• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.3-11
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• 2012

The aim of this paper is to examine the phonetic realizations of English unstressed vowels produced by advanced Korean learners (KLs) of English compared with English native speakers (NSs) focusing on the comparative study of English words and English loanwords. The result shows that KLs are usually not native-like in producing the English unstressed vowel /ə/ and loanword orthography affects the way the KLs produce /?/. The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the KLs is different from that of the NSs. In duration and pitch, KLs show significantly less difference between the stressed and unstressed vowels than do the NSs. The KLs usually have a high pitch in the stressed and the last syllable while the NSs usually produce peak F0 in the stressed syllable. When the KLs have a similar vowel quality with that of the NSs, they produce a shorter duration of the unstressed vowels. However, there is no correlation between the realization of the pitch and the vowel quality in KLs speech.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-59
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• 2023

This study aims to compare the structures of light verb constructions (LVCs) taking decision as the deverbal noun in Malaysian English, British English and American English. A general corpus made up of Internet forum threads from Lowyat.Net, was created to represent Malaysian English while the British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to represent the supervarieties. Light verbs make and take are found to be heading deverbal noun decision. Differences are observed in the use of articles. The frequency of Malaysian English LVCs without article is the highest while supervarieties LVCs prefer indefinite article. The high occurrences of LVCs without articles in Malaysian English can be attributed to the influence from Malaysian substrate languages. Findings also show that descriptive adjective is the most frequently used modifier in all three varieties of English. This suggests the standard LVC structure, comprising a light verb, the indefinite article, and a deverbal noun is no longer rigidly adhered to even among the native speakers of English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.193-206
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• 2011

The purpose of the study is to examine the use of emotion vocabulary by Korean English learners. Three basic emotion fields, pleasure, anger, and fear were selected to elicit the participants' responses. L1 English speakers' data was also collected for comparison. The major results are as follows. First, English learners responded with various inappropriate verb forms like I feel~, I am~ while the majority of English native speaking teachers responded with subjunctive forms like I would feel~. In addition, L2 English learners used mostly simple and coordination sentences. Second, the lexical richness, measured through type/token ratio, was higher in English L1 data than in English L2 data. The proportion of emotion lemmas reflects the lexical richness or the diversity of the emotion words. Lastly, L2 English learners' responses focused on a few typical adjectives like happy, angry and scared. This structural and semantic distinctiveness of Korean English learners' emotion words was discussed from pedagogical perspectives.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.193-206
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• 2002

The aim of this study is to find out how the labiovelar onglide /w/ in English kwV sequences that have minimal pairs with kV sequences is pronounced differently among Korean EFL learners based on acoustic evidence. This study tries to identify /w/ sound in English kwV sequences through spectrograms and to examine the duration ratios of each segment in kwV words to compare the patterns of an English native speaker with those of Korean speakers of English. In spectrographic analyses, the complete deletion of /w/ and partial pronunciation of /w/ dubbed [$k^{w}$] were identified as well as the targetappropriate production of /w/. The general production patterns with respect to the duration ratios in English [kw] sequence words showed that the subjects who produced /w/ had similar ratio patterns that the native speaker had in that the vowel duration ratio in kwV sequences was shorter than that in kV sequences. By contrast, the subjects who deleted [w] had a long ratio of the onset [$k^{h}$] while the speaker with a partial pronunciation of /w/ had a long ratio of the following vowel.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.85-102
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• 2002

Learners and users of a second language have to resort to a variety of conversational strategies or structures to enable them to communicate effectively and competently. Factors affecting effective communication among English as a second or English as foreign language (ESL/EFL) learners are diverse in nature because of different socio-cultural backgrounds. Gambits as a conversational strategy are used to a large extent and teachers must be made aware of such conversational strategies used by English as second or foreign language learners. Thus, studies focusing on conversational strategies among ESL/EFL learners in the English language classroom are important in order to identify the types of conversational strategies used and to help teachers to understand the appropriate conversational strategies and structures. Such understanding can be used to guide learners to use correct conversational strategies when communicating in English. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of gambits as a communication strategy in conversation among non-native speakers of English in an English as a second language(ESL) context based on Kellers conversational strategy signals. (175 words)

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.279-290
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• 2012

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate and compare the vowel lengths of the English diphthongs, /eɪ/ and /aɪ/, and the front low vowel /æ/ among English-speaking natives with Korean college students using the Praat software program. To do this English sentences were uttered and recorded by twelve subjects, six Korean subjects and six English-speaking native subjects. All the subjects are female and their age ranges from 23 to 35. Acoustic features(duration) were measured from a sound spectrogram with the help of the Praat software program and analyzed through statistical analysis. Results showed that the vowel lengths of the English diphthongs and the front low vowel between native English speakers and Korean collegians were different. In the pronunciation of the diphthongs /eɪ/ and /aɪ/, Korean subjects pronounced longer than native subjects did, but the difference was not significant. However, in the pronunciation of the English front low vowel /æ/, native subjects pronounced significantly longer than Korean subjects did. From the data of the overall sum of words and vowels between the two subject groups, we were able to find out that the differences of lengths of both the three words and the two diphthongs /eɪ/ and /aɪ/ were not significant, but those of /æ/ were significant.

• MALSORI
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• no.53
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• pp.1-16
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• 2005

This experimental study aims to test the hypothesis that the occurrence of English sentence-final stop release is, at least, partly predictable by examining its phonetic context. 10 native(5 male and 5 female) speakers of American English recorded, in a sound-proof booth, sentences excerpted from novels and the natural documents on the World Wide Web. Based on the waveforms and spectrograms of the recorded sentences, judgements of the release of a sentence-final stop were made. If the aperiodic energy of a given final stop lasted more than .015 second, it was considered to be "released." The result reveals that English sentence-final stops tend to be released when they are 1) velar consonants, 2) preceeded by tense vowels, and 3) coda consonants of content words. The phonetic environment in which final stops are often released can be characterized by the articulatory comfortableness and the need for release burst noise, without which the final stops may not be correctly perceived. By examining the release of English final stops, it is concluded that the phonological events, which had been considered to occur rather "randomly," in fact, reflect the universal tendency of human speech: to minimize the speakers' and hearers' effort.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.51-58
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• 2010

English vowels play an important role in the daily communication between Korean students and international visitors. However, many Korean students still have difficulty producing them distinctively. Vowels vary according to shapes of oral and pharyngeal cavities, which are mainly determined by the degree of jaw opening and tongue position. Yang (2008a) proposed a simplified chart of English and Korean vowels for an educational purpose. He also suggested to use wooden chopsticks to secure distinguishable jaw openings. The purpose of this study is to tap whether wooden chopsticks can be applicable to a method for correcting English vowel pronunciation. Twelve male and female students participated in the recordings of eight /hVd/ words followed by additional recordings with wooden chopsticks between upper and lower teeth. The first and second formant trajectories of both natural and controlled vowel productions were obtained and compared at six equidistant measurement points using Praat. Results showed that the formant values of natural vowel productions were comparable to those of controlled productions. Vowels with similar formant trajectories of male students were separated with the aid of chopsticks. The width of each chopstick could be controlled similarly in the experiment. The author concludes that wooden chopsticks can be useful to correct vowel pronunciation. Further studies are desirable for native speakers to make perceptual evaluations of controlled vowel productions by nonnative speakers.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.317-326
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• 2012

The study aims at analyzing and comparing the effect of video teleconferencing English class with native speakers on class satisfaction and self-efficacy of elementary school students according to grades. Revised Kim's self efficacy and researcher's class satisfaction measuring tools were used for this. Grade 3 got the highest score and grade 6 had the lowest one in class satisfaction. In post-testing on self efficacy, average score was lower than in pre-testing except grade 3. Grade 3 got the highest score and grade 6 had the lowest one in self efficacy. I conclude that as students' grade goes up, their interests decrease in teleconferencing class and native speaker teachers.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.187-210
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• 2002

The goal of this study is to investigate the course development for the Korean students in the immersion English program. This study describes the detailed curriculum and makes some suggestions to improve the courses for regular, extracurricular, and special activities in the five-week immersion English program managed by KAIST in summer 2001. This immersion English program was designed to develop the students' communicative competence in speaking English with native speakers in the age of globalization, by providing students with the English-speaking immersion setting. The results of the students' tests and the data concerning the program revealed that the program was very significant in improving students' communicative competence focused on communication and presentation and in attaining the high motivation for the natural English communication by performing the student-centered and task-based extracurricular activities and special events.