• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제6권2호
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• pp.9-20
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose an automatic fluency evaluation algorithm for English speaking tests. In the proposed algorithm, acoustic features are extracted from an input spoken utterance and then fluency score is computed by using support vector regression (SVR). We estimate the parameters of feature modeling and SVR using the speech signals and the corresponding scores by human raters. From the correlation analysis results, it is shown that speech rate, articulation rate, and mean length of runs are best for fluency evaluation. Experimental results show that the correlation between the human score and the SVR score is 0.87 for 3 speaking tests, which suggests the possibility of the proposed algorithm as a secondary fluency evaluation tool.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.1-7
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relations between phonetic differences among Korean learners' production of English front vowels, pronunciation intelligibility and speaking proficiency test score. To do so, thirty Korean university students were asked (1) to read English text book paragraphs and (2) describe a picture. Two English native raters and one Korean rater evaluated Korean subjects' English pronunciation intelligibility and speaking. In addition, subjects' English vowel productions were acoustically analyzed(F0, F1, F2, vowel duration, intensity). The results of the study show that the vowel quality and pitch of the unstressed vowels and lax vowel are related to the pronunciation intelligibility. In addition, the scores of pronunciation intelligibility and speaking are highly related.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.149-156
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• 2015

We propose a new method for automatic fluency scoring of English speaking tests spoken by nonnative speakers in a free-talking style. The proposed method is different from the previous methods in that it does not require the transcribed texts for spoken utterances. At first, an input utterance is segmented into a phone sequence by using a phone recognizer trained by using native speech databases. For each utterance, a feature vector with 6 features is extracted by processing the segmentation results of the phone recognizer. Then, fluency score is computed by applying support vector regression (SVR) to the feature vector. The parameters of SVR are learned by using the rater scores for the utterances. In computer experiments with 3 tests taken by 48 Korean adults, we show that speech rate, phonation time ratio, and smoothed unfilled pause rate are best for fluency scoring. The correlation of between the rater score and the SVR score is shown to be 0.84, which is higher than the correlation of 0.78 among raters. Although the correlation is slightly lower than the correlation of 0.90 when the transcribed texts are given, it implies that the proposed method can be used as a preprocessing tool for fluency evaluation of speaking tests.

• 대한구순구개열학회지
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.123-132
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to obtain normative nasalance scores for adult subjects speaking the Korean language. Additional objectives of the study were to determine if speaker sex played a role in differences in nasalance score and there was significantly correlation of nasalance score with nasalance slope score. The subjects include 75 healthy young Korean adults with normal oral and velopharyngeal resource and function. They had no history of speech problem, were judged as having normal speech and resonance at the time of testing, and had no upper respiratory tract infections or allergies at the time of testing. The Nasometer II 6400 was used to obtain nasalance scores and nasalance slope scores for /a/, /i/, /e/, /o/, /u/, /ja/, /je/, /wi/, /p'ap'i/ and /sasi/. The data of nasalance and nasalance slope were analyzed statistically. The mean nasalance score of the female was significantly higher than that of male at /a/, /i/, /wi/, /p'ap'i/ and /sasi/(p <0.10). The mean nasalance score of /i/ was highest and that of /o/ was the lowest. In this study, we could not and the relationship of the nasalance score and the closing slope score. However, there was negative correlation between the mean nasalance score and the opening slope score at ie/ and /;ai, positive to /sasi/. These normative nasalance scores for normal young adults speaking the Korean language provide important reference information for Korean cleft palate teams. In the future study of velopharygneal activity with the Nasometer, the opening slope score will be able to be the important parameter.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.47-54
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• 2023

This study attempted to test the hypothesis that Korean evaluators can score L2 speech appropriately, even when speech rate features are unavailable. Two perception experiments-preliminary and main-were conducted sequentially. The purpose of the preliminary experiment was to categorize English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) speakers into two groups-advanced learners and lower-level learners-based on the proficiency scores given by five human raters. In the main experiment, a set of stimuli was prepared such that the speech rate of all data tokens was modified to have a uniform speech rate. Ten human evaluators were asked to score the stimulus tokens on a 5-point scale. These scores were statistically analyzed to determine whether there was a significant difference in utterance production between the two groups. The results of the preliminary experiment confirm that higher-proficiency learners speak faster than lower-proficiency learners. The results of the main experiment indicate that under controlled speech-rate conditions, human raters can appropriately assess learner proficiency, probably thanks to the linguistic features that the raters considered during the evaluation process.

• 한국방사선학회논문지
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• 제14권5호
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• pp.577-584
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• 2020

본 연구는 비영어권의 내원객 수가 나날이 증가하고 있고 그에 따른 방사선 검사 시 언어의 소통 및 의사전달에 한계가 있었다. 이에 검사를 위해 제작한 안내서를 배부 후 설명 전후에 따른 개선 효과를 알아 보았다. 검사 부위 인지 여부는 점수 척도가 통계적 유의성이 없었고 검사의 불편 정도, 호흡 지침 이해 정도, 검사 설명 만족도는 제작한 안내서 설명 전후에 따라 점수 척도가 향상되었으며 통계적 유의성이 있었다. 비영어권 외국인 내원객의 경우 영어나 한국어로 했을 때 보다 자국의 문자로 설명하는 것에 만족하였고, 그 방법 또한 검사실 내 조명 신호를 이용하여 외국인 내원객에게 호흡을 조절해야 하는 시기를 알려 줌으로써 효과적인 검사를 시행할 수 있었다. 향후 다양한 언어 통역 프로그램과 다양한 검사 부위에 따른 안내서 제작과 도구 개발, 방사선사 및 의료진의 외국어 능력 향상 등 여러 관점에서 의사소통 수단이 구현 될 때 비로소 의료서비스 및 영상 의학적 검사의 질이 개선 될 수 있을 것이다. 앞으로 다른 영상의학 검사실에서도 영어나 한국어를 이해하지 못하는 비영어권 외국인을 검사할 때 사용할 수 있는 매뉴얼을 마련하는데 기초 자료로 활용 될 수 있을 것으로 사료 된다.

• 음성과학
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.77-84
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• 2003

In this research, we seek the beginning of the speech and detect the stationary speech region using lip information. Performing running average of the estimated speech signal in the stationary region, we reduce the effect of musical noise which is inherent to the conventional MlMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) speech enhancement algorithm. In addition to it, SFM (Spectral Flatness Measure) is incorporated to reduce the speech signal estimation error due to speaking habit and some lacking lip information. The proposed algorithm with Wiener filtering shows the superior performance to the conventional methods according to MOS (Mean Opinion Score) test.

• ETRI Journal
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• 제46권1호
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• pp.48-58
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• 2024

This paper presents the development of language tutoring systems for nonnative speakers by leveraging advanced end-to-end automatic speech recognition (ASR) and proficiency evaluation. Given the frequent errors in non-native speech, high-performance spontaneous speech recognition must be applied. Our systems accurately evaluate pronunciation and speaking fluency and provide feedback on errors by relying on precise transcriptions. End-to-end ASR is implemented and enhanced by using diverse non-native speaker speech data for model training. For performance enhancement, we combine semisupervised and transfer learning techniques using labeled and unlabeled speech data. Automatic proficiency evaluation is performed by a model trained to maximize the statistical correlation between the fluency score manually determined by a human expert and a calculated fluency score. We developed an English tutoring system for Korean elementary students called EBS AI Peng-Talk and a Korean tutoring system for foreigners called KSI Korean AI Tutor. Both systems were deployed by South Korean government agencies.

• 가정과삶의질연구
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.1-13
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to conduct base line research, which is based on requestion of international married immigrant women, for developing social adaptation and family enrichment program for those population who reside in Korea. The survey questionnaire was distributed to 142 international married immigrant women who reside in Seoul to research program participate satisfaction and requestion. Analyze the study results, frequency, percentage, t-test, ANOVA and Duncan-post test were utilized. As a result, overall satisfaction toward program that offered by organization was highly ranked. Visiting service showed high score of satisfaction but mentor service that strongly possess sacrifice showed lower score of satisfaction. Vocational and job-related skill improvement education presented less satisfied degree of satisfaction but cooking class, computer class, training education for native-speaking instructor present high level of satisfaction. Second, the requisition of target population, who did not participate program, presented lower than the satisfaction, still present high demand of variety area of program. Among them, assist child nurturing and vocational and job- related skill improvement education showed high demand. It enable to predict that they are eager to get support toward parent role and self-realization. Third, when the difference were analyzed to compare the subjective judgement toward life adaptation in Korea and the satisfaction for program user and the requisition of non-user, the meaningful differences were founded; especially, individuals who possess confident degree of computer skills and Korean(reading, speaking, and listening) showed higher degree of satisfaction to vocation and job-skill related improvement education. This study has a practical implication, which is based on the study results, on developing a program to support international married immigrant women and multicultural families to satisfactory settlement in Korea life and to maintain healthy families.

• 공학교육연구
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• 제13권6호
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• pp.188-194
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• 2010

본 논문에서는 공과대학에서 영어 원어민이 아닌 교수와 학습자간에 의해 이루어지는 EMI(English Medium Instruction)교육의 효율적인 강의방법을 제안한다. 비영어권에서의 영어강의는 학습자에게 영어 의사소통 능력의 향상 및 전공에 대한 이해를 목표로 이루어지지만 영어능력 및 관심이 낮은 대학생들에게 공학계열의 전공과목을 영어로 강의하는 경우 교수자와 학습자간에 이와 같은 효과를 얻을 수 있는 지에에 대한 분석, 전공이해에 미치는 효과 및 효율적인 교수법에 대한 연구 및 분석이 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 영어능력 및 관심이 낮은 공학계열 대학생들을 대상으로 실제 교수자 입장에서 세 번의 영어강의, 강의 평가 및 설문조사를 통해 좀 더 효율적인 영어강의 방법을 도출하였다. 강의대상은 토익평균점수 200-420점대의 공과대학생들이었으며, 연구방법은 세 학기 동일한 전공교과목의 영어강의를 진행하고 매 학기마다 강의평가를 수행하여 영어강의에 대한 만족도를 평가하였으며, 마지막으로 영어강의를 수강한 모든 학생들에게 영어강의에 대한 평가, 전공이해도 및 영어강의 방법 제안 등에 대한 설문조사를 실시하였다. 제안된 전공교과목 영어강의 방법은 영어능력이나 관심이 낮은 공과대 학생들에 대한 영어강의에 대한 관심을 높이고 따라서 전공 교과목의 이해 및 영어능력 향상에 도움을 줄 것이다.