• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.67-74
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to explore the cross-linguistic difference in the spectral movement pattern of American English and Korean vowels. Eight American vowels /a/, /e/, /$\varepsilon$/, /i/, /I/, /o/, /u/, and /$\mho$/, and five Korean vowels, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ in a fricative-vowel environment produced by adult speakers of each language were analyzed. The spectral movement patterns of the first two formant frequency values were measured and analyzed. The results showed that Korean vowels had minimal spectral movement, both in F1 and F2 values, as compared to American English vowels. Moreover, no consistent direction of movement was found in the three corner Korean vowels, while American English vowels showed consistent direction of movement for each vowel of the same phonemic category.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2019

This study explored the relationship between accurate vowel production and proficiency levels in L2 English produced by Korean EFL adult learners. To this end, nine English vowels /i, ɪ, ɛ, æ, ʌ, ɔ, ɑ, ʊ, u/ were selected and adjacent vowels paired up (e.g., /i/-/ɪ/, /u/-/ʊ/, /ɛ/-/æ/, /ʌ/-/ɔ/, /ɔ/-/ɑ/). The spectral features of the pairs were measured instrumentally, namely F1 (indicating tongue height) and F2 (indicating tongue backness). Meanwhile, the durations as well as spectral features of the tense and lax counterparts in /i/-/ɪ/ and /u/-/ʊ/ were measured, as both temporal and spectral features are important in distinguishing them. The findings of this study confirm that higher-rated speakers were better able to distinguish the contrasts in the front vowel pairs /i/-/ɪ/ and /ɛ/-/æ/ than lower-rated learners, but in the central and back vowel pairs /u/-/ʊ/and /ʌ/-/ɔ/ (though not /ɔ/-/ɑ/), Korean EFL learners generally showed difficulty distinguishing adjacent vowels with spectral cues. On the other hand, the durations of the tense and lax vowels showed that the lower-rated speakers were less able to use the temporal feature to differentiate tense vowels from their lax counterparts, unlike previous studies that found that in general Korean learners depend excessively on the temporal cue to distinguish tense and lax vowels.

• 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.221-228
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to analyze the problems Korean students, having acoustic structure of Korean vowels, have when they pronounce English vowels by measuring formant frequencies. The experimental results show that the pronunciation of English vowels by Korean students is partially influenced by their Korean vowels. There is little distinction between /i/ and /I/, /U/ and /u/ due to the absence of short and long vowels in Korean pronunciation. Also, as observed in typical Korean vowel pronunciation, there is little difference between the F1 values of /$\varepsilon$/ and /$\{\ae}$/ by Korean speakers, resulting in inaccurate English pronunciation. In addition, compared to English native speakers, Korean speakers show the biggest difference in F1 value of /c/. The fact that they make pronunciation of /c/ covering /e/, /$\Lambda$/ and /c/ positions probably accounts for such phenomenon. The results of this experiment show the interference of Korean that occurred in some English vowels by native Korean speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.33-44
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• 1999

This paper aims to analyze whether the phenomenon of /u/$\rightarrow$/i/ is a hypercorrection or not in the North Korean dialects. Most North Koreans pronounce /i/(gold) as /kum/ because the vowel /i/ merges into the peripheral vowel space of /u/ in their dialects. The merger of back vowel is one of most distinctive characters in North Korean dialects. But some speakers pronounce /chubann/(exile) as /chiban/. This time /u/ in peripheral space moves to /i/ in central vowel space. It seems that the vowels /i/ and /u/ exchange places with each other when they uttered in North Korean. Though it was observed that the vowel movement of /i/$\rightarrow$/u/ was caused by the merger of back vowels, the reason why vowel /u/ moves in the opposite direction, that is, the central space of vowel /i/ has not been analyzed yet. This experiment starts with hypothesis that the movement of /u/$\rightarrow$/i/ might be caused by hypercorrection. The first step of this research is to analyze /u/$\rightarrow$/i/ pronunciation of North Koreans. The second step is to compare the results of North Korean pronunciation with those of South Korean pronunciation and observe whether tendency of /u/$\rightarrow$/i/pronunciation can also be found in the standard Seoul dialect and other South Korean dialects.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.332-332
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perception and production of English vowels by native speakers of Korean. In perception test, twelve English vowels /${\ae},{\;}a,{\;}{\Game},{\;}e,{\;}{\varepsilon},{\;}i,{\;}I,{\;}a,{\;}o,{\;}u,{\wedge},{\;}{\mho}$/, as in had, hard, hoard, hayed, head, heed, hid, hod, hoed, whod, Hudd, and hood produced by native speakers of English were used as perception test materials and subjects were asked to identify the vowels. Two different groups of subjects participated in the perception test. One consisted of 90 students who were taking an English phonetics course, and the other consisted of 64 who were not. The results showed that the former did better than the latter m identifYing English vowels, and that vowels in 'head' and 'had' were relatively hard to identify, while vowels in 'hayed', 'hard', and unexpectedly, 'heed' and hid' were easy to perceive. In production test, two native English speakers and 4 native Korean speakers served as subjects. The 4 native Korean speakers were divided into two groups as in the perception test, experienced and inexperienced, depending on whether they were taking an English phonetics course or not. Native English speakers generally showed significant differences both in vowel duration and in FI & F2 values between members of the vowel pairs which are of special interest of this study: /i/ vs. /I/, /${\ae}$/ vs. /$\varepsilon$/, and /u/ vs. and /$\mho$/. There was no significant difference between the two Korean groups. Native Korean speakers showed much difference in neither duration nor FI & F2 values except significant durational difference in /i/ vs. /I/ pair.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2015

This study explored the vowel effect on acoustic perturbation measures in voice quality analysis. For this study, the perturbation parameters (%jitter, %shimmer) and noise parameter (SNR) were measured with 7 Korean vowels (/a/, /ɛ/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ɯ/, /ʌ/) using CSpeech with 50 Korean normal young adults (24 males and 26 females). A significant vowel effect was found only in %shimmer and in particular, low-back /a/vowel was significantly different from other vowels in %shimmer. The least perturbation and noise were exhibited on high-back /ɯ/ and /o/ vowel, respectively. Based on tongue height, a significant higher %shimmer was demonstrated on low vowels than high vowels. In addition, back vowels in tongue advancement and rounded vowels in lip rounding showed significantly less perturbation and noise. The least variability of perturbation and noise within individuals was demonstrated on the vowel /i/ in three repeated measures. However, there was no significant difference among 3 token measures in single session among vowels tested except the vowel /o/. Consequently, the vowel /a/ commonly used in acoustic perturbation measures exhibited higher perturbation and noise whereas higher stability and less variability were demonstrated on the high-back vowel /u/. These results suggested that the Korean high-back vowel /u/ can be more appropriate and reliable for perturbation acoustic measures.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.139-146
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• 2007

This study attempted to obtain differences as a function of Korean and Chinese in vowels. The $NasalView^{(R}}$ (Tiger Electronics Inc., Seattle, USA) was used to obtain nasalance values. Ninety eight subjects participated in this study (48 females from Korea and 48 females from China). The stimuli used in this experiment included vowel /i, a, u/. The stimuli were presented in a random order. The entire session was recorded and the average nasalance score was measured via the $NasalView^{(R)}$. The procedure took approximately 10 minutes. The results of this study showed that the difference between Korean and Chinese was significant in vowel /i, a, u/. The average nasalance scores were /i, a, u/ from highest to lowest in order in vowels. The average nasalance was higher in China than Korean in vowels.