• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.43-50
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• 2010

English vowels can be divided into monophthongs and diphthongs depending on the number of vocal tract shapes. Diphthongs are usually produced with more than one shape. This study attempts to collect acoustical data of English diphthongs published by Hillenbrand et al.(1995) online and to examine acoustic features of the diphthongs for phoneticians and English teachers. Sixty three American males and females were chosen after excluding those subjects with different target vowels or ambiguous formant tracks. The author used Praat to obtain the acoustical data systematically at eleven equidistant timepoints over the diphthongal segment. Obvious errors were corrected based on the spectrographic display of each diphthong. Results show that the formant trajectories of the diphthongs produced by the American males and females appeared quite similar. When the female formant values were uniformly normalized to those of the males, almost a perfect collapse occurred. Secondly, the diphthongal movements on the vowel space appeared not linear due to the coarticulatory gesture for the following consonant. Thirdly, the average duration of the diphthongs produced by the females was 1.156 times longer than that of the males while the pitch ratio between the two groups turned out to be 1.746 with a similar contour over measurement points. The author concludes that English diphthongs produced by various groups can be compared systematically when the acoustical values are obtained at proportional timepoints. Further studies will be desirable on the comparison of English diphthongs produced by native and nonnative speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.157-173
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• 2003

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate and compare the. vowel lengths of English diphthongs and low vowels among native-English-speaking Americans with Korean college students from the Chungnam and Gyungnam provinces. Eight words and sixteen sentences were uttered five times by twenty five subjects from three groups; 1) Chungnam dialect speakers, 2) Gyungnam dialect speakers and 3) five native-English-speaking Americans. Acoustic features (duration) were measured from sound spectrograms made by the PC Quire. Results showed that the vowel lengths of English diphthongs and low vowels between native English speakers and Korean collegians of Chungnam and Gyungnam provinces were different. Comparing the average length of English diphthongs of Korean collegians with those of American natives, we can see that native English speakers tend to pronounce the English diphthongs shorter than Korean collegians do. However, native English speakers tend to pronounce the English low vowels longer than Korean collegians do. In this study we also tried to find out the differences of English diphthongs and low vowel lengths in relation to their utterance positions among American natives and Chungnam and Gyungnam dialect speakers. By the results of this experiment, we observed a lengthening effect in the three groups. However, in the pronunciation of American natives, a lengthening effect of English vowels was more clearly observed, especially in the pronunciation of English diphthongs.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.7-14
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• 2001

This study was done to find out the difference in vowel length between the English language produced by American soldiers and KATUSA soldiers. Though English pronunciation by Koreans shows different features in many ways, I focused on English vowel length of KATUSA soldiers. I wanted to know if KATUSA soldiers, when compared with American soldiers, showed a foreign accent when they produced English diphthongs. The reason I wanted to deal with English diphthongs is that most Koreans have difficulty in pronouncing them since they do not understand the concept of diphthongs. Therefore I selected five English diphthongs, /aI/, cI/, /au/, /eI/, /ou,/as/ the experimental object, and I tried to find out the foreign accent of them. In this study I also tried to find out the vowel lengths in relation to their utterance positions. I investigated the difference of the English diphthong length between American and KATUSA soldiers using information gathered from experimental results.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate age-specific features of 2;1- to 4;1-year -olds' production of monophthongs and diphthongs through both auditory perceptual analysis and acoustic analysis. Test material included {vowel+'da'} consisting of 7 monophthongs and 10 diphthongs and meaningful words beginning with vowels. The percentage of correct vowels was used for perceptual analysis and Praat(5.2.12) was used for acoustic analysis, analyzing variables related to monophthongs and diphthongs. The results of this study are as follows: First, perceptual analysis showed that children from an age group of 2;1 to 2;8 years showed significant difference in the accuracy level of both monophthongs and diphthongs as compared to those aged 2;9 to 3;4 years and those aged 3;5 to 4;1 years. Second, the results of acoustic analysis provided that formant (F1 and F2) of monophthong, in general, tended to decrease as age increased. In terms of F2 differentiation slope and regression slope, which were diphthong-related variables, the age group of 3;5 to 4;1 years showed a large general slope change.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.87-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate and compare the vowel lengths of English diphthongs and low vowels among native-English-speaking Americans and Korean college exchange students. To do this eight words and sixteen sentences were uttered and recorded by nine subjects, five Korean subjects and four American subjects. Results showed that the vowel lengths of English low vowels between American subjects and Korean subjects were different, which may lead to foreign accent of Korean speakers. Comparing the average length of English low vowels of Korean subjects with those of American subjects, we can see that American subjects tend to pronounce the English low vowels longer than Korean subjects do. In the pronunciation of diphthongs /eI/ and /ou/, Korean subjects pronounced longer than American subjects did. However, in the pronunciation of diphthongs /au/, /aI/, and /ɔI/, American subjects pronounced longer than Korean subjects did.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2005

This paper is to show the diphthong system of Jeju dialect speakers in their 70s or more on the basis of the acoustic analysis of their phonetic data. It is revealed through the analysis of their phonetic data that they clearly distinguish such diphthongs as [we], [w$\epsilon$], [yc] and [yo]. However, this paper shows that they are phonetically insensitive to the separation between [ye] and [y$\epsilon$] and they seldom make a precise pronunciation of diphthong [iy], which male speakers tend to pronounce to be [i] and female speakers to be [i].

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2021

The aim of this study is to prepare basic data that can be used for evaluation and intervention by investigating the characteristics of diphthongs produced by children with speech sound disorders. To confirm this, two groups of 10 children each, with and without speech sound disorders were asked to imitate the meaningless two-syllable 'diphthongs + da'. The slope of F1 and F2, amount of change of formant, and duration of glide were analyzed by Praat (version 6.1.16). As a result, the difference between the two groups was found in the slope of F1 of /ju/. Children with speech sound disorders had smaller changes in formants and shorter duration time values compared to normal children, and there were statistically significant differences. The amount of change in formant in the glide was found in F1 of /ju, jɛ/, F2 of /jɑ, jɛ/, and there were significant differences in the duration of glide in /ju, jɛ/. The results of this study showed that the range of articulation of diphthongs in children with speech sound disorders is relatively smaller than that of normal children, thus the time it takes to articulate was reduced. These results suggest that the range of articulation and acoustic analysis should be further investigated for evaluation and intervention regarding diphthongs of children with speech sound disorders.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.279-290
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• 2012

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate and compare the vowel lengths of the English diphthongs, /eɪ/ and /aɪ/, and the front low vowel /æ/ among English-speaking natives with Korean college students using the Praat software program. To do this English sentences were uttered and recorded by twelve subjects, six Korean subjects and six English-speaking native subjects. All the subjects are female and their age ranges from 23 to 35. Acoustic features(duration) were measured from a sound spectrogram with the help of the Praat software program and analyzed through statistical analysis. Results showed that the vowel lengths of the English diphthongs and the front low vowel between native English speakers and Korean collegians were different. In the pronunciation of the diphthongs /eɪ/ and /aɪ/, Korean subjects pronounced longer than native subjects did, but the difference was not significant. However, in the pronunciation of the English front low vowel /æ/, native subjects pronounced significantly longer than Korean subjects did. From the data of the overall sum of words and vowels between the two subject groups, we were able to find out that the differences of lengths of both the three words and the two diphthongs /eɪ/ and /aɪ/ were not significant, but those of /æ/ were significant.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.55-68
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• 2004

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the relationship between English pronunciation and listening comprehension of English diphthongs and low vowels of Korean college students from the Chungnam and Gyungnam provinces. Of 22 test sentences for listening comprehension, 15 sentences were recorded by native speakers and seven sentences were edited from Springboard by Oxford University Press. For the listening comprehension test, 90 subjects from two groups, Chungnam dialect speakers and Gyungnam dialect speakers, were selected. They listened to 22 sentences produced by audio cassette tape and completed a cloze exercise. By the results of this experiment, we observed that Korean collegians of Gyungnam province showed a better listening comprehension of words including front low vowels when they preceded voiced sounds than those of Chungnam province. When the back low vowel came in an open syllable, we also recognized the same result; Gyungnam province collegians showed better listening comprehension of words including back low vowels than those of Chungnam province. As the results of Hee-Suk Park & Jung-Soak Kim(2003) showed that Gyungnam province collegians pronounced the English low vowels longer than Chungnam province collegians, we discovered that there was a positive relation between English pronunciation and listening comprehension, especially in Gyungnam province collegians. However regarding words including English diphthongs we discovered almost no relation between English pronunciation and listening comprehension.