• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.53-65
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• 2014

The current research examines whether pitch contour shapes in North Kyungsang pitch accent contrasts provide a phonetic dimension for phonological discreteness in a mimicry task. Two pitch accent continua resynthesized were created for HH vs. HL and HH vs. LH. To confirm a phonetic dimension for accounting for pitch accent categories in North Kyungsang Korean, the mimicries of speakers of two dialects (i.e., North Kyungsang & South Cholla) were compared. One of the findings showed that, for North Kyungsang speakers, the range of mean f0 peak times was a phonetic dimension undergoing a continuous shift within a stimulus continuum for both HH vs. HL and HH vs. LH. On the other hand, for South Cholla speakers, there were no apparent shifts around categorical boundaries for either HH vs. HL or HH vs. LH. Regarding individual mimicries on f0 peak timing, there are many variations. For HH vs. LH, three North Kyungsang speakers showed a discrete pattern reflecting a shift in phonological categories, but for HH vs. HL, there was no such distinction showing a categorical shift, though there were statistically significant differences for two speakers. Interestingly, one of the North Kyungsang speakers showed a continuous phonetic dimension for both HH vs. HL and HH vs. LH. Lastly, the f0 valley timing did not exhibit a discrete or gradient phonetic dimension for speakers of either dialect. On the basis of these results, what is interesting is that the tonal target such as high tone in North Kyungsang pitch accent categories within the autosegmental-metrical (AM) theory may be realized within individual cognitive systems for representing the interaction of perception and production.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.572-578
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to verify the impact of cognitive and emotional factors on artificial intelligence speakers on the intention of using artificial intelligence speakers. The method for this study was online surveys of people with physical disability. The recognition and necessity of artificial intelligence speakers were also identified, the perceived intimacy, joy, and intention to use them, and a multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to check the influence of each variable on the intention of the disabled to use artificial intelligence speakers. This study have shown that the perceived enjoyment of AI speakers in people with disabilities has shown a significant static effect on their intended use. However, the recognition and necessity of artificial intelligence speakers of the physically handicapped, as well as the perceived intimacy, do not have a statistically significant impact on the intention of using artificial intelligence speakers, according to the analysis. The results of this study suggest that it is necessary to strengthen the elements of enjoyment in order to improve the intention of the disabled to use artificial intelligence speakers, and it is meaningful in that it provides basic data to develop artificial intelligence products and customized services for people with disabilities.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.175-183
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• 2005

In this study, realization of strong and weak syllables in English by Korean leaners with low English proficiency was examined through experiment. The aspects of three acoustic characteristics-duration, pitch, amplitude-were measured and compared with native speakers of English. It was assumed that production of duration, pitch and amplitude of strong and weak syllable by Korean learners would be different from that of English native speakers. According to the production experiments, English native speakers produced strong syllable longer, higher and louder than weak syllable. However, Korean leaners produced strong syllable higher and louder than weak syllable, but not longer enough. Specifically, weak syllable by Korean leaners was longer and strong syllable shorter than native speakers. Furthermore, the difference in duration of syllables between Korean leaners and English native speakers is more significant than pitch and amplitude. As a result, the duration was more important cue for the realization of stress than pitch and amplitude. However, Korean leaners did not produce duration of stressed syllables as English native speakers did, even though they produce the pitch and amplitude of stressed syllable in a similar way to native speakers. The reasons for those were considered, too.

• Language and Information
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.93-121
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• 2013

Identifying the speakers of individual utterances mentioned in textual stories is an important step towards developing applications that involve the use of unique characteristics of speakers in stories, such as robot storytelling and story-to-scene generation. Despite the usefulness, it is a challenging task because not only human entities but also animals and even inanimate objects can become speakers especially in fairytales so that the number of candidates is much more than that in other types of text. In addition, since the action of speaking is not always mentioned explicitly, it is necessary to infer the speaker from the implicitly mentioned speaking behaviors such as appearances or emotional expressions. In this paper, we investigate a method to exploit linguistic clues to identify the speakers of utterances from textual fairytale stories in Korean, especially in order to handle such challenging issues. Compared with the previous work, the present work takes into account additional linguistic features such as vocative roles and pairs of conversation participants, and proposes the use of discourse-level turn-taking behaviors between speakers to further reduce the number of possible candidate speakers. We describe a simple rule-based method to choose a speaker from candidates based on such linguistic features and turn-taking behaviors.

• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.137-143
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• 2013

Recent investigation of acoustic correlates of Korean stop manner contrasts has reported a diachronic transition in Korean stops: young Seoul speakers are relatively more dependent on the F0 characteristics of the stops than on the VOT characteristics in aspirated and lenis stop distinction. This finding has been examined against tonal dialects of Korean and the results suggested that the speakers of tonal dialects are not sharing the transition. These results also suggested that F0 function for segmental stop classification interferes with the function for lexical tone classification in their tonal speech. The current study investigated these findings in terms of perception. Perceptual behavior of Seoul and Busan speakers of Korean was examined in a comparative manner through the measurement of perceptual cue weight of F0 and VOT in particular. The results from regression and correlation analyses revealed that Busan speakers are closer to older Seoul speakers than to younger Seoul speakers in that the cue weight for VOT and F0 were comparable in the aspirated-lenis stop distinction. This result was in contrast to the perceptual behavior of younger Seoul speakers who showed clear dominance of F0 over VOT for the same distinction. These findings provided perceptual evidence of the dual function of F0 for segmental and lexical distinctions in tonal dialects of Korean.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2011

This study examined the production of aspirated stop consonants in Korean and English words to address how the influences differed particularly in terms of proficiency in L2 English. Voice onset times (VOTs) were measured from two American monolinguals and seven Korean speakers. The results showed that VOT patterns for both L1 and L2 stops differed according to their proficiency in L2 English. In L2 English, high proficient speakers produced VOTs that were similar to those of native speakers of English whereas low proficient speakers produced VOTs that were significantly longer than those of proficient speakers. In L1 Korean and L2 English, most of the proficient speakers produced VOTs similarly. Unlike previous findings, Korean VOTs were even shorter than English counterparts. The VOT shortening of aspirated stops in Korean was found for most of the proficient speakers. The findings of the present study suggest that cross language phonetic influences as well as the ongoing VOT shortening in Korean aspirated stops may be correlated with L2 proficiency. Since this is a pilot study with a small number of subjects for each proficiency group, further quantitative study is necessary to generalize.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.141-152
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• 2005

This paper shows the tonal patterns of English conjunctive utterances produced by Korean speakers of English, presenting that Korean speakers realize either the H - phrase tone or the H% boundary tone at the phrase-final part of the conjunctive utterances. Based on Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg's (1990) claim that either H- or H% tone indicates that a phrase is related to the following one, Korean speakers seem to produce the satisfactory patterns of edge tones in conjunctive sentences. In the experiment, we made up conjunctive sentences including both coordinate conjunctions such as and, but, or, and so and subordinate conjunctions like if, when and though. We varied the stimuli according to the existence of a comma and the lengths of connecting words and phrases. We also divided the subjects into two levels of English proficiency based on their English written test scores to see if Korean speakers' performance ability of edge tones is related with their general competence of English. Results show that Korean speakers produced 84% of the H- phrase tone in intermediate phrases and H-L% and L-H% boundary tones in intonational phrases. Also, coordinate and subordinate conjunctions show little difference in their tonal contours, and the existence of a comma or the lengths of connecting words and phrases do not affect Korean speakers' production of the H- phrasal tone and the H% boundary tone. This may suggest that pitch accents, rather than edge tones, should be put more focus on in teaching English intonation in Korea as much work has already shown that Korean speakers have serious problem with producing pitch accents in speaking English.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.55-67
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• 2019

In this study, I researched whether consumers would adopt artificial intelligence speakers. A study was conducted on the motivations that arise when consumers want to use artificial intelligence speakers. Key motivational factors include needs and wants, and emotion is also included in the hypothesis as influencing the intended use. These factors have modeled the motivational process in which consumers want to use artificial intelligence speakers. In the empirical study, the survey was conducted and the survey data was analyzed by applying the method of analysis of the structural equation model. As a result of empirical research, consumers' expectations to meet their general needs for artificial intelligence speakers affected their expectations to meet their wants and their favorable perceptions. And consumers' expectations of meeting their quasi-desire for artificial intelligence speakers have affected their expectations of meeting the wants and affected their perception of favorability. Finally, consumers' expectations for satisfying their wants and their perception of favorability affected their intention to use artificial intelligence speakers. The implications of this study is that it helps to formulate strategies for information technology products with combined functionality. The specific components of motivation can play an important role in increasing consumers' intention to use artificial intelligence speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.23-29
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• 2019

This study acoustically examines the quality of fricatives produced by ten dysarthric speakers with cerebral palsy. Previous similar studies tend to focus only on sibilants, but to obtain a better understanding of how dysarthria affects fricatives we selected a range of samples with different places of articulation and voicing. The Universal Access (UA) Speech database was used to select thirteen words beginning with one of the English fricatives (/f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ð/). The following four measurements were taken for both dysarthric and healthy speakers: phoneme duration, mean spectral peak, variance and skewness. Results show that even speakers with mild dysarthria have significantly longer fricatives and a lower mean spectral peak than healthy speakers. Furthermore, mean spectral peak and variance showed significant group effects for both healthy and dysarthric speakers. Mean spectral peak and variance was also useful for discriminating several places of articulation for both groups. Lastly, spectral measurements displayed important group differences when taking severity into account. These findings show that in general there is a degradation in the production of fricatives for dysarthric speakers, but difference will depend on the severity of dysarthria along with the type of measurement taken.