• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

The proposal that a sound change is occurring in Korean stops was evidenced in this study through identification experiments on Korean stops. Perceptual weight of acoustic correlates to Korean stop manner contrast [VOT (Voice Onset Time), H1-H2 (amplitude difference between the first and second harmonics), and F0 (Fundamental frequency)] was examined with re-synthesized /$t^ha$/, /ta/, and /$t^*a$/ syllables for younger and older Seoul speakers of Korean. For the identification of the aspirated and lenis stops, F0 cue weight relative to VOT was greater for the younger listeners than the older listeners. For H1-H2 cue weight, the two listener groups were more or less the same. These findings were parallel to the production differences found in the earlier work of the author. Combined with production differences, these perception differences between younger and older generations of Seoul speakers suggested that there are generational differences in the phonetic targets of Korean aspirated and lenis stops and such differences are realized in the perception of the stops.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 1998

In this paper production and perception data were examined to discover what acoustic features are used in distinguishing wh-questions and yes/no-questions. Production data show that the two question types are distinguished by different accentual phrasing, pitch ranges in wh-phrases, and initial lenis stop voicing of the first syllable in verb phrases. Perception data by synthetic intonation show that the two question types are distinguished by the width of pitch ranges between the first and the second syllable in wh-phrases. Initial lenis stop voicing of the first syllable in verb phrases produces a strong effect on the perceptual discrimination of the two question types.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.71-79
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• 2013

This study provided longitudinal examination of the Chinese learners' acquisition of the Korean vowels. Specifically the author examined whether Korean monophthongs are acquired rapidly in early stages of learning (Flege, Munro and Skelton, 1992; Munro and Derwing, 2008) or they develop rather gradually in proportion to the learners' experience (Byee, 2001; Ellis, 2006). This study collected the Korean vowel production by 23 Chinese learners for a year, and then analysed F1 and F2 of each Korean vowel. The results showed that 1) Most of the second language (L2) vowels were rapidly improved during the first six or nine months of Korean learning before reaching the constant stage; and 2) The exact acquisition trajectories varied across the seven vowels. Specifically the vowels which were acquired in the early stage of learning were /i, e, ɨ/ for F1 and /ʌ, e, o, u/ for F2. Thus this study supports the hypothesis of Flege et al. (1992) and Munro and Derwing (2008) except the fact that each vowel showed the different learning route.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• autumn
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• pp.279-282
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• 2001

해마다 실시되고 있는 대학수학능력시험의 듣기 평가시험에 있어서, 고사장 및 지점별 음향 성능에 기인한 레벨 편차와 명료도를 산출하여 학생 선발의 공공성과 객관성을 검토해 보고자 한다. 일반적으로 듣기 평가가 이루어지는 각 고사장은 듣기 평가 실시에 지장이 없는 고등학교 교실로 지정하고 있지만, 균등한 음 환경을 제공해야 하는 시험의 성격에 반해 학교 자체의 방송 시설을 그대로 사용하는 것은 평가의 형평성 및 객관성에 충실하지 못하게 되는 요인이 된다. 따라서, 각 고사장의 확성 시스템에 따른 음성 전달품질과 수험생간의 좌석별 음압 레벨 및 명료도를 평가하였고, 실험 결과 RASTI를 비롯한 음성 및 음절 명료도를 나타내는 파라메터에서 좌석별로 큰 편차가 있는 것으로 분석되었다.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2018

The current study aimed to investigate the transfer of English word stress rules to the production of Korean trisyllabic words by L1 English learners of Korean. It compared English and Korean speakers' productions of seven Korean words from the corpus L2KSC (Rhee et al., 2005). To this end, it analyzed the syllable duration, intensity, and pitch. The results showed that English and Korean speakers' pronunciations differed markedly in duration and intensity. English learners produced word-initial syllables of greater intensity than Korean speakers, while Korean speakers produced word-final syllables of longer duration than English learners. However, these differences between the two speaker groups were not related to the expected L1 transfer. The tonal patterns produced by English and Korean speakers were similar, reflecting L1 English speakers' learning of the L2 Korean prosodic system.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.109-118
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• 2001

This study was designed to evaluate the phonological characteristics in profound hearing-impaired children. 10 males and 10 females participated in this study and all were prelingually hearing impaired. 7 children were educated at deaf school and 13 children at general elementary school with private clinic. Their hearing levels were more than 95dB HL and did not appear any wave by ABR. The results can be summarized as following: The articulation accuracy of hearing impaired children was 54.19% and most distinguished phonological patterns of the hearing impaired children were alveolarization and stop assimilation. The accurate articulation phonation was significantly different from education system between deaf school and general school. The error articulation degrees in profound hearing impaired children at general school seemed meaningfully smaller than those in hearing impaired children at deaf school.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.93-104
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• 2001

The author analyzed acoustic parameters of ten Korean numbers produced by ten male students using Praat. Variations of f0, F1, F2 and F3 within and between speakers were examined by determining an average and standard deviation of the parameters of each number and by comparing the acoustic values with one another. Results showed that each subject produced the numbers within a certain range of variation across time. Thus, speaker identification can be more certain using dynamic information of the acoustic parameters within each vocalic segment. Also, percent difference of within-subjects' variation to that of between-subjects can be utilized to determine which sounds would be better stimuli for speaker identification. According to the criteria, the number '2' proved the best stimulus while the number '7' was the worst. Future studies will be necessary to explore robust methods of speaker identification under noisy conditions.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.53-59
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• 2017

The present study examined if individual listeners' perceptual variations were associated with their cognitive characteristics indexed by the Autistic Spectrum Quotient (AQ). This study first investigated the perception of the lexical pitch accent contrast in the Kyungsang Korean currently undergoing a sound change, and then tested if listeners' perceptual variations were correlated with their AQ scores. Eighteen Kyungsang listeners in their 20s participated in the perception experiment where they identified two contrastive accent words for auditory stimuli systematically varying F0 scaling and timing properties; the participants then completed the AQ questionnaire. In the results, the acoustic parameters reporting reduced phonetic differences across accent contrasts for younger Kyungsang generation played a reliable role in perceiving the HH word from HL, suggesting the discrepancy between the perception and the production in the context of sound change. This study also observed that individuals' perceptual variations were negatively correlated with their AQ sub scores. The present findings suggested that the sound change might appear differently between production and perception with a different time course, and deviant percepts could be explained by individuals' cognitive measure.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.61-68
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to investigate the prosodic aspects of ambiguous sentences in Korean produced by Chinese Korean Learners (L1: Chinese, L2: Korean). In Korean, sentence ambiguity can be caused by homonym or syntactically ambiguous structure. In spoken language however all ambiguity can be resolved by different prosodic features according to the meaning that they transmit. In this study we examined whether Chinese Korean Leaners also distinguish, in production, ambiguous sentences on the basis of prosodic characteristics. For this study 4 Korean natives speakers and 10 advanced Chinese Korean learners participated in the production test. The material analysed constituted 10 Korean sentences in which 6 sentences are lexically ambiguous and 4 sentences contain structural ambiguity. The results show that Korean native speakers produced ambiguous sentences by different prosodic structure depending on their semantic and syntactic structure. Chinese speakers also show distinct prosodic structure for different ambiguous sentences in most cases. But in the phonetic realization, the internal pitch range was greater for Korean native speakers than Chinese learners.