• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.3-18
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• 2009

Do loanword properties emerge in the acquisition of a foreign language and if so, how? Classic studies in adult language learning assumed loanword properties that range from near-ceiling to near-chance level of appearance depending on speech proficiency. The present research argues that such variations reflect different phonological types, rather than speech proficiency. To investigate the difference between learner speech and loanword phonology, the current research analyzes the speech data from five different proficiency levels of 92 Korean speakers who read 19 pairs of English words and sentences that contained loanwords. The experimental method is primarily an acoustical one, by which the phonological cause in the loanwords (e.g., the insertion of [$\Box$] at the end of the word stamp) would be attested to appear in learner speech, in comparison with native speech from 11 English speakers and 11 Korean speakers. The data investigated for the research are of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation in both learner speech and the native speech. The results indicate that learner speech does not present the loanword properties in many cases, but depends on the types of phonological causes. The relatively easy acquisition of target pronunciation is evidenced in the cases of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation, except when the loanword property involves the successful command of the target phonology such as the de-aspiration of [p] in apple. Such a case of difficult learning draws a sharp distinction from the cases of easy learning in the development of learner speech, particularly beyond the intermediate level of proficiency. Overall, learner speech departs from loanword phonology and develops toward the native speech value, depending on phonological contrasts in the native and foreign languages.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.527-545
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• 2003

I look at the respective responsibilities of different components of the language faculty in the description of two radically different kinds of linguistic phenomenon. The first is the production/perception mismatch in the child's acquisition of the phonology of its first language. There is strong evidence that the child's lexical representations are the same as the adult's, but I argue that the child's own pronunciations, have no linguistic status and are best treated as the product of a neural network. The second is the nature of compositionality, where I argue that compositionality in Natural Language is derivative from that in the Language of Thought. With this assumption and using evidence from quantification in ‘backward control’ structures, I argue that chain theory is intrinsically inimical to a simple view of the legibility relation between LF and LoT.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.7-21
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• 2004

The present study aims to investigate domain-initial strengthening phenomenon, which refers to strengthening of articulatory gestures at the initial positions of prosodic domains. More specifically, this paper presents the result of an experimental study of initial syllables with onset consonants (initial-syllable vowels henceforth) of various prosodic domains in English and Hamkyeong Korean, a pitch accent dialect spoken in the northern part of North Korea. The durations of initial-syllable vowels are compared to those of second vowels in real-word tokens for both languages, controlling both stress and segmental environment. Hamkyeong Korean, like English, tuned out to strengthen the domain-initial consonants. With regard to vowel durations, no significant prosodic effect was found in English. On the other hand, Hamkyeong Korean showed significant differences between the durations of initial and non-initial vowels in the higher prosodic domains. The theoretical implications of the findings are as follows: The potentially universal phenomenon of initial strengthening is shown to be subject to language specific variations in its implementation. More importantly, the distinct phonetics- phonology model (Pierrehumbert & Beckman, 1998; Keating, 1990; Cohn, 1993) is better equipped to account for the facts in the present study.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-38
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• 2001

The question of how / ... VCV .../ sequences should be syllabified is a much discussed, yet unresolved, issue in English phonology. While most researchers recognize an over-all universal tendency towards open syllables, there seem to be at least two different views as regards the analysis of / ... VCV .../ when the second vowel is unstressed: ambisyllabicity (e.g., Kahn 1976) and resyllabification (e.g., Borowsky 1986). Basically, we adopt the latter view and will present further evidence in its favor. This does not exclude low-level “phonetic” ambisyllabification, however. Following Nespor and Vogel (1986), we also assume that the domain of syllabification or resyllabification is the phonological word. With the new conception of the syllable structure of English, we attempt a reanalysis of Aitkin's Law as well as fe-tensing in New York City and Philadelphia.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.105-126
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• 2017

Intelligibility has been widely regarded as an appropriate goal for second language pronunciation teaching. Yet there are few empirical studies that focus on the intelligibility of Korean learners' pronunciation. Therefore, this mixed-methods study examined the relationship among native-like pronunciation, intelligible pronunciation, phonological fluency and comprehensibility. Furthermore, this study investigated how native-like pronunciation and intelligible pronunciation are measured differently in terms of actual pronunciation skills. In addition, this study examined how these two pronunciation styles mutually influence each other. The results of this study show that achieving native-like pronunciation is a much more difficult goal than achieving intelligible pronunciation. It further shows that foreign accented pronunciation has little to do with comprehensibility while better intelligibility is needed for clearer comprehensibility. To achieve better intelligibility, this study recommends pronunciation teaching based on segments, suprasegmentals and fluency as the focus on suprasegmentals and fluency teaching are more important to achieve a native-like pronunciation. Besides the focus on phonology, there are other social factors which could influence the evaluation of native-like pronunciation, but are not part of this study. These findings are expected to contribute not only to a better understanding of pronunciation, but also to a more comprehensive reevaluation and informed direction of pronunciation teaching and research.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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• 2004.10d
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• pp.240-247
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of phonology in lexical access of bilingual processing for Korean-English bilinguals. Four experiments have been conducted in order to adjudicate the nonselective lexical access hypothesis, which argues simultaneous phonological activation of two bilingual languages, and the selective lexical access hypothesis, which argues phonological activation of only one bilingual language. The results showed that the Korean target word processing was significantly affected by the phonological manipulation of the English prime word(Exp. 2). Similarly, the English target word processing showed the tendencies that it is affected by the phonological manipulation of the Korean prime word(Exp. 2). This results indicates that the phonological information of another bilingual language is automatically activated when we process one of bilingual languages, and the process of English, which is the second language for most Korean, is phonologically activated.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.31-41
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• 2001

This paper aims to provide preliminary evidence that (at least part of) phonetic phenomena are not simply automatic or arbitrary, but are explained by the functional guidelines, ease of articulation and maintenance of contrasts. The first study shows that languages with more high vowels (e.g., French) allow larger consonantal deviation from its target than languages with less high vowels (e.g., English). This is interpreted as achieving the economy of articulation to a certain extent in order to avoid otherwise extreme articulatory movement to be made in CV syllables due to strict demand on maintaining vocalic contrasts. The second study shows that Russian plain bilabial consonant allows less amount of undershoot due to the neighboring vowels than does English bilabial consonant. This is probably due to the stricter demand on maintaining the consonantal contrasts, plain vs. palatalized, existing only in Russian.

• 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.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.129-152
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• 2009

The paper aims to prove symmetries of the left and right edges of a morphological unit through the analysis of English blends. Blends are the words derived from two existing words by snipping the middle parts out and putting the rest together, such as smog (

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.43-53
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of phonology in lexical access of bilingual processing for Korean-English bilinguals. Four experiments have been conducted in order to adjudicate the nonselective lexical access hypothesis, which argues simultaneous phonological activation of two bilingual languages, and the selective lexical access hypothesis. which argues phonological activation of only one bilingual language. The results showed that the Korean target word processing was significantly affected by the phonological manipulation of the English target word(Exp. 2). Similarly, the English target word processing showed the tendencies that it is affected by the phonological manipulation of the Korean prime word(Exp. 2). This results indicates that the phonological information of another bilingual language is automatically activated when we process one of bilingual languages, and the process of English which is the second language for most Korean, is phonologically activated.