• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2006

This study examined the spontaneous utterances of 20 1-2 year old Korean-Chinese children in Yanji, China by videotaping their spontaneous natural speech during interaction with his/her caregiver for 30 minutes on 4 separate occasions. Utterances were transcribed and coded by nominative and accusative case markers; then analyzed by grammatical functions. Results showed that the order and pattern of the acquisition of the case marking system of Korean-Chinese bilinguals differed from that of Korean monolinguals. Bilinguals used the accusative marker -lul earlier than the nominative marker-ka and overextended the accusative marker more often than the nominative marker. These results are consistent with those of Gathercole (in press) who found that bilingual children differed from monolinguals in mastering grammar.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2016

The goal of the current study is to investigate how the sound change is reflected in production or in perception, and what the effect of lexical frequency is on the loss of sound contrasts. Specifically, the current study examined whether the vowel length contrasts are retained in Korean speakers' productions, and whether Korean listeners can distinguish vowel length minimal pairs in their perception. Two production experiments and two perception experiments investigated this. For production tests, twelve Korean native speakers in their 20s and 40s completed a read-aloud task as well as a map-task. The results showed that, regardless of their age group, all Korean speakers produced vowel length contrasts with a small but significant differences in the read-aloud test. Interestingly, the difference between long and short vowels has disappeared in the map task, indicating that the speech mode affects producing vowel length contrasts. For perception tests, thirty-three Korean listeners completed a discrimination and a forced-choice identification test. The results showed that Korean listeners still have a perceptual sensitivity to distinguish lexical meaning of the vowel length minimal pair. We also found that the identification accuracy was affected by the word frequency, showing a higher identification accuracy in high- and mid- frequency words than low frequency words. Taken together, the current study demonstrated that the speech mode (read-aloud vs. spontaneous) affects the production of the sound undergoing a language change; and word frequency affects the sound change in speech perception.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.9
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• pp.896-900
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• 2007

Purpose : The aim of this study was to investigate the speech problems in benign rolandic epilepsy (BRE) according to the seizure focus in EEG and semiology. Methods : Twenty three patients [right origin (13 patients) or left side (10 patients)] who met the BRE criteria by International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) were prospectively enrolled. We excluded the patients who had abnormal MRI or showed both side spikes in EEG. Computerized Speech Lab was used to assess the speech characteristics of the patients. Results : The error pattern of laryngeal articulation in BRE was exclusively substitution of stop consonants, these errors showed more frequent in the left group (16.0% vs 25.5%). Voice onset time (VOT) of stop consonants and Total duration (TD) of word in both groups were prolonged than normal control group, especially in left group (P<0.05). The first formant of vowel /o/ and second formant of /e/ were significantly decreased in left group (P<0.05). The right group scored wider on pitch range ($192.9{\pm}54.0Hz$) and energy range in spontaneous speech ($14.2{\pm}6.4db$) than the left group ($233.3{\pm}12.5Hz$, $19.4{\pm}9.3db$, respectively, P>0.05). Duration of counting (5 to 9) in left group slower than right group ($8.6{\pm}1.7$ vs $7.9{\pm}1.8sec$). Conclusion : Our data suggested that interictal spikes and seizures in either centrotemporal sides, especially left side group, may induce speech problems. We recommend the logopedic and phoniatric evaluations of speech in BRE patients.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.65-68
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• 2003

본 논문에서는 대화체 연속음성인식 과정에서 사용되는 다중발음사전의 개념을 확장하여 대화체 발화에 빈번하게 나타나는 불규칙한 발음변이 현상을 포용하도록 한 확장된 발음사전의 방법을 적용하여 대화체 연속음성인식에서 인식성능의 향상을 가져오게 됨을 실험을 통해 보여준다. 대화체 음성에서 빈번하게 나타나는 음운축약 및 음운탈락, 전형적인 오발화, 양성음의 음성음화 등의 발음변이는 언어모델의 효율성을 떨어뜨리고 어휘 수를 증가시켜 음성인식의 성능을 저하시키고, 또한 음성인식 결과로 나타나는 출력형태가 정형화되지 못하는 단점을 가지고 있다. 이에 이러한 발음변이들을 발음사전에 수용할 때 각각의 대표어휘에 대한 변이발음으로 처리하고, 언어모델과 어휘사전은 대표어휘만을 이용해 구성하도록 한다. 그리고, 음성인식기의 탐색부에서는 각각의 변이발음의 발음열도 탐색하되 대표어휘로 언어모델을 참조하도록 하고, 인식결과를 출력하도록 하여 결과적으로 인식성능을 향상시키고, 정형화된 출력패턴을 얻도록 한다. 본 연구에서는 어절단위 뿐 아니라 의사형태소[2] 단위의 발음사전에도 발음변이를 포용하도록 하여 실험을 하였다. 실험을 통해 어절단위의 다중발음사전 구성을 통해 ERR 10.9％, 의사형태소 단위의 다중발음 사전의 구성을 통해 ERR 4.3％의 성능향상을 보였다.

• MALSORI
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• no.67
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• pp.61-77
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to blow the characteristics of disfluency in childhood. The subjects were 144 normal children at the age of between 3 to 8 years who lived in Seoul. All the subjects provided spontaneous conversational speech samples during free-play interactions with their friends. We investigated the patterns and the frequency of disfluency and its relevance with subject's age, speaking rate and MLU(mean length of utterance). The results of this study can be summarized as follows. (1) There was no difference in the frequency of disfluency with the speaker's age or speaking rate. (2) Interjection was the most frequently occurring pattern of disfluency. (3) Prolongation, revision, interjection increased with age while part-word repetition, single-syllable word repetition, multi-syllable word repetition decreased gradually. (4) A significant effect of MLU on the frequency of disfluencies were demonstrated. The regression analysis has shown that more disfluencies occurred in utterances of children whose MLU is longer.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.137-150
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• 2004

This paper investigates the prosodic characteristics of discourse boundaries in spontaneous conversation. In this study, the term 'conversation' is taken to refer to a kind of talk in which two or more participants alternate in speaking about particular topics. Such a definition implies that there are at least two sorts of structures in the conversation: textual structure and interactive structure. This requires us to consider not just the textual influences on prosody but also the impact of interactive context. The aim of this study is to find out the acoustic-prosodic means used by speakers to signal discourse boundaries in conversational interaction. The results show that the conflict between the structural level and the interactive level obliges the speakers to reorganize the prosodic variables according to the type of discourse boundaries.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.83-95
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• 2006

This study attempts to suggest a criterion of Korean language development. For this purpose we investigated speaking rates of the spontaneous utterances produced by 144 children, aged 3 to 8. We analyzed each subject's speaking rate and its relevance with speaker's age, gender and utterance length. To determine the relative contributions of variables to the speaking rate, multiple regression was conducted. Results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The mean and maximum values of the speaking rate increased with the growth of age. (2) A statistically significant increase in speaking rate appeared at two-year intervals. (3) There was no significant difference between male and female groups in the speaking rate. (4) The multiple regression analysis has shown that along with the speaker's age, the utterance length(the mean number of syllables per utterance) is also important in estimating the speaking rates.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1994.06c
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• pp.275-276
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• 1994

본 발표에서는 한국전자통신연구소의 대화체 음성언어번역 연구방향을 기술한다. 한국전자통신연구소에서는 1979년 공중전화 관련 연구를 필두로, 음성분야의 연구를 시작하여 그간 음성인식, 자동통역 등을 연구하였다. 특히 1991년부터 KT와 공동연구체계를 수립하여 특정분야를 대상으로 음성언어번역 연구를 수행하는 중이다. 이러한 경험을 바탕으로 한국전자통신연구소에서는 국내외 공동연구를 통해 대화체 음성언어 번역 연구를 수행하고자 한다. 앞으로 다중매체통신이 더욱 보편화될 것일므로 다중매체 환경을 고려하여 연구를 수행할 계획이다. 아울러 연구의 부산물을 상용화 하는데에 노력을 경주할 계획이다.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.26-35
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• 2015

모바일 혁명 빅데이터와 사물인터넷 시대에 접어들면서 인간의 음성과 말로 다양한 장치와 서비스를 제어하고 이용하는 것은 당연시되고 있다. 음성대화처리 기술은 인간 중심의 자유로운 발화를 인식하고 이해 및 처리하는 방향으로 발전하게 될 것이다. 본고에서는 현재 음성대화처리 기술 국내외 기술 및 산업 동향과 지식재산권 동향을 살펴보고, 인간 중심의 자유발화형 음성대화처리 기술 개념과 발전방향에 대해 기술한다.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.49-61
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• 2016

The present study investigates the perception of Korean phonation types by native speakers of Aymara. Perception tests were conducted on two sets of Korean speech materials to determine correspondence between Korean and Aymara 3-way contrasts and to find out which of the consonantal and vocalic part of the syllable is more influential in the perception of Korean phonation types. A set of manipulated stimuli, as well as a set of 12 spontaneous words, were prepared for the tests. The first syllable of the 12 Korean bisyllabic words of 3 series of phonation types(Lenis, Aspirated, and Fortis) in 4 places of articulation were split into consonantal and vocalic parts. And then the two parts were combined to form 9 tokens of CV sequences respectively for each place of articulation. Native speakers of Aymara were forced to match Korean stimuli with one of the 15 Aymara words which represent 3 series of consonant types(plain, aspirated, and ejective) in 5 places of articulation(bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular). Results showed that the consonantal part is more influential than the vocalic part to the Aymara subjects' perception of Korean phonation types when the consonantal part is Aspirated in its phonation type, but the vocalic part is more influential than the consonantal part when the consonantal part is Lenis or Fortis in its phonation type. Response analysis showed that Aymara subjects tend to match Korean stops to Aymara ones in such a way that Lenis corresponds to aspirated, Aspirated to aspirated, and Fortis to plain.