from the context (Halliday 1967), a complementary element of presupposition (Jackendoff 1972), and what is predicated about the topic in a sentence (Sgall 1973, Gundel 1974). The phonetic realization of English focus in an utterance has been said to be either L+H*/H*, or falling accent. Yet it is a more or less simplified pattern not based on real data obtained from native speakers of English, and it does not consider the various pragmatic and contextual situations. In our experiments we found that native speakers uttered English focus sentences in different ways according to the different focus structure. Another notable result is that Korean speakers, when provided with the same experimental material, are neither able to distinguish different focus types nor deaccent the elements that are not focused in an utterance.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.117-134
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• 2000

Kim, Key-Seop(2000). English Restructuring and A Use of Music in Teaching English Pronunciation. JSEP 2000 voU This study has two-fold aims: one is to clarify the restructuring of English in utterance, and the other is to relate it to teaching English pronunciation for listening and speaking with a use of music and song by suggesting a model of 10-15 minute pronunciation class syllabus for every period in class. Generally, English utterances are restructured by stress-timed rhythm, irrespective of syntactic boundaries. So the rhythmic units are arranged in isochronous groups, of which the making is to attach clitic(s) to a host or head often leftwards and sometimes rightwards, which results in linking, contraction, reduction, sound change and rhythm adjustment in utterance, just as in music and song. With English restructuring focused on, a model of English pronunciation class syllabus is proposed to be put forward in class for every period of a lesson or unit. It tries to relate the focused factor(s) in pronunciation to the integrated, with teaching techniques and music made use of.

• Language and Information
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.87-102
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• 2001

This paper deals with interpretation of pronouns in terms of Information Packaging Theory, proposed in Vallduvi(1994) and Engdahl and Vallduvi (1996), which depicts how discourse participants update new information, using three informational components: link, tail and focus. Based on empirical evidence, this paper argues that the information structure of an utterance is not enough for the hearer to process its information in accordance with the speaker's intention. It suggests that the hearer should be able to activate lexical file cards and frame file cards when necessary to designate the proper file card in which the information of the utterance should be recorded. It also proposes that, contrary to Vallduvi's claim, pronouns may create a new file card.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07d
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• pp.2454-2456
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• 2002

Since articuratory synthesis models the human vocal organs as precise as possible, it is potentially the most desirable method to produce various words and languages. This paper proposes a new type of an articulatory synthesizer using Mermelstein vocal tract model and Kelly-Lochbaum digital filter. Previous researches have assumed that the length of the vocal tract or the number of its cross sections dose not vary while uttering. However, the continuous utterance can not be easily implemented under this assumption. The limitation is overcomed by "Buffer Rearrangement" for dynamic vocal tract in this paper.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.215-220
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• 2001

This study was done to find out the difference in vowel length between English produced by Americans and KATUSA soldiers. Though English pronunciation by Koreans shows different features in many ways, I focused on English vowel length of KATUSA soldiers. I wanted to know if English low vowels show a foreign accent by comparing vowel lengths in English produced by Americans and KATUSA soldiers. The reason I wanted to deal with English low vowels is that most Koreans have difficulty in pronouncing them. Therefore I selected three English low vowels, /$\{\ae}$, /c/, and/$\alpha$/, as the experimental object, and I tried to find out the foreign accent of them. In this study, I also tried to find out the vowel lengths in relation to their utterance positions and see the foreign accent of English low vowels. I investigated the difference of the English low vowels lengths between Americans and KATUSA soldiers using information gathered from experimental results.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.7-14
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• 2001

This study was done to find out the difference in vowel length between the English language produced by American soldiers and KATUSA soldiers. Though English pronunciation by Koreans shows different features in many ways, I focused on English vowel length of KATUSA soldiers. I wanted to know if KATUSA soldiers, when compared with American soldiers, showed a foreign accent when they produced English diphthongs. The reason I wanted to deal with English diphthongs is that most Koreans have difficulty in pronouncing them since they do not understand the concept of diphthongs. Therefore I selected five English diphthongs, /aI/, cI/, /au/, /eI/, /ou,/as/ the experimental object, and I tried to find out the foreign accent of them. In this study I also tried to find out the vowel lengths in relation to their utterance positions. I investigated the difference of the English diphthong length between American and KATUSA soldiers using information gathered from experimental results.