• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.113-128
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• 2005

The underlying premise of this study was that L1 production is easily transferred into L2 production. In neutral intonation, there is a consonant-tone correlation in Korean: High tone patterns are correlated with voiceless aspirated and tense consonants and Low-High tone patterns are correlated with lax or other voiced consonants. The purpose of this study was to see whether the correlation in Korean (L1) is transferred into English (L2) production and whether the degree of transfer differs depending on the degree of proficiency. Eight Korean speakers and two American speakers participated in the experiment. F0 contours of words and sentences were collected and analyzed. The results of the present study showed that there is a strong correlation between voicing and tone in L2 utterances. When utterance-initial consonant types were voiceless, the word or the sentence began with the H pattern; otherwise it had the LH pattern. The degree of interference differed depending on the degree of proficiency: less proficient speakers showed a stronger correlation in terms of the magnitude (Hz) and size (ms) of the effects on F0. The results indicate that the consonant-tone correlation in L1 is strongly transferred into L2 production and the correlation transfer can be one of the actual aspects that cause L2 speakers to produce deviant L2 accents and intonation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.53-59
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• 2017

The present study examined if individual listeners' perceptual variations were associated with their cognitive characteristics indexed by the Autistic Spectrum Quotient (AQ). This study first investigated the perception of the lexical pitch accent contrast in the Kyungsang Korean currently undergoing a sound change, and then tested if listeners' perceptual variations were correlated with their AQ scores. Eighteen Kyungsang listeners in their 20s participated in the perception experiment where they identified two contrastive accent words for auditory stimuli systematically varying F0 scaling and timing properties; the participants then completed the AQ questionnaire. In the results, the acoustic parameters reporting reduced phonetic differences across accent contrasts for younger Kyungsang generation played a reliable role in perceiving the HH word from HL, suggesting the discrepancy between the perception and the production in the context of sound change. This study also observed that individuals' perceptual variations were negatively correlated with their AQ sub scores. The present findings suggested that the sound change might appear differently between production and perception with a different time course, and deviant percepts could be explained by individuals' cognitive measure.