• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.353-363
• /
• 2000

The consonant system of English is relatively uniform throughout the English-speaking countries. Accents of English are mainly known to differ in terms of their vowel systems as well as in the phonetic realisations of vowel phonemes. The results of an acoustic study of vowel phonology of Japanese English, Singapore English and Indian English are presented, and an attempt is then made to compare the vowel phonology of these non-native varieties with that of Scottish English and RP. Various native varieties of English are thus shown to differ from each other in major ways, as much, perhaps, as the non-native varieties differ from the native varieties. Nevertheless, native speakers of English appear to be mutually intelligible to a degree that does not extend to non-native varieties. Obviously there are features that various native accents have in common which facilitate their mutual intelligibility, and these features are not shared by non-native accents. It is proposed that the foreign learner adopt certain core features of English in his pronunciation if he is to use English effectively as an international language. The common core that is significant in the communication process will be discussed. In conclusion, some pragmatic implications for the English language education in the new millennium will be articulated.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.57-66
• /
• 2006

In this paper, I propose a new method of Multi-Pulse Speech Coding(FBD-MPC: Frequency Band Division MPC) by using TSIUVC(Transition Segment Including UnVoiced Consonant) searching, extraction and approximation-synthesis method in a frequency domain. As, a result. the extraction rates of TSIUVC are 84.8%(plosive), 94.9%(fricative) and 92.3%(affricative) in female voice, 88%(plosive), 94.9%(fricative) and 92.3%(affricative) in male voice respectively. Also, I obtain a high quality approximation-synthesis waveforms within TSIUVC by using frequency information of 0.547kHz below and 2.813kHz above. I evaluate MPC by using switching information of voiced/unvoiced and FBD-MPC by using switching information of voiced/Silence/TSIUVC. As, a result, I knew that synthesis speech of FBD-MPC was better in speech quality than synthesis speech of the MPC.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.24-32
• /
• 1991

Cleft palate or velopharyngeal incompetence shows many disorders and disabilities affecting speech transmission. including distortion. substitution. and the nasalization of the vowels. The nasalized vowels are produced primarily by lowering of the velum. resulting in opening a side passage for the air flow through the nasal cavity. These abnormal movements give rise to complex modification of the physical property of the sound or in the sound spectrum. The authors employed Sonagraph$^{\circledR}$ as a sound analyzer in order to ascertain the features which characterize the nasalization of vowels. Twenty healthy Korean male adult voluteers were analyzed in artificial conditions of anterior and posterior nasal obstruction. and velo-pharyngeal incompetence. The results were as follows : 1) Fundamental frequency was not changed by nasal obstruction or velopharyngeal incompetence. 2) There was no significant difference of the formant intensity between normal and nasal vowels. 3) In VPI, a decrease of the frequency of $F_2$ was observed in /e/ and /i/ vowels(p<0.001). 4) In VPI, the $F_2$ was frequently missed in /o/ and /u/ vowels. 5) In the consonant spectra of VPI, the 'release burst' was usually not observed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.161-165
• /
• 1997

Background : The rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry can assess e nasal passage dynamically and statically Recently, analytic methods such as nasometer and sound spectrogram are gaining wide attention to evaluate the nasality objectively. Objectives : firstly to determine if ere was a relationship between the new methods and nasal airway resistance, and secondly to establish if the measurement of nasalance and sound spectrum could be used as an alternative to rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry. Materials and Methods : Thirty two patients who underwent either septoplasty and turbinectomy for nasal obstruction were studied. And their ages ranged form 15 to 45 years, with an average of 26.1 years. The rhinomanometry, nasometer, sound spectrogram were performed at preoperative and postoperative 4 weeks day. Results : After operation, subjective symptoms and rhinomanometric results were significantly improved but nasalance and slope of nana, mama and mamma passage had not meningful change. The significnat changes were noted in nasalance and first nasal formant frequency of nasal consonant of velum(angang). Conclusion : Nasometer and sound spectrogram had a limitation for the measure of nasal patency.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.85-94
• /
• 2015

This study is to investigate the characteristic of tonal elements in word utterance of 30 pre-school children. For the analyses, 240 utterances of 4 syllable words were processed to extract acoustic values and then the data was transformed into tonal height in order to examine the contour. The results show that the mean pitch of a note is $C4{\frac{1}{2}}(271.17Hz)$ and high and low pitched notes are $C5{\frac{1}{2}}(452.57Hz)$ and $G{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}(192.54Hz)$. The pitch patterns of the 4 syllables measured at the frication and aspiration portion are $E4{\frac{1}{2}}-F4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3$ and F4-E4-B3-A3. The pitch patterns of consonant clusters are $B3{\frac{1}{2}}-D4-B3{\frac{1}{2}}-A3{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $A{\sharp}3{\frac{1}{2}}-C4-A3-D4{\frac{1}{2}}$. The analyses of tonal elements in this study provide evidentiary data on tonal height helpful for developing melodic contour.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.55-62
• /
• 2015

It is widely accepted that Parkinson's disease(PD) is the most common cause of hypokinetic dysarthria, and its characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' have become more evident along with the severity of motor disorders. Speech alternate motion rates (AMRs) are particularly useful for observing not only rate abnormalities but also deviant speech. However, relatively little is known about the characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs of PD except for the perceptual characteristics. The purpose of this study was to examine which acoustic features of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs are a robust indicator of Parkinsonian speech. Numbers of syllabic repetitions (/pə/, /tə/, /kə/) in AMR tasks were analyzed through acoustic methods observing a spectrogram of the Computerized Speech Lab in 9 patients with PD. Acoustically, we found three characteristics of 'short rushes of speech': 1) Vocalized consonants without closure duration(VC) 76.3%; 2) No consonant segmentation(NC) 18.6%; 3) No vowel formant frequency(NV) 5.1%. Based on these results, 'short rushes of speech' may affect the failure to reach and maintain the phonatory targets. In order to best achieve the therapeutic goals, and to make the treatment most efficacious, it is important to incorporate training methods which are based on both phonation and articulation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.1 no.3
• /
• pp.117-122
• /
• 2009

A variety of cross-linguistic studies has documented that the acoustic properties of speech addressed to young children include exaggeration of pitch contours and acoustically salient features of phonetic units. It has been suggested that phonetic modifications of child-directed speech facilitate young children's learning of speech sounds by providing detailed phonetic information about the target word. While there are several studies reporting vowel modifications in speech to infants (i.e., hyper-articulated vowels), there has been little research about consonant modifications in speech to young children (except for VOT). The present study examines acoustic properties of Korean stops in Korean mothers' speech to their children (seven children aged 27 to 38 months). Korean tense, lax, and aspirated stops are all voiceless in word-initial position, and are perceptually differentiated by several acoustic parameters including VOT, $f_0$ of the following vowel, and the amplitude difference of the first and second harmonics at the voice onset of the following vowel. This study compares values of these parameters in Korean child-directed speech to those in adult-directed speech from same speakers. Conclusions focus on the acoustic properties of Korean stops in child-directed speech and how they are modified to help Korean young children learn the three-way phonetic contrast.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.1 no.3
• /
• pp.65-72
• /
• 2009

Formant values are the most important acoustic correlates of English vowels. Classical studies on English vowels reported the first three formant values measured at a single timepoint on a sustained vowel segment. However, many recent studies revealed that partial onset or offset segments with information of dynamic spectral changes may contribute to the exact identification of English vowels with an accuracy almost comparable to that by the whole vowel segment or word. The purpose of this study was to examine formant trajectories of nine English vowels collected by Hillenbrand et al.(1995). Acoustic analysis was systematically made by a Praat script at six equidistant timepoints over the vowel segment. Results showed that the first formant trajectories played an important role in distinguishing each vowel within the front- or back-vowel groups. The second formant trajectories of the back vowels varied more drastically than those of the front vowels. The third formant value was similar except the high vowel /i/. From the vowel space on F1 by F2 axes, the formant trajectories of each vowel clearly showed a transition toward the locus of the following consonant /d/. Other acoustic data revealed that there were some vowel inherent duration or pitch values. From this study we can conclude that the dynamic spectral changes are very important in specifying acoustic characteristics of the English vowels. Further studies on vowels and diphthongs in different contexts are desirable.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2020

The perceptual assimilation of a nonnative phonological contrast can change with linguistic experience, resulting in naïve listeners and novice second language (L2) learners potentially assimilating the members of a nonnative contrast to different native (L1) categories. While it has been shown that this sort of change can affect the discrimination of the nonnative contrast, it has not been tested whether such a change could have consequences for the production of the contrast. In this study, L1 speakers of Mandarin Chinese who were (1) naïve to Korean, (2) novice L2 learners, or (3) advanced L2 learners participated in a Korean non-word repetition task using word-initial sibilants. The initial CVs of their repetitions were then played to L1 Korean listeners who categorized the initial consonant. The naïve talkers were more likely to repeat an initial /s^ha/ as an affricate, whereas the L2 learners repeated it as a fricative, in line with how these listeners have been shown to assimilate Korean sibilants to Mandarin categories. This result suggests that errors in the production of new words presented auditorily to nonnative listeners may be driven by how they perceptually assimilate the nonnative sounds, emphasizing the need to better understand what drives changes in perceptual assimilation that accompany increased linguistic experience.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 1994.06a
• /
• pp.1033-1038
• /
• 1994

This paper describes recognition results using the modified Learning Vector Quantization (MLVQ2) method which we proposed previously. At first, we investigated the property of duration of 29 Korean consonants and found that the variances of th duration were extremely big comparing to other languages. We carried out preliminary recognition experiments for three stop consonants P, T and K. From the recognition results, we defined the optimum conditions for the learning. Then we applied the MLVQ2 method to the recognition of Korean consonants. The training was carried out using the phoneme samples in the 611 word vocabulary uttered by 2 male speakers, where each of the speakers uttered two repetitions. The recognition experiment was carried out for the phoneme samples in two repetitions of the 611 word vocabulary uttered by another male speaker. The recognition scores for the twelve plosives were 68.2% for the test samples. The recofnition scores for the 29 Korean consonants were 64.8% for the test samples.