• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.167-180
• /
• 2005

The present study examines the phonetic realizations of the unstressed weak vowel /e/ in English words produced by native and Korean ESL speakers. Traditionally, the stressed elements in utterance are considered to be prominent. In this sense, the unstressed weak vowel /e/ is predicted to be shorter in length, lower in pitch and intensity than the stressed vowels. The experiment shows that native English speakers correlate the unstressed weak vowel /e/ with both shorter duration and lower pitch; Korean ESL speakers correlate it with lower pitch only. We cannot find any significant statistical difference in intensity between /e/ and the stressed vowels in both cases. This study suggests it is important to acquire and produce the correct prosodic correlates of the unstressed weak vowel /e/ for Korean ESL speakers to command more natural English intonation, since /e/ is the most common vowel in English speech and consists of the English foot rhythm along with stressed vowels.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.3-11
• /
• 2012

The aim of this paper is to examine the phonetic realizations of English unstressed vowels produced by advanced Korean learners (KLs) of English compared with English native speakers (NSs) focusing on the comparative study of English words and English loanwords. The result shows that KLs are usually not native-like in producing the English unstressed vowel /ə/ and loanword orthography affects the way the KLs produce /?/. The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the KLs is different from that of the NSs. In duration and pitch, KLs show significantly less difference between the stressed and unstressed vowels than do the NSs. The KLs usually have a high pitch in the stressed and the last syllable while the NSs usually produce peak F0 in the stressed syllable. When the KLs have a similar vowel quality with that of the NSs, they produce a shorter duration of the unstressed vowels. However, there is no correlation between the realization of the pitch and the vowel quality in KLs speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.53-58
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study is to compare the first two vowel formants of the stressed and unstressed English vowels produced by ten young males (in their twenties and thirties) and ten old males (in their forties or fifties) from the Buckeye Corpus of Conversational Speech. The results indicate that the stressed and unstressed vowels, /i/ and $/{\ae}/$ in particular, from the two groups are different in their formant frequencies. In addition, the vowel space of the unstressed vowels is somewhat smaller than that of the stressed vowels. Specifically, the range of the second formant of the unstressed vowels and that of the first formant of the unstressed front vowels were compressed. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation training for the Korean learners of English vowels. We propose that teachers of English pay attention to the stress patterns of English vowels as well as their formant frequencies.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.39-45
• /
• 2014

This study investigates twenty four Korean females' production of English front vowels focusing on the distinction in /i/ vs /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vs /${\ae}$/ and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels compared with those of native English speakers. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes ten sentences including target vowels. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean learners have trouble producing a distinct version (tense and lax) of front vowels in the paragraph reading; (2) The vowel space of the stressed vowels in a paragraph is smaller than that of embedded sentences; and (3) The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the Korean learners is similar to that of the native English speakers. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation teaching for the Korean learners of English vowels and realization of English stress.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.121-135
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Korean speakers realize English stress and rhythm at the sentence level, and investigate what different acoustic characteristics of English sentence stress and rhythm Korean speakers have, compared with those of American English speakers. Stressed words in the sentence were analyzed in terms of duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity of the stressed vowel in the word with neutral stress and with emphatic stress, respectively. According to the results, when the words had emphatic stress, both Koreans' and Americans' F0 and intensity of the stressed vowel were higher than those with neutral stress. Korean speakers of English realized the sentence stress with shorter vowel duration and higher F0 than American English speakers when the words had emphatic stress. The analysis of the timing of the sentence with increased unstressed syllables showed that both Americans and Koreans produced the sentence with longer duration as the number of unstressed syllables increased. However, the duration of unstressed syllables between stressed syllables by Koreans was longer than that by Americans. Americans seemed to produce unstressed syllables between stressed syllables faster than Koreans for regular intervals of stressed syllables. This analysis implies that if there are more unstressed syllables between stressed syllables, Koreans might produce unstressed syllables and the whole sentence with longer duration.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.101-108
• /
• 2014

This study investigates the relation among pitch range differences, speech rate and realization of stress. To identify the realization of the stress, vowel formants and durational differences of stressed and unstressed vowels are measured. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes nine sentences. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean speakers' pitch range is less than 50% of the native speakers; (2) There is a significantly negative relation between high-low pitch range and speech rate; (3) The vowel qualities and durations of the stressed and unstressed vowels are related to the speech rate. But these are not related to the high-low pitch range.

• MALSORI
• /
• no.60
• /
• pp.47-66
• /
• 2006

This study examined the effect of English-language experience on Korean- and Japanese-English late learners' production of English unstressed vowels in terms of four acoustic phonetic features: F0, duration, intensity and vowel reduction. The learners manifested some improvement with experience. The native-like attainment of a phonetic feature, however, was related to the phonological status of that feature in the speakers' native language. The results suggest that the extent to which the non-native speakers' production of English unstressed vowels improved with English-language experience varied as a function of their native language background.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
• /
• spring
• /
• pp.325-328
• /
• 2000

According to H.B.Lee(1993), standard Korean vowel qualities are as follows: in /i/, /e/, $/\epsilon/$, /a/, /o/, /w/, they have 4 qualities each other and in /er/ there are 3 qualities. The environments of 4 qualities are iong and stressed vowel in word initial, short and stressed vowel in word initial, unstressed vowel in word initial, unstressed vowel in word finial. The aim of this study is to seek and compare with H.B.Lee(1993). Conclusively I could not find on the whole any pattern of the same types of H.B.Lee(1993) in this study And especially in Fl vowel formant values of /er/and /w/, I never found any pattern of the same types of H.B.Lee(1993). Also F2 vowel formant values of $/\varepsilon/$ and /w/ do not have any kind of pattern of the same types of H.B.Lee(1993), between them, the patternize of F2 vowel formant values in /w / is especially difficult. It is the same story of Jaekang Lee(1998). But in some case, the patternize could be done. among the whole vowels, analysis environment b has the wide width on the change of the formant value. As the another result of the analysis It is to possible to make the pattern of the old male group. The old male group on the whole is analyzed to have the most low formant values and the old women group is analyzed to have the most high formants values, but in the most high formant valus there are young women group. And the formant values's rising in 2 cases of the formant value of /er/ is analyzed to have the same pattern of H.B.Lee(1993).

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.1139-1161
• /
• 2009

This paper deals with the reduction of unstressed prevocalic /u/ and the appearance of /w/ which are observed in such words as ambiguity [ˌæm bǝ ˈgju: ǝ ti] - ambiguous [æm ˈbɪ gjǝ wǝs]. This phenomenon is recorded in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, and the draft revisions of Oxford English Dictionary Online. Since this phenomenon has not been studied in detail up to now, this paper aims 1) to collect the data related to the reduction of unstressed prevocalic /u/, 2) to classify them systematically, and 3) to explain the phenomenon in terms of Optimality Theory. In the course of analysis, Prevocalic Lengthening, which is crucial to the preservation of unstressed prevocalic /u/, is reinterpreted as one of the ways to prevent hiatus (annual /æ nju: ǝl/). /w/-insertion is another way to prevent hiatus (annual /æ njǝ wǝl/). In addition it is argued that prevocalic /u/ behaves differently from prevocalic /i/ due to the difference in the articulators involved.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 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.