• MALSORI
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• no.25_26
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• pp.3-26
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• 1993

The goals of the present study were (3) to collect and analyze sets of fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequency (F1, F2, F3) data of Korean diphthongs from ten linguistically homogeneous speakers of Korean males, and (2) to make a comparative study of Korean monophthongs and diphthongs. Various definitions, kinds, and previous studies of diphthongs were examined in the introduction. Procedures for screening subjects to form a linguistically homogeneous group, time point selection and formant determination were explained in the following section. The principal findings were as follows: 1. Much variation was observed in the ongliding part of diphthongs. 2. F2 values of (j) group descended while those of [w] group ascended, 3. The average duration of diphthongs were about 110 msec, and there was not much variation between speakers and diphthongs. 4. In a comparative study of monophthongs and diphthongs, Fl and F2 values of the same offgliding part at the third time point almost converged. 5. The gliding of diphthongs was very short beginning from the h-noise. Perceptual studies using speech synthesis are desirable to find major parameters for diphthongs. The results of the present study wi11 be useful in the area of automated speech recognition and computer synthesis of speech.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.243-249
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• 2007

We propose an effective voice-based gender identification using group delay(GD) Generally, features for speech recognition are composed of magnitude information rather than phase information. In our approach, we address a difference between male and female for GD which is a derivative of the Fourier transform phase. Also, we propose a novel way to incorporate the features fusion scheme based on a combination of GD and magnitude information such as mel-frequency cepstral coefficients(MFCC), linear predictive coding (LPC) coefficients, reflection coefficients and formant. The experimental results indicate that GD is effective in discriminating gender and the performance is significantly improved when the proposed feature fusion technique is applied.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2014

This study investigates twenty four Korean females' production of English front vowels focusing on the distinction in /i/ vs /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ vs /${\ae}$/ and formant values of stressed and unstressed vowels compared with those of native English speakers. The Korean learners were asked to read a textbook passage which includes ten sentences including target vowels. The major results indicate that: (1) Korean learners have trouble producing a distinct version (tense and lax) of front vowels in the paragraph reading; (2) The vowel space of the stressed vowels in a paragraph is smaller than that of embedded sentences; and (3) The vowel quality of the unstressed vowels produced by the Korean learners is similar to that of the native English speakers. The findings from this study can be applied to the pronunciation teaching for the Korean learners of English vowels and realization of English stress.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.7-16
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• 2005

The purpose, this experimental study was to identify pronunciation difficulties between male and female Korean speakers in their articulation of English vowels. Ten English mono-syllabic words were spoken six times by six male and six female college students. Formant frequencies were measured from sound spectrograms made by Pitch Works. Results show that Korean female speakers uttered English vowels more similar to those uttered by English native speakers than did Korean male speakers. While Korean male speakers could not readily distinguish between /i/ and /I/, /u/ and /v/, and /$\epsilon$/ and /ae/, respectively, Korean female speakers had difficulty only with /$\epsilon$/ and /ae/. The tentative results suggests that on the whole Korean speakers have difficulty in discriminating tense vowels from lax vowels, and they also have articulatory problems pronouncing low and back vowels such as /ae/. /a/ and /c/.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.177-189
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• 2000

This paper investigates how individual speakers' speech can be distinguished using acoustic parameters such as amplitude, pitch, and formant frequencies. Word samples from fifteen male speakers in their 20's in three different regions were recorded in two different modes (i.e., casual and clear speech) in quiet settings, and were analyzed with a Praat macro scrip. In order to determine individual speakers' acoustical values, the total duration of voicing segments was measured in five different timepoints. Results showed that a high correlation coefficient between $F_1\;and\;F_2$ in formant frequency was found among the speakers although there was little correlation coefficient between amplitude and pitch. Statistical grouping shows that individual speakers' voices were not reflected in regional dialects for both casual and clear speech. In addition, the difference of maximum and minimum in amplitude was about 10 dB which indicates a perceptually audible degree. These acoustic data can give some meaningful guidelines for implementing algorithms of speaker identification and speaker verification.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1995.06a
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• pp.221-224
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• 1995

In speech signal processing, it is necessary to detect exactly the pitch. The algorithms of pitch extraction with have been proposed until now are difficult to detect pitches over wide range speech signals. In this paper, thus, we proposed a new pitch detection algorithm that used a low pass filter with variable bandwidth. It is the method that preprosses to find the first formant of speech signals by the FFT at each frame and detects the pitches for signals LPFed with the cut off frequency according to the first formant. Applying the method, we obtained the pitch contours, improving the accuracy of pitch detection in some noise environments.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1990.07a
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• pp.47-50
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• 1990

Deafs cannot speak straight voice as normal people in lack of feedback of their pronunciation, therefore speech training is required. In this study, fundamental frequency, intensity, formant frequencies, vocal tract graphic and vocal tract area function, extracted from speech signal, are used as feature parameter. AR model, whose coefficients are extracted using inverse filtering. is used as speech generation model. In connect ion between vocal tract graphic and speech parameter, articulation distances and articulation distance functions in selected 15-intervals are determined by extracted vocal tract areas and formant frequencies.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.99-108
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• 2000

The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate characteristics of English vowels as spoken by Korean speakers. Ten English mono-syllabic words were spoken six times by six male college students who were born and raised in Seoul. Formant frequencies were measured from sound spectrograms made by the PC Quirer. Results showed that Korean speakers similarly pronounced /i/ and /I/, /u/ and /$\upsilon$/, and /$\varepsilon$/ and /${\ae}$/ respectively. It seems that Korean speakers can not differentiate tense vowels(/i/, /u/) from lax vowels(/i/, /$\upsilon$/) and pronounce low vowels such as /${\ae}$/, /a/, /c/ clearly. It is necessary that Korean speakers practice the correct movements of the jaw, tongue, and lips when they pronounce English vowels.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.193-206
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• 2001

The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate characteristics of English vowels uttered by Korean regional dialect speakers. Ten English mono-syllabic words, and eight Korean mono-syllabic words, were uttered six times by nine female graduate students from three areas: Seoul, Yongnam and Honam. Formant frequencies were measured from sound spectrograms made by the PC Quirer. Results showed that Seoul dialect speakers uttered English vowels more similar to those uttered by English native speakers than did the other dialect speakers. In particular, Yongnam dialect speakers have articulatory problems pronouncing the back vowels(/u/, /$\upsilon$/, /c/), while Honam dialect speakers have problems pronouncing the front vowels(/i/. /I/, /$\varepsilon$/, /$\ae$/). Even though each group has different problems pronouncing English vowels, Korean speakers generally have difficulty in discriminating tense vowels(/i/ and /u/) from the lax vowels(/I/ and /$\upsilon$/). It appears that the width of Korean speakers' articulatory movements is comparatively narrower than those of native English speakers.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1503-1512
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• 1988

As the basic analysis to solve the within-and cross-speaker variability in phoneme based speech recognition, changes in pitch and formant frequencies of 8 Korean vowels with age and sex of speaker has been investigated by analyzing a large number fo samples. Conclusions obtained are as follows: 1) Changes in pitch frequency with age and sex of speaker for children are hard to distinguish and the difference of before and after the voice change is analyzed approximately 0.2 oct. for female an 0.9 oct. for male. 2) While most of the formants of vowel considerably change with the age of speaker, the change becomes smaller as the age becomes older. 3) While there is an indirect correlation between pitch and formant with change in age, it is hard to see a direct correlation. 4) When the objects of the recognition experiment by pitch and formants are various speakers in each age and sex, pitch also works as an efficient recognition parameter.