Students' Perception of Linked or Clear English Speech

대학생의 연음 또는 비연음 영문 지각

This study examined how well Korean undergraduate students perceived linked or clear English speech and attempted to find areas of difficulty in their English listening caused by phonological variations. Thirty nine undergraduate students participated in listening sessions. They were divided into high and low groups by their TOEIC listening scores. Samples of linked speech included such phonological processes as linking, palatalization, flapping, and deletion. Results showed that the students had more problem perceiving linked speech than perceiving clear speech. Secondly, both the higher and the lower groups scored low on the linked speech. The lower group had more score difference between linked and clear speech. Thirdly, the students' scores increased from the speech with flapping, through deletion, palatalization, to linking. Finally, there was a strong positive correlation between their TOEIC listening scores and the perception scores. Further studies would be desirable on the level of improvement of TOEIC scores by training the students' listening ability using the linked speech.