Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

The Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit (ISIB) of English Prosody: The Case of Focal Prominence for Korean Learners of English and Natives

  • Received : 2012.11.02
  • Accepted : 2012.12.20
  • Published : 2012.12.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

This study investigated the speech intelligibility of Korean-accented and native English focus speech for Korean and native English listeners. Three different types of focus in English, broad, narrow and contrastive, were naturally induced in semantically optimal dialogues. Seven high and seven low proficiency Korean speakers and seven native speakers participated in recording the stimuli with another native speaker. Fifteen listeners from each of Korean high & low proficiency and native groups judged audio signals of focus sentences. Results showed that Korean listeners were more accurate at identifying the focal prominence for Korean speakers' narrow focus speech than that of native speakers, and this suggests that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit-talker (ISIB-T) held true for narrow focus regardless of Korean speakers' and listeners' proficiency. However, Korean listeners did not outperform native listeners for Korean speakers' production of narrow focus, which did not support for the ISIB-listener (L). Broad and contrastive focus speech did not provide evidence for either the ISIB-T or ISIB-L. These findings are explained by the interlanguage shared by Korean speakers and listeners where they have established more L1-like common phonetic features and phonological representations. Once semantically and syntactically interpreted in a higher level processing in Korean narrow focus speech, the narrow focus was phonetically realized in a more intelligible way to Korean listeners due to the interlanguage. This may elicit ISIB. However, Korean speakers did not appear to make complete semantic/syntactic access to either broad or contrastive focus, which might lead to detrimental effects on lower level phonetic outputs in top-down processing. This is, therefore, attributed to the fact that Korean listeners did not take advantage over native listeners for Korean talkers and vice versa.

Keywords

References

  1. Aoyama, K., Flege, J. E., Guion, S. Akahane-Yamada, R. & T. Yamada (2004). Perceived phonetic dissimilarity and L2 speech learning: the case of Japanese /r/ and English /l/ and /r/, Journal of Phonetics, 32, 233-250. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0095-4470(03)00036-6
  2. Anderson-Hsieh, J., Johnson, J. & Koehler, K. (1992). The relationship between native speaker judgment of nonnative pronunciation and deviance in segmentals, prosody and syllable structure, Language Learning, 42, 529-555. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1992.tb01043.x
  3. Baker, W. & Trofimovich, P. (2005). Interaction of native- and second-language vowel systems in early and late bilinguals, Language and Speech, 48 (1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309050480010101
  4. Bent & Bradlow (2003). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114, 1600-1610. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1603234
  5. Bent, T., Bradlow, A. R. & B. Smith (2007). Segmental errors in different word positions and their effects on intelligibility of non-native speech. In O.-S. Bohn, & M. J. Munro (Eds.), Language experience in second language Learning: in honor of James Emil Flege. 331-347. John Benjamin Publishing Company.
  6. Birdsong, D. (2006). Age and second language acquisition and processing: A selective overview. Language Learning, 56 (1), 9-49.
  7. Bohn, O.-S. & Flege, J. E. (1992). The production of new and similar vowels by adult German learners of English, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 131-158. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100010792
  8. Boula de Mareüil, P. & Vieru-Dimulescu, B. (2006). The contribution of prosody to the perception of foreign accent, Phonetica, 63, 247-267. https://doi.org/10.1159/000097308
  9. Bradlow, A. R. & Bent, T. (2002) The clear speech effect for non-native listeners Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 112, 272-284. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1487837
  10. Bradlow, A. R. & Pisoni, D. B. (1999) Recognition of spoken words by native and non-native listeners: Talker-, listener-, and item-related factors Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 2074-2085. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.427952
  11. Bradlow, A. R., Pisoni, D. B., Akahane-Yamada, R. & Tohkura, Y. (1997). Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/: Some effects of perceptual learning of speech production, Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 101, 2299-2310. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.418276
  12. Brahimi, B., Boula de Mareuil, P. & Grendot, C. (2004). Role of segmental and suprasegmental cues in the perception of Maghrebian-accented French, Interspeech 2004, 341-344.
  13. Crystal, D. (2003) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. Cook, V. J. (1968) Active Intonation. London: Longman.
  15. Derwing, T. M. & Munro, M. J. (1997) 'Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s,' Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 1-16.
  16. Derwing, T. M. & Munro, M. J. (2001) What speaking rates do non-native listeners prefer? Applied Linguistics, 22, 324-337. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.3.324
  17. Escudero, P. & Boersma, P. (2004), Bridging the gap between L2 speech perception research and phonological theory Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 551-585.
  18. Flege, J. E. (1984). The detection of French accent by American listeners, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 76, 692-707. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.391256
  19. Flege, J. E. & Hillenbrand, J. (1984). Limits of phonetic accuracy in foreign language production, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 76, 708-721. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.391257
  20. Flege, J. E., McKay, I. R. A. & Meador, D. (1999). Native Italian speakers' production and perception of English vowels, Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 106, 2973-2987. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.428116
  21. Fogerty S. & D. Kewley-Port (2009). Perceptual contributions of the consonant-vowel boundary to sentence intelligibility, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1256 (2), 847-857.
  22. Gilbert, J. (1980) Prosodic development: some pilot studies In R. Sarcella and S. Krashen (Eds.) Research in Second Language Acquisition, 110-117, MA: Newbury House.
  23. Gwak, S. (2006) Aspects of Lexical Contrastive Focus and Phonemic Contrastive Focus in Korean, M.A. thesis, Korea University.
  24. Han, J., Choi, T., Lim, I. & Lee, J. (2011) The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for Korean learners of English: Perception of English front vowels Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 11(2), 385-413. https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.11.2.201106.385
  25. Hayes-Harb R., Smith, B. L., T. Bent & A. R. Bradlow (2008). The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for native speakers of Mandarin: Production and perception of English word-final voicing contrasts.Journal of Phonetics, 36, 664-679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2008.04.002
  26. Hewings, M. (1995) Tone choice in the English intonation of non-native speakers International Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(3), 251-303.
  27. Holden, K. T. & Hogan, J. T. (1993) The emotive impact of foreign intonation: An experiment in switching English and Russian intonation Language and Research, 36, 67-88.
  28. Imai, S., Flege, J. E. & Walley, A. (2003) Spoken word recognition of accented and unaccented speech: Lexical factors affecting native and non-native listeners in Proceedings of the International Congress on Phonetic Science, Barcelona, Spain.
  29. Ingram, J. C. L. & Park, S.-G. (1997). Cross-language vowel perception and production by Japanese and Korean learners of English, Journal of Phonetics, 25, 343-370. https://doi.org/10.1006/jpho.1997.0048
  30. Jilka, M. (2000) The Contribution of the perception of foreign accent, Doctoral dissertation, University of Stuttgart.
  31. Jun. E. (1990) An experimental phonetic study on Korean focus, M.A. thesis, Seoul National University.
  32. Kang, O. (2010) Relative salience of suprasegmental features on judgments of L2 comprehensibility and accentedness System, 38, 301-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2010.01.005
  33. Lee, J. & Xue, X. (2011) The interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit-Listeners (ISIS-L): The case of English liquids Journal of the Korean Society of Speech Sciences, 3(1), 51-65.
  34. Mack, M. (1982). Voicing-dependent vowel duration in English and French: monolingual and bilingual production, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 71, 173-178. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.387344
  35. Magen, H. (1998). The perception of foreign-accented speech, Journal of Phonetics, 26, 381-400. https://doi.org/10.1006/jpho.1998.0081
  36. Major, R. C. (1987). Foreign accent: Recent research and theory. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 25, 185-202.
  37. Markham, D. & Hazan, V. (2002). Speaker intelligibility of adults and children. In the Proceedings of the international conference for spoken language processing (Denver, September 16-20, 2002), 1685-1688.
  38. Munro, M. J. (1995). Nonsegmental factors in foreign accent. Ratings of filtered speech, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 17-34. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100013735
  39. Munro, M. J. (1998) The effects of noise on the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 139-154.
  40. Munro, M. J. & Derwing, T. M. (1999) Foreign accent, comprehensibility and intellilgibility in the speech of second language learners, Language Learning, 45, 73-97.
  41. Munro, M. J. & Derwing, T. M. (2001) M.odeling perceptions of the accentedness and comprehensibility of L2 speech: the role of speaking rate Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23, 451-468
  42. Munro, M. J., Derwing, T. M. & Morton, L. (2006) The mutual intelligibility in the speech of second language learners Language Learning, 49, 285-310.
  43. Nash, R. (1971) Phonemic and prosodic interface and their effects on intelligibility In A. Rigault & R. Charbonneau (Eds.) Proceedings of the 7th Iinternational Conference of Phonetic Science, 570-573. The Hague: Mouton.
  44. O'connor, J. D. & Arnold, G. F. (1973) Intonation of Colloquial English. London: Prentice Hall Press.
  45. Pike, L. (1945) Intonation of American English. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
  46. Rogers, C. L. (1997) Intelligibility of Chinese-accented English. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Indiana University.
  47. Smith B. L., Haytes-Harb, R. Bruss, M. & Harker, A. (2009). Production and perception of voicing and devoicing in similar German and English word pairs by native speakers of German. Journal of Phonetics, 37, 257-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2009.03.001
  48. Stibbard, M. & Lee, J.-I. (2006) Evidence against the mismatched interlanguage intelligibility benefit hypothesis Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 120, 433-42. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2203595
  49. Suenobu, M., Knazaki, K. & Yamane, S. (1992) An experimental study of intelligibility of Japanese English International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 30, 146-156.
  50. Tajima, K., Port, R. & Dalby, J. (1997). Effects of temporal correlation on intelligibility of foreign-accented English, Journal of Phonetics, 25, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1006/jpho.1996.0031
  51. Tiffen, B. (1992) A study of the intelligibility of Nigerian English In A. van Essen & E. I. Burkart (Eds.) Homage to W. R. Lee: essays in English as a foreign or second language, 255-259, Berlin: Foris.
  52. Trofimovich, P. & Baker, W. (2006). Learning prosody and fluency characteristics of L2 speech: The effect of experience on child learners' acquisition of five suprasegmentals, Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 251-276.
  53. Trofimovich, P. & Baker, W. (2007). Learning prosody and fluency characteristics of L2 speech: The effect of experience on child learners' acquisition of five suprasegmentals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 251-276.
  54. Tsukada, K., Birdsong, D., Mack, M., Sung, H., Bialystok, E. & Flege, J. E. (2004). Release burts in English word-final voiceless stops produced by native English and Korean adults and children, Phonetica, 61, 67-83. https://doi.org/10.1159/000082557
  55. van Wijngaarden, S. J. (2001). Intelligibility of native and non-native Dutch speech, Speech Communication, 35, 103-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6393(00)00098-4
  56. Van Wijngaarden, S. J., STeeneken, H. J. & Houtgast, T. (2002) Quantifying the intelligibility of speech in noise for non-native listeners Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 111(4), 1906-1916. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1456928
  57. Walley, A. C. & Flege, J. E. (1998). Effect of lexical status on children's and adults' perception and native and non-native vowels, Journal of Phonetics, 27, 307-332.
  58. Weinreich, U. (1953) Language in contact: Findings and problems. The Hague: Mouton.
  59. Wilkins, D. A. (1974) Second Language Learning and Teaching. London: Edward Arnold.