• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.99-114
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• 2007

This study attempted to acoustically analyze the diphthongs of native Jeju speakers in their 70s, 50s, and 20s to observe their diphthong inventories 96 subjects participated in the recording using a set of picture cards. Results show that Jeju dialect speakers in their 70s distinguish /we/ and $/w{\varepsilon}/$, /yo/ and /yc/, but have difficulty pronouncing /ye/, $/y{\varepsilon}/$, and /iy/ correctly. It is interesting to find that the diphthong inventory of Jeju dialect speakers in their 50s are in transitional stage. They share the diphthong inventories of those people in their 70's containing /we/ and $/w{\varepsilon}/$, and /yo/ and /yc/, but they do not produce them as clearly as the latter age group. The former age group also share the common feature with those people in their 20's because both age groups show the same pronunciation of /iy/. The youngest group seldom pronounce /we/ and $/w{\varepsilon}/$, /yo/ and /yc/ correctly unlike native Jeju speakers in their 70s, but they can easily pronounce the diphthong /iy/ like standard Korean speakers.