• Title/Summary/Keyword: speech style

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A Comparison of Korean EFL Learners' Oral and Written Productions

  • Lee, Eun-Ha
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.61-85
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of the present study is to compare Korean EFL learners' speech corpus (i.e. oral productions) with their composition corpus (i.e. written productions). Four college students participated in the study. The composition corpus was collected through a writing assignment, and the speech corpus was gathered by audio-taping their oral presentations. The results of the data analysis indicate that (i) As for error frequency, young adult low-intermediate Korean EFL learners showed high frequency in determiners (mostly, indefinite articles), vocabulary (mostly, semantic errors), and prepositions. The frequency order did not show much difference between the speech corpus and the composition corpus; and (ii) When comparing the oral productions with the written productions, there were not many differences between them in terms of the contents, a style (i.e., colloquial vs. literary), vocabulary selection, and error types and frequency. Therefore, it is assumed that the proficiency in oral presentation of EFL learners at this learning stage heavily depends on how much/how well they are able to write. In other words, EFL learners' writing and speaking skills are closely co-related. It implies that the teacher does not need to separate teaching how to speak from teaching how to write. The teacher may use the same methods or strategies to help the learners improve their English speaking and writing skills. Furthermore, it will be more effective to teach writing before speaking since they have more opportunities to write than speak in the EFL contexts.

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Fluency Scoring of English Speaking Tests for Nonnative Speakers Using a Native English Phone Recognizer

  • Jang, Byeong-Yong;Kwon, Oh-Wook
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.7 no.2
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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.

Comparative Study on English Proficiency of Children of ESL(English as a Second Language) & EFL(English as Foreign Language) Learning Programs (ESL과 EFL학습프로그램에 의한 아동 영어능력 비교연구)

  • Yoon, Eu-Gene;Chong, Young-Sook
    • Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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    • v.14 no.6
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    • pp.961-972
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    • 2005
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the improvement of English proficiency of children in the ESL and EFL learning style classrooms through the experiment method. The results of this research are as follows: first, the scores of listening and speaking and the perception of alphabets in the ESL program are higher than that in the EFL program. This means that learning in the ESL style classroom is the better way to improve English skills than in the EFL style classroom, which is common in Korea. Second, there is no difference in the English listening and speaking skills and the perception of the English alphabets between the two gender groups in the ESL & EFL style classrooms. These results suggest that the target language may be used in the English classrooms by the teachers and the students with the materials, books, and equipment are English. Teachers are expected to be in charge of playing decisive roles as demonstrators of speech, models and correctors of pronunciation and providers of materials including TV, VCR, CD players, and cassette recorders, etc.

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Converged Research on the Difference of Learning Style According to Sasang Constitution and Major and Brain Dominance (사상체질과 전공에 따른 학습스타일의 차이 및 뇌의 우세성에 관한 융합 연구)

  • Lee, Mi-kyung;Kim, Yun-Joo;Noh, Byoung Ho;Park, Young-MI
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.145-153
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    • 2016
  • The purpose of this study is to suggest a suitable learning style for 300 college students who are attending Duniversity in Jeonnam providence according to QSSC(Questionnaire of Sasang Contribution Classification), major and brain dominance after finding out the difference of learning style according to Sasang constitution and major and brain dominance according to major. First, Soyangin's learning style was found out extroversion -type, but soeumin's learning style was found out introvert type. There was difference on physical type on learning style according to major. Third, there were found difference for a few questionnaire of the dominance of brain. According to above findings, The results of study suggest that we need to develop a unique teaching method which based on learners constitution and major instead of uniform teaching method.

Style Synthesis of Speech Videos Through Generative Adversarial Neural Networks (적대적 생성 신경망을 통한 얼굴 비디오 스타일 합성 연구)

  • Choi, Hee Jo;Park, Goo Man
    • KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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    • v.11 no.11
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    • pp.465-472
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    • 2022
  • In this paper, the style synthesis network is trained to generate style-synthesized video through the style synthesis through training Stylegan and the video synthesis network for video synthesis. In order to improve the point that the gaze or expression does not transfer stably, 3D face restoration technology is applied to control important features such as the pose, gaze, and expression of the head using 3D face information. In addition, by training the discriminators for the dynamics, mouth shape, image, and gaze of the Head2head network, it is possible to create a stable style synthesis video that maintains more probabilities and consistency. Using the FaceForensic dataset and the MetFace dataset, it was confirmed that the performance was increased by converting one video into another video while maintaining the consistent movement of the target face, and generating natural data through video synthesis using 3D face information from the source video's face.

A Study on Performance Improvement Method for the Multi-Model Speech Recognition System in the DSR Environment (DSR 환경에서의 다 모델 음성 인식시스템의 성능 향상 방법에 관한 연구)

  • Jang, Hyun-Baek;Chung, Yong-Joo
    • Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.137-142
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    • 2010
  • Although multi-model speech recognizer has been shown to be quite successful in noisy speech recognition, the results were based on general speech front-ends which do not take into account noise adaptation techniques. In this paper, for the accurate evaluation of the multi-model based speech recognizer, we adopted a quite noise-robust speech front-end, AFE, which was proposed by the ETSI for the noisy DSR environment. For the performance comparison, the MTR which is known to give good results in the DSR environment has been used. Also, we modified the structure of the multi-model based speech recognizer to improve the recognition performance. N reference HMMs which are most similar to the input noisy speech are used as the acoustic models for recognition to cope with the errors in the selection of the reference HMMs and the noise signal variability. In addition, multiple SNR levels are used to train each of the reference HMMs to improve the robustness of the acoustic models. From the experimental results on the Aurora 2 databases, we could see better recognition rates using the modified multi-model based speech recognizer compared with the previous method.

An Interdisciplinary Study of A Leaders' Voice Characteristics: Acoustical Analysis and Members' Cognition

  • Hahm, SangWoo;Park, Hyungwoo
    • KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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    • v.14 no.12
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    • pp.4849-4865
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    • 2020
  • The traditional roles of leaders are to influence members and motivate them to achieve shared goals in organizations. However, leaders such as top managers and chief executive officers, in practice, do not always directly meet or influence other company members. In fact, they tend to have the greatest impact on their members through formal speeches, company procedures, and the like. As such, official speech is directly related to the motivation of company employees. In an official speech, not only the contents of the speech, but also the voice characteristics of the speaker have an important influence on listeners, as the different vocal characteristics of a person can have different effects on the listener. Therefore, according to the voice characteristics of a leader, the cognition of the members may change, and, the degree to which the members are influenced and motivated will be different. This study identifies how members may perceive a speech differently according to the different voice characteristics of leaders in formal speeches. Further, different perceptions about voices will influence members' cognition of the leader, for example, in how trustworthy they appear. The study analyzed recorded speeches of leaders, and extracted features of their speaking style through digital speech signal analysis. Then, parameters were extracted and analyzed by the time domain, frequency domain, and spectrogram domain methods. We also analyzed the parameters for use in Natural Language Processing. We investigated which leader's voice characteristics had more influence on members or were more effective on them. A person's voice characteristics can be changed. Therefore, leaders who seek to influence members in formal speeches should have effective voice characteristics to motivate followers.

Language style of the President of the Republic of Korea: linguistic and psychological properties in Presidents' Address (대한민국 대통령의 언어스타일: 연설문에 나타난 언어적 특성과 심리적 특성)

  • Kim, Youngjun;Kim, Kyungil
    • Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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    • v.30 no.3
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    • pp.105-132
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    • 2019
  • This study quantitatively analyzed the speeches of the former 8 Presidents of the Republic of Korea. Unlike the previous studies, this study analyzed both the content word and the functional word related to the psychological phenomenon. In Study 1, six language style indicators such as clout, authenticity, presidentiality, cognitive complexity, femininity, and psychological health were developed. Also, as presidential speeches have been made recently, authenticity, presidentiality, psychological health tended to increase, but cognitive complexity tended to decrease. These tendencies were supported by linear trend analysis. The linguistic differences were distinct not only among individual presidents but also by groups based on the political orientation of the president. In the progressive presidential speech, more clout, cognitive complexity, femininity were observed. In contrast, more authenticity and presidentiality were observed in the conservative presidential speech. In Study 2, it was demonstrated whether the developed language style indicators show reliability in the most recent President's speeches. Finally, it was discussed that the relationship between language style indicators, fitness of the political tendency between the regime and the general public since 2000s, and the characteristics of femininity indicator.

Individual differences in autistic traits and variability in production patterns: a case of affricates by young Seoul Korean speakers

  • Kang, Soyoung;Kong, Eun Jong;Seo, Misun
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.125-131
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    • 2015
  • The current study explores whether speaker variability in the fronted articulations of Seoul Korean affricates can be explained by cognitive differences measured by individual autistic traits. The goal was to explore Yu's (2010; 2013) proposal that individual differences in cognitive style can be an important factor in speakers' use of sound variants. The spectral peak frequencies (SPF) of affricates relative to those of fricatives, reported in Kong et al. (2014), were used to acoustically represent the relative degree of anterior place of constriction. When these individual SPFs were related to the scores of Autistic-Spectrum Quotients (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), a correlation was found for the male speakers, but not for the female speakers, such that speakers of more anterior affricate productions scored low in AQs. Discussion is made with respect to how these findings are in line with Yu's proposal.

Difference in Requests between Koreans and Americans

  • Park, Chung-Yeol
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.153-176
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    • 2006
  • This paper examines "Difference in Requests." The study of speech acts is a crucial area in sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics, and has aided in the development of TESOL. It also provides a useful means of relating linguistic form and communicative intent. This paper concentrated on 3 request strategies, which were requests made with an explanation, requests made without an explanation and no requests. The purpose of this study, and of concern in TESOL, was to discover whether Koreans framed their requests differently under different conditions. Based on these differences, I wanted to ascertain whether Koreans who spoke English as a second language, and who have lived in the United States, frame their requests as they would in their native tongues thus creating the potential for sociolinguistic failure, or use American sociolinguistic style. As the results of the study, it was found that in the majority of cases, Americans made an explanation with a request. In many cases the Koreans living in Korea would not give an explanation when making a request. Rather, they were direct in request. In many cases the Korean speaking English and living in the US had adopted the American request strategy of giving an explanation.

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