• Title/Summary/Keyword: native speakers of English

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Some (Re)views on ELT Research: With Reference to World Englishes and/or English Lingua Franca

  • Cho, Myongwon
    • Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.123-147
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    • 2002
  • As far as the recent ELT research concerned, it seems to have been no hot ‘theoretical’ issues, but ‘practical’ ones in general: e.g., learners and learning, components of proficiency, correlates of L2 learning, etc. This paper focuses on the theme given above, with a special reference to the sub-title: specifically, 1) World English, world Englishes and world's lingua franca; 2) ENL, ESL and EFL; 3) Grammars, style manuals, dictionaries and media; 4) Pronunciation models: RP, BBC model and General American, Network Standard; 5) Lexical, grammatical variations and discourse grammars; 6) Beliefs and subjective theories in foreign language research; 7) Dilemma among radical, canonical and eclectic views. In conclusion, the author offers a modest proposal: we need to appeal to our own experience, intention, feeling and purpose, that is, our identity to express “our own selves” in our contexts toward the world anywhere, if not sounding authentic enough, but producing it plausibly well. It is time for us (with our ethno-cultural autonomy) to need to be complementary to and parallel with its native speakers' linguistic-cultural authenticity in terms of the broadest mutual understanding.

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A Convergency Study on University Freshmen's Academic Emotions towards English: Difference depending on level, team-teaching & communicative activities (우리나라 대학 신입생의 영어 학습 감정에 대한 융합적 연구: 수준별, 팀티칭, 의사소통활동유형에 따른 차이)

  • Park, Ok Hee
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.369-375
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    • 2021
  • The study explores the kinds of emotions freshmen in South Korea universities experience. Specifically, the study examines their emotional experiences on level-differentiated classes, team-teaching by native speakers and Korean professors, and communicative activities. 327 freshmen participated in the survey based on 'Academic Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ)' and the statistical results are as follows: Firstly, research showed that the participants in advanced classes feel higher negative emotions such as 'worries' and 'boredom' than those of beginner and intermediated classes (P < .05). Secondly, participants feel higher level of 'fun', 'satisfaction' and lower level for 'boredom' in the native speaker classes than those of Korean professors (P < .001). Thirdly, participants feel games are the most 'fun' and 'satisfying', while presentations are viewed as the most 'worrying' and 'boring' among the communicative activities (P < .001). Finally, the pedagogical implications and suggestions are discussed.

An Experimental Phonetic study of Perception of native Korean speakers on English and German $/\int/$ (한국인의 외국어 $/\int/$음에 대한 실험음성학적 연구)

  • Lee Sook-hyang;Kang Hyunsook
    • MALSORI
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    • no.40
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    • pp.1-12
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    • 2000
  • This paper investigated how $/\int/$ in English and German is perceived and interpreted in the loanwords in Korean. $/\int/$ in these languages does not show one-to-one correspondence in Korean: $/\int/$ in the coda position in English and German is perceived as [swi] in Korean while $/\int/$ in the onset position is perceived as [syu]. This paper examined phonetic characteristics of $/\int/$ in English and German through its acoustic analysis and attempted to figure out which factor could explain this surface distribution of [swi] and [syu]; phonological (onset vs. coda) or phonetic (coarticulation) factor. Two acoustic features of $/\int/$ in English and German were examined: duration and energy Peak frequency of the frication noise. German $/\int/$ Perceived as [swi] in Korean showed higher energy Peak frequency and longer duration than that perceived as [syu] in Korean. English iii perceived as [swi] also showed longer duration than that Perceived as [syu] in Korean but energy Peak frequency showed different behavior. English $/\int/$ showed coarticulation with the preceding vowel rather than being affected by its position in the syllable in English. This paper concludes that 1)Phonetic characteristics used are duration and energy Peak frequency of its frication noise when $/\int/$ in English and German are adopted in Korean, 2)duration is used prior to energy peak frequency, which can be used as an enhancing feature.

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Perception of Korean Vowels by English and Mandarin Learners of Korean: Effects of Acoustic Similarity Between L1 and L2 Sounds and L2 Experience (영어권, 중국어권 학습자의 한국어 모음 지각 -모국어와 목표 언어 간의 음향 자질의 유사성과 한국어 경험의 효과 중심으로-)

  • Ryu, Na-Young
    • Journal of Korean language education
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.1-23
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    • 2018
  • This paper investigates how adult Mandarin- and English- speaking learners of Korean perceive Korean vowels, with focus on the effect of the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) acoustic relationship, as well as the influence of Korean language experience. For this study, native Mandarin and Canadian English speakers who have learned Korean as a foreign language, as well as a control group of native Korean speakers, participated in two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to examine acoustic similarities between Korean and English vowels, as well as Korean and Mandarin vowels to predict which Korean vowels are relatively easy, or difficult for L2 learners to perceive. The linear discriminant analysis (Klecka, 1980) based on their L1-L2 acoustic similarity predicted that L2 Mandarin learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e/ >> /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ (most difficult), whereas L2 English learners would have perceptual difficulty rankings for Korean vowels as follows: (the easiest) /i, a, e, ɨ, ʌ/ >> /o, u/ (most difficult). The goal of Experiment 2 was to test how accurately L2 Mandarin and English learners perceive Korean vowels /ɨ, ʌ, o, u/ which are considered to be difficult for L2 learners. The results of a mixed-effects logistic model revealed that English listeners showed higher identification accuracy for Korean vowels than Mandarin listeners, indicating that having a larger L1 vowel inventory than the L2 facilitates L2 vowel perception. However, both groups have the same ranking of Korean vowel perceptual difficulty: ɨ > ʌ > u > o. This finding indicates that adult learners of Korean can perceive the new vowel /ɨ/, which does not exist in their L1, more accurately than the vowel /o/, which is acoustically similar to vowels in their L1, suggesting that L2 learners are more likely to establish additional phonetic categories for new vowels. In terms of the influence of experience with L2, it was found that identification accuracy increases as Korean language experience rises. In other words, the more experienced English and Mandarin learners of Korean are, the more likely they are to have better identification accuracy in Korean vowels than less experienced learners of Korean. Moreover, there is no interaction between L1 background and L2 experience, showing that identification accuracy of Korean vowels is higher as Korean language experience increases regardless of their L1 background. Overall, these findings of the two experiments demonstrated that acoustic similarity between L1 and L2 sounds using the LDA model can partially predict perceptual difficulty in L2 acquisition, indicating that other factors such as perceptual similarity between L1 and L2, the merge of Korean /o/ and /u/ may also influence their Korean vowel perception.

The Comparisons of Pronunciation Teaching in Lingua Franca Core and IMO Maritime English Model Course 3.17 for Global Communication at Sea

  • Choi, Seung-Hee;Park, Jin-Soo
    • Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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    • v.40 no.5
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    • pp.279-284
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    • 2016
  • As the International Maritime English Organization (IMO) model course for Maritime English has been recently revised and updated, the requirements of current changes to both the 2010 STCW Manila Amendments and English education have been actively reviewed. In order to provide practical guidelines for language teaching, a wide range of new pedagogical approaches and their theoretical backgrounds are also suggested. However, considering the current spread of Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) and its critical importance in maritime communication, the pedagogical approaches need to be re-evaluated, specifically in terms of teaching pronunciation in order to emphasize clear and effective communication among international interlocutors. Therefore, the core pedagogical elements of pronunciation should be clearly set and provided with consideration for Lingua Franca Core (LFC), which places importance on mutual intelligibility rather than following the rules of native speakers. In this paper, the current trends of BELF in the maritime industry will thus be introduced. Following this, the importance of LFC in maritime communication will be outlined, and its key features will be discussed in terms of effectiveness and clarity of international maritime communications. Finally, a close comparison between LFC and the pronunciation guidelines suggested by the IMO Maritime English model course 3.17 will be conducted, and pedagogical implications for future teaching pronunciation in cross-cultural global maritime industry will be suggested.

In My Opinion: Modality in Japanese EFL Learners' Argumentative Essays

  • Pemberton, Christine
    • Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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    • v.1 no.2
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    • pp.57-72
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    • 2020
  • This study seeks to add to the current understanding of learners' use of modality in argumentative writing. A learner corpus of argumentative essays on four topics was created and compared to native English speaker data from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). The relationship between learners' use of modal devices (MDs) and the devices' appearance in the school's curriculum was also examined. The results showed that learners relied on a very narrow range of MDs compared to those in previous studies. The frequency of use of MDs varied based on the topic and did not seem to be driven by cultural factors as has been previously suggested. Learners used more hedges than boosters on all topics, contradicting most previous studies. Curriculum was determined to have a direct correlation with MD use, and other important factors may include perception of topic and overreliance on certain MDs over others (the One-to-One principal). This research implies that learners' perception of topic should be explored further as a variable affecting MD use. Curricula should be designed based on frequency of MD use by English native speakers, and learners should receive instruction that teaches the norms of MD use in academic writing. The methodology used in the study to determine correlations between MD use and the curriculum has a wide range of potential applications in the field of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis.

Study on the pronunciation correction in English Learning (영어 학습 시의 발성 교정 기술에 관한 연구)

  • Kim Jae-Min;Beack Seung-Kwon;Hahn Minsoo
    • Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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    • spring
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    • pp.119-122
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    • 2000
  • In this paper, we implement an elementary system to correct accent, pronunciation, and intonation in English spoken by non-native English speakers. In case of the accent evaluation, energy and pitch information are used to find stressed syllables, and then we extract the segment information of input patterns using a dynamic time warping method to discriminate and evaluate accent position. For the pronunciation evaluation. we utilize the segment information using the same algorithm as in accent evaluation and calculate the spectral distance measure for each phoneme between input and reference. For the intonation evaluation. we propose nine pattern of slope to estimate pitch contour, then we grade test sentences by accumulated error obtained by the distance measure and estimated slope. Our result shows that 98 percent of accent and 71 percent of pronunciation evaluation agree with perceptual measure. As the result of the intonation evaluation. system represent the similar order of grade for the four sentences having different intonation patterns compared with perceptual evaluation.

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The Acoustic Realization of Phrasal Verb vs. Verb-preposition (구절 동사와 전치사 수반동사의 의미에 따른 음성적 실현)

  • Kim, Hee-Sung;Song, Ji-Yeon;Kim, Kee-Ho
    • MALSORI
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    • no.63
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    • pp.67-84
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    • 2007
  • Verb phrase could have two different meanings according to which is followed after verb; adverb or preposition. The meaning of 'verb+adverb' is deduced from a figurative meaning which is idiomatic expression, and 'verb+preposition' is interpreted as the literal meaning. The purpose of this study is to observe how English native speakers and Korean leaners of English distinguish two sentences of the same word strings with acoustic cues like pause and duration. According to the result, as pause was used for meaning distinction, it was likely that the pause length preceding prepositions was longer than that of following adverbs. To distinguish two sentences of the same word strings, all participants seemed to use pause, verb lengthening and adverb/preposition lengthening. Among them, there is a hierarchical significance; in sequence, pause, verb lengthening, adverb/preposition lengthening.

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Correlation between sematic predictability and pitch-accent realization (부사 및 부사구의 의미적 예측가능성과 피치액센트 실현의 상관관계)

  • Jo, Sang-Hyun;Lee, Joo-Kyoeng
    • Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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    • 2007.05a
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    • pp.281-284
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    • 2007
  • This experimental study aims to find out the correlation between semantic predictability and pitch-accent realization. For the experiment, we classified the predictability into three degrees: unpredictable, implicitly predictable, and explicitly predictable. And then each degree divided into to two subcatergories: one is adverbs/adverbial phrases of time or place and the other one is not time or place adverbs/adverbial phrases. The materials used in the experiment were 9 sentences for the each subcategory. One male and one female English native speakers participated in this experiment. Their reading speeches were recorded on Digital Audio Tape. Their speech data were analyzed by using Pitchworks program. The results of this experiment show pitch accented ratio is somewhat in inverse proportion to the degree of predictability.

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Study on the pronunciation correction in English words (영어 단어 학습시의 발성 교정 기술에 관한 연구)

  • Beack, Seung-Kwon;Choi, Jung-Kyu;Hahn, Min-Soo
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.7 no.2
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    • pp.245-253
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    • 2000
  • In this paper, we implement an elementary system to correct accents and pronunciations in English words spoken by non-native English speakers. In case of the accent evaluation, energy and pitch information are used to find stressed syllables, and then we extract the segment information of input patterns using a dynamic time warping method to discriminate and evaluate accent position. For the pronunciation evaluation, we utilize the segment information using the same algorithm as in accent evaluation, and perform the spectral distance measure for each phoneme between input patterns and reference patterns. Based on these spectral distances, we decide whether to recommend the pronunciation correction or not. Our results show that 98 percent of accent and 71 percent of pronunciation evaluation agree with the perceptual measure.

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