• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.25-31
• /
• 2024

The present study replicated and extended a previous research investigating whether orthographic forms, such as a single letter or a digraph representing the same sound, affect sound duration in L2 production. Results of a previous study (Han et al., 2024) showed that Korean learners produced the same English vowel with a short duration when spelled with a single letter and a long duration when spelled with digraphs. This variation in duration did not appear when producing English consonants with various spellings. However, these results may be attributable to the task type, namely the delayed repetition task, which might have prevented direct imitation from sensory memory. To test whether the overt presentation of letters shows orthographic effects for consonants as well as vowels, this study employed a read-aloud task. This study further examined whether individual differences in proficiency, measured by vocabulary size, influenced the magnitude of orthographic effects in the production of English vowels by Korean learners. The present results replicated those from the delayed repetition task, suggesting that the orthographic effects shown in previous research were not attributable to the task type employed to evaluate L2 production. We also found that individual differences in vocabulary size are not strongly related to the influence of orthography on vowel production.

• Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
• /
• 2017.10a
• /
• pp.281-284
• /
• 2017

On the basis of studies that show multi-word combinations, that is the field of phraseology, this study aims to examine relationship between the quality of text and phraseological competence in L2 English writing, following Yves Bestegen et al. (2014). Using two different association scores, t-score and Mutual Information(MI), which are opposite ways of measuring phraseological competence, in terms of scoring frequency and infrequency, bigrams from L2 writers' text scored based on a reference corpus, GloWbE (Corpus of Global Web based English). On a cross-sectional approach, we propose that the quality of the essays and the mean MI score of the bigram extracted from YELC, Yonsei English Learner Corpus, correlated to each other. The negative scores of bigrams are also correlated with the quality of the essays in the way that these bigrams are absent from the reference corpus, that is mostly ungrammatical. It indicates that increase in the proportion of the negative scored bigrams debases the quality of essays. The conclusion shows the quality of the essays scored by MI and t-score on cross-sectional approach, and application to teaching method and assessment for second language writing proficiency.

• 한국어정보학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2017.10a
• /
• pp.281-284
• /
• 2017

On the basis of studies that show multi-word combinations, that is the field of phraseology, this study aims to examine relationship between the quality of text and phraseological competence in L2 English writing, following Yves Bestegen et al. (2014). Using two different association scores, t-score and Mutual Information(MI), which are opposite ways of measuring phraseological competence, in terms of scoring frequency and infrequency, bigrams from L2 writers' text scored based on a reference corpus, GloWbE (Corpus of Global Web based English). On a cross-sectional approach, we propose that the quality of the essays and the mean MI score of the bigram extracted from YELC, Yonsei English Learner Corpus, correlated to each other. The negative scores of bigrams are also correlated with the quality of the essays in the way that these bigrams are absent from the reference corpus, that is mostly ungrammatical. It indicates that increase in the proportion of the negative scored bigrams debases the quality of essays. The conclusion shows the quality of the essays scored by MI and t-score on cross-sectional approach, and application to teaching method and assessment for second language writing proficiency.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.1 no.4
• /
• pp.73-84
• /
• 2009

Despite the growing interest among researchers in the field of second language (L2) phonological acquisition and its apparent contribution to linguistic and acquisition theories, there have been concerns about the lack of pedagogical application of the research findings in L2 classrooms (Levis, 1999, Derwing & Munro, 2005). Based on the belief that meeting an existing pedagogic need is something that should receive primary attention in SLA, this study attempts to bridge the gap between L2 pronunciation research and pronunciation pedagogy. In so doing, this study provides a narrative literature review of papers on L2 pronunciation published from 1994 to 2008 in Korea. The articles for review were retrieved from five database search engines. In addition, six journals where relevant articles most frequently appeared were selected and electronic searches of these six journals were conducted. A total of 117 articles which met the selection criteria were collected, and were reviewed to answer the following three research questions: a) What are the current research trends in L2 pronunciation in Korea? b) Do the research trends reflect a shift of focus on L2 pronunciation teaching? and c) What is the range of research practices in L2 pronunciation? The review of the papers indicates that the number of studies on L2 pronunciation increased sharply from 1999 to 2003. Some changes in research topics were also noticed. Research on segmental features of English was dominant from 1994 to 1998, but became more balanced with research on suprasegmentals from 2004 to 2008. This review also discusses the range of research practices in L2 pronunciation and makes suggestions for future directions in L2 pronunciation research.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.323-355
• /
• 2015

This study examined grapheme-to-phoneme regularity effect among late Korean-English bilinguals by using whole word level task (lexical processing) and two meta-phonological tasks(sub-lexical processing): [1] English word naming task(whole word level), [2] rhyme judgement task(rhyme level), and [3] phoneme deletion task(phoneme level). Forty-three late Korean-English bilinguals participated in all three tasks. In these tasks, participants showed better performance in regular word conditions compared to irregular word conditions, demonstrating a clear English regularity effect. Post-hoc correlational analysis revealed strong correlation between word naming task and rhyme judgement task, which is different from the results reported with English monolinguals. The contradicting results might be due to the relevantly low English proficiency level among late Korean-English bilingual speakers. In conclusion, this study suggests that late Korean-English bilinguals make use of L2 grapheme-to-phoneme conversion (GPC) rule when reading L2 English words.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 2017

The existence and the extent of vowel length difference before voiced/voiceless consonants in English and Korean are examined in three groups: (1) Korean-speaking Americans (group A), (2) immigrants who moved to the U.S. in their early teens (group I), and (3) Koreans who have been in the U.S. for less than 3 years (group K). 14 subjects were recorded reading 10 English and 10 Korean sentences. The results show that the three groups exhibit different patterns of the vowel length difference: Group A shows a very strong tendency of vowel lengthening before voiced consonants in both English and Korean, while Group I shows less degree of vowel lengthening, and Group K shows almost no tendency of vowel length difference in both languages. This strongly suggests that, (1) unlike English, Korean does not have the vowel length difference depending on the following consonants, and (2) the vowel lengthening effect observed in Korean (L2) speech in group A may be the result of transfer of the phonetic trait acquired in English (L1). It also implies that, in teaching pronunciation, some facts such as the vowel length difference cannot be expected to be acquired automatically for the learners of English, but have to be taught explicitly.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.83-129
• /
• 2003

This study explains a cooperative project between Kangwon National University (KNU) and Waseda University(WU), so called CCDLP (Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Project). The purpose of this project is to enhance the English proficiency of students at both universities by making their learning environments enjoyable and fruitful. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the role of CCDL in the EFL classroom by discussing (1) how to create the situations where students at both universities get to know and understand each other through modern technologies, (2) how to encourage the students to work closely together VC (Video Conferencing), TeleMeet, chat systems, and e-mail, and (3) how to provide a new style of learning and teaching L2. The results from a questionnaire and a grammaticality judgment test show that students have a sense of satisfaction and achievement in the English proficiency at the end of the project. The result of this project will be of great importance for future works in the use of communication systems in L2 learning and teaching.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2023

This study investigated the influences of probabilistic accessibility of the word being produced - as determined by its usage frequency and neighborhood density - on native and high-proficiency L2 speakers' realization of six English monophthong vowels. The native group hyperarticulated the vowels over an expanded acoustic space when the vowel occurred in words with low frequency and high density, supporting the claim that vowel forms are modified in accordance with the probabilistic accessibility of words. However, temporal expansion occurred in words with greater accessibility (i.e., with high frequency and low density) as an effect of low phonotactic probability in low-density words, particularly in attended speech. This suggests that temporal modification in the opposite direction may be part of the phonetic characteristics that are enhanced in communicatively driven focus realization. Conversely, none of these spectral and temporal patterns were found in the L2 group, thereby indicating that even the high-proficiency L2 speakers may not have developed experience-based sensitivity to the modulation of sub-categorical phonetic details indexed with word-level probabilistic information. The results are discussed with respect to how phonological representations are shaped in a word-specific manner for the sake of communicatively driven lexical intelligibility, and what factors may contribute to the lack of native-like sensitivity in L2 speech.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2002

One of the benefits of the internet-assisted instruction is that it can improve L2 Learners' motivation to express themselves in English. The purpose of this paper is to investigate an effective approach to British-American fiction learning in Korean universities, which can emphasize communicative strategies drawing on video-conferencing system, a chat system(CUSeeMe), and an e-mail system. Students are passive participants who cannot assert their creativity in the traditional teaching method of British-American fiction, which mainly relies upon reading and translation far from literature lessons. In CCDL(Cross-cultural distance learning) class, students can play active roles in asserting their own ideas and assuming considerable responsibility for making a presentation in English. A professor can play a role as a coordinator in supporting the students' activities and in winding up the class. The main significance of this article lies in providing a paradigm for CCDL class beyond the limitation of the traditional teaching method of British-American fiction in Korea and futhermore in exploring the eclectic integration of the traditional one and CCDL.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.35-70
• /
• 2003

This study investigates the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction by Malaysian Chinese ESL learners. It was conducted with the objective of finding out which of the two types of prepositions was more problematic to the L1 Chinese learners. The study also sought to investigate the effect of age and proficiency levels in English on the acquisition of the English prepositions of location and direction by these learners. Additionally, the study sets out to determine the extent to which the L1 Chinese learners have acquired the English prepositions of location and direction. This study involved three groups of Chinese ESL learners: elementary, intermediate and advanced. They were selected based on their age and their performance on a standardized proficiency test. The instrument used to collect data was a preposition test comprising 85 items. These items on prepositions of location and direction were randomly arranged in the tasks. The test required subjects to respond to multiple choice questions, match given sentences with appropriate prepositions, fill in blanks with the appropriate prepositions, judge given sentences to see if they are grammatical or ungrammatical and correct the ungrammatical sentence by providing the appropriate prepositions. The results indicate that age and proficiency levels of the learners made a difference in the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction. The older learners with higher proficiency levels seem to fare better than the younger and less proficient learners. The results suggest that the prepositions of location arc slightly more problematic than prepositions of directions to the L1 Chinese learners. Our data also suggest that certain prepositions of each type are more problematic than others.