• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.63-70
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• 2019

This study investigated individual variability of L2 learners' categorical judgments of L2 stops by exploring English learners' perceptual processing of two acoustic cues (voice onset time [VOT] and f0) and working memory capacity as sources of variation. As prior research has reported that English speakers' greater use of the redundant cue f0 was responsible for gradient processing of native stops, we examined whether the same processing characteristics would be observed in L2 learners' perception of Korean stops (/t/-/t^h/). 22 English learners of L2 Korean with a range of L2 proficiency participated in a visual analogue scaling task and demonstrated variable manners of judging the L2 Korean stops: Some were more gradient than others in performing the task. Correlation analysis revealed that L2 learners' categorical responses were modestly related to individuals' utilizations of a primary cue for the stop contrast (VOT for L1 English stops and f0 for L2 Korean stops), and were also related to better working memory capacity. Together, the current experimental evidence demonstrates adult L2 learners' top-down processing of stop consonants where linguistic and cognitive resources are devoted to a process of determining abstract phonemic identity.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.82-91
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• 1991

The history of automatic speech recognition research, and current and future speech products at Fujitsu are introduced here. The speech recognition research at Fujitsu started in 1970. Our research efforts have results in the production of a speaker dependent 12,000 word discrete / connected word recognizer(F2360), and a speaker independent 17 word discrete word recognizer(F2355L/S). Currently, we are working on a larger vocabulary speech recognizer, in which an input utterance will be matched with networks representing possible phonemic variations. Its application to text input is also discussed.

• MALSORI
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• no.29_30
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• pp.61-94
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• 1995

The aim of this paper is to describe the linguistic differences of two Koreas with a special emphasis on the phonetic aspect of Seoul and Pyongyang speech. The sources of the North Korean speech material used in the study are 1) the Pyongyang radio and TV broadcasts, 2) interviews of north Korean defectors and 3) speech material of north Korean scholars collected by the writer in london, Warsaw, France and China between 1989 and 1994. The most noticeable phonetic differences of Seoul and Pyongyang speech are abstracted as follows: 1) The vowels /이/, /에/ and /애/ are higher and fronter in Pyongyang speech than in Seoul speech. 2) The vowels /우/ and /으/ of Pyongyang speech are somewhat fronter than the corresponding vowels of Seoul speech. 3) The Pyongyang vowels /으/ and if are produced with rounded lips compared to the corresponding Seoul vowels. 4) The Pyongyang vowel /h) is much lower in tongue position and at the same time somewhat fronter than the corresponding Seoul vowel. 5) The consonants /r ,i ,n / are pronounced in Pyongyang as alveolar affricates or something close to them whereas they are pronounced in Seoul as post-alveolar affricates. 6) Unlike in Seoul speech there is a very strong tendency in Pyongyang speech to reduce aspiration feature in consonant seouences such as /ㅂ+ㅎ/, /ㄷ+ㅎ/, /ㄱ+ㅎ/. 7) /ㄴ/ and /ㄹ/(flap) freely occur word-initially in Pyongyang speech whereas they are restricted in Seoul speech. 8) Unlike in Seoul speech the phonemic contrast of long and short vowels are generally not functional in Pyongyang speech. Thus the vowels pronounced long in Seoul speech are usually pronounced short in Pyongyang speech.

• Proceedings of the KSLP Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.170-173
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• 2003

There are more than five systems for transcribing English vowels. Because of this diversity, teachers of English and students are confronted with not a little problems with the English vowel symbols used in the English-Korean dictionaries, English text books, books for Phonetics and Phonology. This study was designed to suggest criterions for the phonemic transcription of English vowels on the basis of phonetic properties of the vowels and a system of English vowel transcription based on the criterions in order to minimize the problems with inter-system differences. A speaker (phonetician) of RP English uttered a series of isolated minimal pairs containing the vowels in question. The suggested vowel symbols are as follows: 1) Simple vowels : /i:/ in beat, /I/ bit, /$\varepsilon$/ bet,/${\ae}$/ bat, /a:/ father, /Dlla/ bod, /$\jmath$:/ bawd, /u/ put, /u:/ boot /$\Lambda$/ but, and /$\partial$/ about /$\Im$:ll$\Im$:r/ bird. 2) Diphthongs : /aI/ in bite, /au/ bout, /$\jmath$I/ boy, /$\Im$ullou/ boat, /er/ bait, /e$\partial$lle$\partial$r/ air, /u$\partial$llu$\partial$r/ poor, /i$\partial$lli$\partial$r/ beer. Where two symbols are shown corresponding to the vowel in a single word, the first is appropriate for most speakers of British English and the second for most speakers of American English.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.55-66
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• 1985

The study was undertaken to ascertain the speech defect of patients with malocclusion, especially of openbite patients, by means of the spectral analysis method. The experimental group was composed of ten female openbite patients and their mean age was 13.8 yrs. The control group was also composed of ten female girls and their mean age was 13.7 yrs. As for the speech material, eight Korean monophthrongs and two Korean fricatives and two affricatives were used. Speeches were recorded and then analyzed by a Kay 7800 digital sonagraph. Formant frequency level or range was used as a phonemic parameter. The results were as follows: 1. Among Vowels /a:/ : $F_1,\;F_3\;and\;F_1/F_2$ showed abnormality. /o:/ and $/w:/:F_2,\;F_2-F_1\;and\;F_1/F_2$ showed abnormality. 2. Among Consonants /S/ and /h/ : The upper and lower borders of the frequency range showed abnormality. (equation omitted) : The lower border of the frequency range showed abnormality. $/C^{h}/$ : The upper and lower borders of the frequency range and concentration point showed abnormality.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.73-79
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• 2003

There are more than five systems for transcribing English vowels. Because of this diversity, teachers of English and students are confronted with not a little problems with the English vowel symbols used in the English-Korean dictionaries, English text books, books for Phonetics and Phonology. This study was designed to suggest criterions for the phonemic transcription of English vowels on the basis of phonetic properties of the vowels and a system of English vowel transcription based on the criterions in order to minimize the problems with inter-system differences. A speaker (phonetician) of RP English uttered a series of isolated minimal pairs containing the vowels in question. The suggested vowel symbols are as follows: (1) Simple vowels: /i:/ in beat, /I/ bit, /$\varepsilon$/ bet, /${\ae}$ bat, /a:/ father, /Dlla/ bod, /c:/ bawd, /$\upsilon$ put, /u:/ boot /$\Lambda$/ but, and /e/ about /$\varepsilon:ll3:r$/ bird. (2) Diphthongs: /aI/ in bite, /a$\upsilon$/ bout, /cI/ boy, /3$\upsilon$llo$\upsilon$/ boat, /eI/ bait, /eelleer/ air, /uelluer/ poor, /iellier/ beer. Where two symbols are shown corresponding to the vowel in a single word, the first is appropriate for most speakers of British English and the second for most speakers of American English.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.12-19
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• 2018

This article aims to discuss the transition of the Kazakh writing system from Cyrillic to Latin. First, the study investigates the relationship between the Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet and phonology, in order to linguistically evaluate the efficiency of the writing system. Second, the process of determining the Kazakh Latin alphabet is discussed in terms of the Kazakh phonological system. Third, the factors that determined the Latin alphabet of Kazakh language are analyzed. In Kazakh, the phonemic system is subject to controversy among linguists, but it can be said that the phonological system basically follows the one-to-one correspondence to the Russian and Kazakh phonemes. As for the depth of orthographies, Kazakh Cyrillic writing system is not based on the shallow orthographies, so it incorporates morphophonemic information to make skilled readers understand easier. The political and social aspects are considered as a cause of the alphabet change. Although there are studies suggesting the conversion of the writing system is caused by the extrinsic factors rather than the intrinsic factors, the five criteria of Smalley (1964), which compromise the intrinsic and extrinsic factors, are also persuasive. The five factors are 1) Maximum motivation for the learner, 2) Maximum representation of speech, 3) Maximum ease of learning, 4) Maximum transfer, 5) Maximum ease of reproduction.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1997.07a
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• pp.142-143
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• 1997

The purpose of this paper is to assess the psychological status of the phoneme, syllable, and various postulated subsyllabic units in Korean by applying the Sound Similarity Judgment (SSJ) task, to compare the results with those in English, and to discuss the advantage and disadvantage of the SSJ task as a tool for linguistic research. In Experiment 1, 30 subjects listened to pairs of 56 eve words which were systematically varied from 'totally different' (e.g., pan-met) to 'identical' (e.g., pan-pan). Subjects were then asked to rate sound similarity of each pair on a 10-point scale. Not very surprisingly, there was a strong correlation between the number of phonemic segments matched and the similarity score provided by the subjects. This result was in accord with the previous results from English (e.g., Vitz & Winkler, 1973; Derwing & Nearey, 1986) and supported the assumption that the phoneme is the basic phonological unit in Korean and English. However, there were sharply contrasting results between the two languages. When the pairs shared two phonemes (e.g., pan-pat; pan-pen; pan-man), the pairs sharing the fIrst two phonemes were judged significantly more similar than the other two types of pairs. Quite to the contrary, in the comparable English experiments, the pairs sharing the last two phonemes were judged significantly more similar than the other two types of pairs. Experiment 2 was designed to conflrm the results of Experiment 1 by controlling the 'degree' of similarity between phonemes. For example, the pair pan-pam can be judged more similar than the pair pan-nan, although both pairs share the same number of phonemes. This could be interpreted either as confirming the result of Experiment 1 or as the fact that /n/ is more similar to /m/ than /p/ is to /n/ in terms of shared number of distinctive features. The results of Experiment 2 supported the former interpretation. Thus, the results of both experiments clearly showed that, although the 'number' of matched phonemes is the important predictor in judging sound similarity of monosyllabic pairs of both languages, the 'position' of the matched phonemes exerts a different influence in judging sound similarity in the two languages. This contrasting set of results may provide interesting implications for the internal structure of the syllable in the two languages.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2020

Non-tonal language speakers may have difficulty learning second language lexical tones. In the present study, we explored this issue with Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese (i.e., non-tonal first language speakers) by examining their perception and production of Mandarin lexical tones. In the perception experiment, the Korean learners were asked to listen to the tone of each stimulus and assign it to one of four Mandarin lexical tones using the response keys; in the production experiment, the learners provided speech production data for the lexical tones and then their productions were identified by native listeners of Mandarin Chinese. Our results showed that the Korean learners of Mandarin Chinese had difficulty in perceptually distinguishing Tone 2 and Tone 3, with the most frequent production error being the mispronunciation of Tone 3 as Tone 2. We also investigated whether unfamiliar non-native phonemes (i.e., Chinese phonemes) that do not exist in the native language phonemic inventory (i.e., Korean) may hinder the processing of the non-native lexical tones. We found no evidence for such effects, neither for the perception nor for the production of the tones.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.13-19
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• 2000

The blind segmentation method, which segments input speech data into recognition unit without any prior knowledge, plays an important role in continuous speech recognition system and corpus generation. As no prior knowledge is required, this method is rather simple to implement, but in general, it suffers from bad performance when compared to the knowledge-based segmentation method. In this paper, we introduce a method to improve the performance of a blind segmentation of Korean continuous speech by postprocessing the segment boundaries obtained from the blind segmentation. In the preprocessing stage, the candidate boundaries are extracted by a clustering technique based on the GLR(generalized likelihood ratio) distance measure. In the postprocessing stage, the final phoneme boundaries are selected from the candidates by utilizing a simple a priori knowledge on the syllabic structure of Korean, i.e., the maximum number of phonemes between any consecutive nuclei is limited. The experimental result was rather promising : the proposed method yields 25% reduction of insertion error rate compared that of the blind segmentation alone.