• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.41-44
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• 2005

This study is about Chinese tone evaluation system for Korean learners using speech technology, Chinese prounciaion system consists of initials, finals and tones. Initials/finals are in segmental level and tones are in suprasegmental level. So different method could be used assessing Korean users' Chinese. Differ from segmental level recognition method, we chose pattern matching method in evaluating Chinese tones. Firstly we defined speakers' own speech range and produced standard tonal pattern according to speakers' own range. And then we compared input patterns of users with referring patterns.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.173-181
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• 2007

This is a semantic pilot study which concentrates on how people in Taiwan process the temporal metaphors, ego-moving metaphor and time-moving metaphor. Motivated by the research of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002) in which the English native speakers comprehend ego-moving metaphors faster than time-moving metaphors, the present study attempts to reexamine whether the faster reaction to ego-moving metaphors is shared by both the Chinese native speakers and EFL learners. To achieve the goals, 25 Chinese/English bilinguals are invited to be examined via the16 Chinese and 16 English test sentences. The recordings of their accuracy on each item are served as the databases used to compare with the study of Gentner, Imai, and Boroditsky (2002). The two finding presented here are: (1) when the subjects tested in their native language, Chinese, they process ego-moving metaphors better. (2) when tested in the foreign language, English, they conceptualize time-moving metaphors much better.

• MALSORI
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• no.65
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• pp.13-36
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• 2008

This paper attempts to analyze the characteristics of Korean vowel production by 12 Korean native speakers and 36 adult learners. The analyses have been performed with investigations of F1and F2 values. Results showed that there's no significant difference between /ㅔ/ and /H/ and between /ㅗ/ and /ㅜ/ in Korean native speakers' pronunciations. The distinguishing tendencies found in the analyses of foreign learners' pronunciations are fronting and lowering of /ㅗ/ by English speakers, backing and heightening of /ㅓ/ by Japanese speakers and backing and lowering of /ㅏ/ by Chinese speakers. For the limitations of this paper, it has a meaning of a preliminary study and could be developed into further research to show the order of acquisition and L1 transference.

• MALSORI
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• no.56
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• pp.127-134
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• 2005

Although the narrative development and the acquisition of the Korean grammatical morphemes by monolingual Korean-speaking children have been studied extensively, little is known about the narrative characteristics and the processes through which native speakers of other languages (L2 speakers) use the Korean grammatical morphemes. To understand the similarities and differences between L1 and L2 narrative skills and Korean grammatical morpheme use, 13 native Chinese-speaking college students who are learning Korean as a second language were studied. L2 participants used significantly fewer words, subordinate clauses, connective morphological endings, and pronouns per T-unit. Their speech also illustrated significantly more omission and confusion (substitution) errors in the use of auxiliary words and verb endings. Some of the syntactic and morphological factors need to be considered for the intervention of speakers with limited Korean proficiency.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.85-108
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• 2018

This study pointed out the reality that many novice Korean language teachers who lack rater training are scoring the learners' writing skill. The study performed and analyzed a case where pre-service teachers were educated in order to explore the possibility of promoting rater training in a Korean language teacher training course. The pre-service teachers majoring in Korean language education at the graduate school scored TOPIK compositions and were provided feedback by the FACETS program, which were further discussed at the rater meeting. In three scoring processes, the raters scored with conscious of own rating patterns and showed positive change or over correction due to excessive consciousness. Consequentially, ongoing training can improve rating ability, and considering the fact that professional rater training is hard to progress, the method composed of FACETS analysis and rater training revealed positive effects. On the other hand, the rater training including native Korean and non-native(Chinese) speakers together showed no significant difference by mother tongue but by individual difference. This can be interpreted as a positive implication to the rating reliability of non-native speakers possessing advanced Korean language abilities. However, this must be supplemented through extended research.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.71-79
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• 2019

This study aims to investigate the rhythmic patterns in the English speech produced by Chinese learners of English who learn English as a foreign language (EFL learners). Utilizing interval-based rhythm metrics, namely, VarcoC, VarcoV, nPVI-C, nPVI-V, and %V, the study compared the rhythmic differences in English speech between ten native speakers from the United States and forty Chinese EFL learners from mainland China. A sentence elicitation task consisting of thirty picture prompts and corresponding thirty stimuli sentences with at least five vocalic and four consonantal intervals was conducted. Statistical results reveal that both Chinese advanced learners and beginners had significantly lower degree of stress-timed in their English speech, indicating that the acquisition of the L2 speech rhythm was influenced by the learners' L1 rhythmic pattern. In addition, the results also show that the Chinese advanced learners had significantly higher degree of stress-timed in their English speech than beginners and showed no significant difference with native speakers in VarcoC and nPVI-C. These results indicate that the direction of L2 speech rhythm development was from more syllable-timed to more stress-timed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.19-27
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• 2012

When two speakers read a text together, the produced speech has been shown to reduce a high degree of variability (e.g., pause duration and placement, and speech rate). This paper provides a quantitative analysis of speech rate variation exhibited in synchronous speech by examining the global and local patterns in two dialects of Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan and Shanghai). We analyzed the speech data in terms of mean speech rate and the reference of "Just Noticeable difference (JND)" within a subject and across subjects. Our findings show that speakers show lower and less variable speech rates when they read a text synchronously than when they read alone. This global pattern is observed consistently across speakers and dialects maintaining the unique local variation patterns of speech rate for each dialect. We conclude that paired speakers lower their speech rates and decrease the variability in order to ensure the synchrony of their speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

This paper investigates whether listeners perceive a different level of politeness when the duration of the Korean sentence-final auxiliary particle '-yo' is varied. A total of 10 Korean sentences were manipulated by lengthening and shortening '-yo' by 10%, 20%, and 30%. The participants included native Korean speakers and Chinese and Japanese learners of Korean (n=10, respectively). They were asked to rate the level of politeness of the stimuli on a 9-point scale. It was found that Korean listeners perceived decreased politeness as the duration of '-yo' was shortened and increased politeness as it was lengthened. However, Chinese and Japanese listeners did not perceive a different level of politeness from the manipulated sentences. This finding suggests that it is important to teach L2 speakers that the duration of the auxiliary particle '-yo' plays a role in Korean listeners' perception of politeness.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.3
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• pp.71-82
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• 1998

Five sets of nonsense acoustical stimuli {$[sp{\varepsilon},st{\varepsilon},sk{\varepsilon}],\;[p{\varepsilon},t{\varepsilon},k{\varepsilon}],\;[sb{\varepsilon},sd{\varepsilon},sg{\varepsilon}],\;[b{\varepsilon},d{\varepsilon},g{\varepsilon}],\;['{\varepsilon}b{\varepsilon},'{\varepsilon}d{\varepsilon},'{\varepsilon}g{\varepsilon}]$} were presented for identification of English stops to native speakers of English, Chinese, and Korean. The English speakers perceived stops after /s/ as /p, t, k/; in other contexts as /b, d, g/. In the languages where other distinctions exist, however, the evaluation was different. The results suggest that in English the cue for stops after /s/ was syllable structure constraint: After initial /s/ always /p, t, k/ follow; the cue for the initial stops was aspiration. On the basis of the results, it was concluded that in English we should classify the unaspirated voiceless stops in initial /s/-stop clusters into the phoneme where [$p^{h},t^{h},k^{h}$] are in, and that perception is not only language specific but also context specific.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2020

Non-tonal language speakers may have difficulty learning second language lexical tones. In the present study, we explored this issue with Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese (i.e., non-tonal first language speakers) by examining their perception and production of Mandarin lexical tones. In the perception experiment, the Korean learners were asked to listen to the tone of each stimulus and assign it to one of four Mandarin lexical tones using the response keys; in the production experiment, the learners provided speech production data for the lexical tones and then their productions were identified by native listeners of Mandarin Chinese. Our results showed that the Korean learners of Mandarin Chinese had difficulty in perceptually distinguishing Tone 2 and Tone 3, with the most frequent production error being the mispronunciation of Tone 3 as Tone 2. We also investigated whether unfamiliar non-native phonemes (i.e., Chinese phonemes) that do not exist in the native language phonemic inventory (i.e., Korean) may hinder the processing of the non-native lexical tones. We found no evidence for such effects, neither for the perception nor for the production of the tones.