• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.203-211
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• 2020

Given that American English and British English show differences for several vowels and that Korean students have mainly been exposed to American English, this study examined 27 Korean university students' identification of American and British English vowels. The results showed that Korean students' identification accuracy of American English vowels was higher (64.7%) than that of British English (54.7%), thus indicating that Korean students' familiarity with American English affected the students' identification of English vowels. However, vowel variation also affected students' identification of English vowels in that only the American English vowels in the words beat, bat, but, burt, bart, bite were better identified than the corresponding vowels in British English. Among the vowels which exhibit differences between American English and British English, the students' identification accuracy of the American English vowels in burt, bart, bat was significantly higher than that of British English and the error patterns for these vowels were also different. The analysis of vowel error patterns indicated that Korean students had much difficulty with non-rhotic vowels and [a] in bat in British English. Further, the vowels in bot and boat demonstrated a similar [ɑ]-[ɔ]-[ʌ] confusion and also a confusion between rounded vowels in spite of the differences of these vowels between American English and British English. Some pedagogical implications for teaching of English vowels were discussed based on the findings of the present study.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.11-20
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• 2016

It is well known that vowels are shorter before voiceless consonants than voiced ones in English, as in many other languages. Research has shown that the ratio of vowel durations in voiced and voiceless contexts in English is in the range of 0.6~0.8. However, little work has been done as to whether the ratio of vowel durations varies depending on English variety. In the production experiment in this paper, seven speakers from three varieties of English, New Zealand, British, and American English, read 30 pairs of (C)VC monosyllabic words which differ in coda voicing (e.g. beat-bead). Vowel height, phonemic vowel length, and consonant manner were varied as well. As expected, vowel-shortening effects were found in all varieties: vowels were shorter before voiceless than before voiced codas. Overall vowel duration was the longest in American English and the shortest in New Zealand (NZ) English. In particular, vowel duration before voiceless codas is the shortest in New Zealand English, indicating the most radical degree of shortening in this variety. As a result, the ratio of vowel durations in varying voicing contexts is the lowest in NZ English, while American and British English do not show a significant difference each other. In addition, consonant closure duration was examined. Whereas NZ speakers show the shortest vowel duration before a voiceless coda, their voiceless consonants have the longest closure duration, which suggest an inverse relationship between vowel duration and closure duration.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-59
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• 2023

This study aims to compare the structures of light verb constructions (LVCs) taking decision as the deverbal noun in Malaysian English, British English and American English. A general corpus made up of Internet forum threads from Lowyat.Net, was created to represent Malaysian English while the British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to represent the supervarieties. Light verbs make and take are found to be heading deverbal noun decision. Differences are observed in the use of articles. The frequency of Malaysian English LVCs without article is the highest while supervarieties LVCs prefer indefinite article. The high occurrences of LVCs without articles in Malaysian English can be attributed to the influence from Malaysian substrate languages. Findings also show that descriptive adjective is the most frequently used modifier in all three varieties of English. This suggests the standard LVC structure, comprising a light verb, the indefinite article, and a deverbal noun is no longer rigidly adhered to even among the native speakers of English.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2002

One of the benefits of the internet-assisted instruction is that it can improve L2 Learners' motivation to express themselves in English. The purpose of this paper is to investigate an effective approach to British-American fiction learning in Korean universities, which can emphasize communicative strategies drawing on video-conferencing system, a chat system(CUSeeMe), and an e-mail system. Students are passive participants who cannot assert their creativity in the traditional teaching method of British-American fiction, which mainly relies upon reading and translation far from literature lessons. In CCDL(Cross-cultural distance learning) class, students can play active roles in asserting their own ideas and assuming considerable responsibility for making a presentation in English. A professor can play a role as a coordinator in supporting the students' activities and in winding up the class. The main significance of this article lies in providing a paradigm for CCDL class beyond the limitation of the traditional teaching method of British-American fiction in Korea and futhermore in exploring the eclectic integration of the traditional one and CCDL.

• MALSORI
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• no.38
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• pp.71-97
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• 1999

In this paper I have surveyed vowel phonemes in a variety of English accents and have proposed the vowel systems of English. The English accents covered in this paper include General American English, Northeastern American English, Western American English, Southern British English, Northern British English, Scottish English, Southern Irish English, Northern Irish English, Australian English, and New Zealand English. The vowel systems proposed here reflect the acoustic information of vowels and phonological aspects of English. This paper offers an Optimality Theory-based analysis of the English vowel systems by appealing to independently motivated constraints. This paper, following Flemming(1995), makes an assumption that the vowel system in question is selected in output as an optimal candidate by a given constraint ranking, the assumption which is different from the view that the vowel system is fixed in input. The analysis proposed here gives an answer to why a specific vowel system is selected and why dialectal variations come about. It is shown in this paper that the vowel system selected in a specific dialect comes from an optimal satisfaction of a given constraint ranking and that dialectal differences result from dynamic permutations of the same constraints. The constraint-based analysis proffered here accounts well for the similarities and differences among dialects in regard to the vowel system.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2017

The current study investigated whether Korean learners' English-learning environments, especially target English accent (General American English (GAE) vs. Southern British English (SBE)) and English-language experience affected their production of English vowels. Thirty six EFL learners, 27 ESL-US learners, and 33 ESL-UK learners produced 8 English vowels with a bVt frame (beat, bit, bet, bat, bought, bot, boat, boot). The learners' productions were acoustically analyzed in terms of F1 and F2 frequencies. The overall results revealed that the learners' target accent had an effect on their production of some English vowels. The EFL and ESL-US learners' (especially, female learners') production of bought, bot, boat, and boot, which show characteristic differences between the GAE and SBE accents, was closer to that of the native American English (AE) speakers than the native British English (BE) speakers. In contrast, the ESL-UK learners' production of bought and bot demonstrated the opposite pattern. Thus, the impact of target accent was not demonstrated across the board. The effect of the learners' different English-language experience was also rather limited. This was because the EFL learners' production was not much different from the ESL-US learners' production, in spite of the ESL-US learners' residence in the US for more than 9 years. Furthermore, the Korean learners, irrespective of their different English-language experience, tended to produce bit and bat with lower F1 than the native AE and BE speakers, thus resulting in bit and bat to be produced similarly to beat and bet, respectively. This demonstrates the learners' persistent L1 effects on their English vowel production despite the learners' residence in the English speaking countries or their high English proficiency.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.119-143
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• 1999

In this paper, the development of English Intonational Phonology is introduced. The existing representation systems of intonation are largely divided into the American structuralist school and the British school, which describe intonation by means of 'levels' and 'configurations' respectively. Both representation systems have some theory-internal problems, however. As for the American school, there is no way to represent pitches much lower than the reference line, while the system of intonation in the British school is limited in that intonation is described in a phonetic impressionistic way rather than from a phonological perspective. Intonational Phonology, a real phonological approach, which has grown out of the basic assumptions of autosegmental-metrical(AM) theory has been suggested by Pierrehumbert(1980). In her approach, an intonational tune is made up of one or more pitch accents, followed by an obligatory phrase accent and an obligatory boundary tone, and interestingly 22 combinations are possible. Intonational Phonology has been revised from Beckman & Pierrehumbert(1986) in developing ToBI(Tones & Break Indices), a proposed standard for labelling prosodic features of digital speech databases in English.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.193-209
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• 2014

Writers in England's colonies and former colonies have long struggled with the advantages and disadvantages of employing the language of the colonizer for their creative work, an issue that today reaches beyond the older imperial trade routes in the era of "global English." Creative writers in widely disparate locations are now using global English to their advantage, with what can be described as post-postcolonial strategies. This essay explores the politics of global English, beginning with a satiric dictionary of "Strine" (Australian English) from 1965, and then looking back at the mid-1960s debate at Makerere University between Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Chinua Achebe, in which Achebe famously asserted the importance of remaking English for hi own purposes. The essay then discusses early linguistic experiments by Rudyard Kipling, who became the world's first truly global writer in the 1880s and 1890s and developed a range of strategies for conveying local experience to a global audience. The essay then turns to two contemporary examples: a comic pastiche of Kipling-and of Kiplingese-by the contemporary Tibetan writer Jamyang Norbu, who deploys "Babu English" and the legacy of British rule against Chinese encroachment in Tibet; and, finally, the Korean-American internet group Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, who interweave African-American English with North Korean political rhetoric to hilariously subversive effect.

• MALSORI
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• no.42
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• pp.1-13
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• 2001

This paper deals with non-rhoticity of Korean and Cantonese in English loanword adaptation. These two languages have quite different cultural and historical backgrounds with respect to English. The influence of the American accent prevails in Korea while in Cantonese the influence is British. However, the treatment of coda-/r/ from English illustrates that both languages are the same in that they use a non-rhotic accent. The main point of this paper is to show that the non-rhoticity of these two languages must be accounted for by their native phonological systems rather than extralinguistic factors such as historical. social and / or cultural backgrounds.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.321-331
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• 2000

This paper deals with non-rhoticity of Korean and Cantonese in English loanword adaptation. These two languages have quite different cultural and historical backgrounds with respect to English. The influence of the American accent prevails in Korea while in Cantonese the influence is British. However, the treatment of coda-/r/ from English illustrates that both languages are the same in that they use a non-rhotic accent. The main point of this paper is to show that the non-rhoticity of these two languages must be accounted for by their native phonological systems rather than extralinguistic factors such as historical, social and / or cultural backgrounds.