• MALSORI
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• no.33_34
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• pp.57-69
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• 1997

In this paper, 1 will try to examine the aspects of formants, based on the LPC analysis. In this analysis, five Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e, o) will experience two kinds of experiments: vowels in isolated forms, and vowels in carrier sentences. The analysis results of Japanese vowels of the Japanese natives show a peculiar feature that Japanese vowels form respective vowel groups. Each Japanese vowel makes a statistically significant difference. In the Fl analysis of the vowels grouped by the informant's sex, Japanese vowel (a) shows the greatest standard deviation without regard to the informant's sex. In the F2 analysis of Japanese vowels, each vowel has a statistically significant difference. The fact that the male's [u] shows great standard deviation means that there is a great difference of the frontness of the tongue among the Japanese males in articulating [u]. Isolated vowels and carried vowels show statistically little significance between Fl and F2 frequency values. In another contrastive analysis between the isolated vowel group and the carried vowel group, whether a vowel is articulated in isolation or in a sentence appears to have little effect on its formant frequency.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.67-82
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• 2006

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate formant characteristics of Korean monophthongs spoken by Japanese learners and to compare the characteristics of vowels produced by the Japanese learners with those of the Korean native speakers. The data consisted of three categories: eight vowels in isolation, words including eight vowels in carrier sentences, and words including eight vowels in natural sentences. In this study, formant frequencies of the vowels were measured by Wave Surfer. It was assumed that the formant frequencies of the Korean vowels produced by the Japanese learners could be different from those of the Korean native speakers due to the influence of their own Japanese vowels. Results of this study showed that the Japanese learners had the difficulties to distinguish between the pairs /-/and /ㅜ/, /ㅓ/and /ㅗ/, and /ㅏ/and /ㅔ/. In Japanese vowels, F2 frequency value of /ㅜ/ was similar to that of the Korean /-/. It means that when the Japanese leaners produced Korean /ㅜ/, they might neutralize /-/ and /ㅜ/. Besides, there were not /ㅓ/and /ㅐ/ in Japanese vowels. Therefore, they tended to pronounce /ㅓ/ similar to /ㅗ/ which has the most similar formant frequency value with that of /ㅓ/, and /ㅐ/ was pronounced similar to /ㅔ/ for the same reason.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.69-81
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• 2004

The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate characteristics of Korean vowels uttered by Japanese speakers. Eight Korean Vowels were uttered three times by ten male Korean and Japanese, female Korean and Japanese, respectively. Formant Frequencies were measured from sound spectrograms made by the Pitch Works. Results showed that female Japanese speakers uttered Korean vowels more similar to those uttered by Korean native speakers than did male Japanese speakers.. In particular, male Japanese speakers have articulatory problems pronouncing the back vowels(/ㅓ/, /ㅡ/, /ㅜ/). It appears that the width of male speakers' articulatory movements is comparatively narrower than those of female speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.93-103
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• 2007

The aims of this study were to examine the acoustic features of Korean and Japanese vowels, and to determine whether new phones that do not have counterparts in Japanese or similar phones that have counterparts improve more from learning. This study consisted of three parts. In Experiment I, a speech production test was performed to observe the acoustic features of Korean and Japanese vowels. In Experiment II, the speech production of Korean vowels produced by Koreans, advanced Japanese learners of Korean, and beginning Japanese learners of Korean was investigated. In Experiment III, a speech perception study of Korean vowels produced by the two Japanese learner groups was conducted to observe the effect of learning on acquiring L2 phones. The conclusion drawn from the study was that the similar phones produced by Japanese show more similarity with those of Koreans than new phones in terms of F1 and F2, but Japanese learners of Korean displayed more improvement in new phones from learning.

• MALSORI
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• no.63
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• pp.47-66
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• 2007

This study aims at exploring the degree of phonetic similarity between Korean and Japanese vowels in terms of acoustic features by performing the speech production test on Korean speakers and Japanese speakers. For this purpose, the speech of 16 Japanese speakers for Japanese speech data, and the speech of 16 Korean speakers for Korean speech data were utilized. The findings in assessing the degree of the similarity of the 7 nearest equivalents of the Korean and Japanese vowels are as follows: First, Korean /i/ and /e/ turned out to display no significant differences in terms of F1 and F2 with their counterparts, Japanese /i/ and /e/, and the distribution of F1 and F2 of Korean /i/ and /e/ in the distributional map completely overlapped with Japanese /i/ and /e/. Accordingly, Korean /i/ and /e/ were believed to be "identical." Second, Korean /a/, /o/, and /i/ displayed a significant difference in either F1 or F2, but showed a great similarity in distribution of F1 and F2 with Japanese /a/, /o/, and /m/ respectively. Korean /a/ /o/, and /i/, therefore, were categorized as very similar to Japanese vowels. Third, Korean /u/, which has the counterpart /m/ in Japanese, showed a significant difference in both F1 and F2, and only half of the distribution overlapped. Thus, Korean /u/ was analyzed as being a moderately similar vowel to Japanese vowels. Fourth, Korean /${\wedge}$/ did not have a close counterpart in Japanese, and was classified as "the least similar vowel."

• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.91-112
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• 1998

This paper aimed at examining the influence of L1 (native language) phonology when speakers of L1 perceive L2 (foreign language) sounds. Korean and Japanese learners of English took a perception test of Australian English words 'work', 'walk' and 'wok'. Based on Korean and Japanese phonology, it was predicted that Korean subjects would face more difficulties than Japanese subjects. The results of the experiment substantiated the influence of L1 phonology in L2 learners' L2 sound perception.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.198-206
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• 1996

Using eighteen text materials from various goners of present-day Japanese, we collected phonologically reduced forms frequently observed in conversational Japanese, and classified them in search of unified explanation of phonological reduction phenomena. We found 7,516 cases of reduced forms which we divided into 43 categories according to the types of phonological changes they have undergone. The general tendencies ale that deletion and fusion of a phoneme or an entire syllable takes place frequently, resulting in the decrease in the number of syllable. Typical examples frequently observed throughout the materials are : $~/noda/{\rightarrow}~/nda/,{\;}-/teiru/{\rightarrow}~/teru/,{\;}~/dewa/{\rightarrow}~/zja/,{\;}~/tesimau/{\rightarrow}~/cjau/$. From morphosyntactic point of view phonological reduction often occurs at the NP and VP morpheme boundaries. The following findings are drawn from phonological observations of reduction. (1) Vowels are more easily deleted than consonants. (2) Bilabials(/m/, /b/, and /w/ are the most likely candidates for deletion. (3) In a concatenation of vowels, closed vowels are absorbed into open vowels, or two adjacent vowels come to create another vowel, in which case reconstruction of the original sequence is not always predictable. (4) Alveolars are palatalized under the influence of front vowels. (5) Regressive assimilation takes place in a syllable starting with ill, changing the entire syllable into phonological choked sound or a syllabic nasal, depending on the voicing of following phoneme.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.229-241
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• 2001

Using eighteen texts from various genera of present-day Japanese, I collected phonologically reduced forms frequently observed in conversational Japanese, and classified them in search of a unified. explanation of phonological phenomena. I found 7,516 cases of reduced forms which I divided into 43 categories according to the types of phonological changes they have undergone. The general tendencies are that deletion and fusion of a phoneme or an entire syllable takes place frequently, resulting in the decrease in the number of syllables. From a morphosyntactic point of view, phonological reduction often occurs at the NP and VP morpheme boundaries. The following findings are drawn from phonetical observations of reduction. (1) Vowels are more easily deleted than consonants. (2) Bilabials ([m], [b], and [w]) are the most likely candidates for deletion. (3) In a concatenation of vowels, closed vowels are absorbed into open vowels, or two adjacent vowels come to create another vowel, in which case reconstruction of the original sequence is not always predictable. (4) Alveolars are palatalized under the influence of front vowels. (5) Regressive assimilation takes place in a syllable starting with [r], changing the entire syllable into a phonological choked sound or a syllabic nasal, depending on the voicing of the following phoneme.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.723-741
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• 2011

The principle of vowel dispersion claims that vowels are dispersed in the available phonetic space. However, SPAP and UPSID show that deviations from the patterns predicted by this principle are relatively infrequent of, for the most part, confined to matters of small scale, falling into a few definable classes. In this paper, we will discuss the vowel systems of 4 languages, Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese, and will argue that vowels tend toward a balanced and wide dispersion in the available phonetic space by the complementary vowels.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06c
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• pp.403.2-408
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• 1998

한국인과 일본인의 한국어 모음 포먼트값 차이 비교 연구에서, 한국어 [이]는 한국인이 일본인에 비하여 혀의 높이가 낮게 나타났으며 한국어 [에, 애, 오] 모음에서 한국인은 일본인에 비하여 혀의 높이가 높게 나타난 것으로 추론되었다. 후설 모음 [오, 우, 으]에서 한국인은 일본인에 비하여 혀 위치는 보다 후설성으로, 한국어 [어]는 한국인이 일본인에 비하여 혀 위치가 전설성으로 발음하는 것으로 추론되었다. 한국인과 일본인의 일본어 모음 포먼트값 차이 비교 연구에서, 일본어 [이]를 제외한 모든 모음에서 한국인은 일본인에 비하여 혀의 높이는 높게 나타났으며 일본어, [오, 우]에서 혀 위치에 한국인은 일본인에 비하여 보다 후설성으로 발음하는 것으로 추론 가능했다.