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

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.11-17
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• 2018

This study reports on a production experiment designed to investigate how Korean speaking learners of English produce English forms ending in stops. In a repetition experiment, Korean participants listened to English nonce words ending in a stop and repeated what they heard. English speakers were recruited for the same task as a control group. The experimental result indicated that the transcriptions of the Korean productions by English native speakers showed vowel insertion in only 3% of productions although the pronunciation of English final stops showed that noise intervals after the closure of final stops were significantly longer for Korean speakers than for English speakers. This finding is inconsistent with the loanword data where 49% of words showed vowel insertion. It is also not compatible with the perceptual similarity approach, which predicts that because Korean speakers accurately perceive an English final stop as a final consonant, they will insert a vowel to make the English sound more similar to the Korean sound.

• Journal of Sasang Constitution and Immune Medicine
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.75-88
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• 2007

1. Objectives The purpose of this study was to objectively diagnose American male and female's production of two vowels /a, i/ by Sasang Constitution. 2. Methods It was analyzed the constitutional characteristics of the American adults voices with PSSC-2004. of 134 cases of vowels /a, i/ with a duration of $2.5{\sim}3$ seconds were inputted in PSSC-2004 and analyzed into 40 factors. 3. Results and Conclusions 1) APQ In the male group's production of vowel /a/, the Soyangin's APQ(l), APQ(3) and APQ(4) were significantly high compared with those of Taeumin and Soeumin. 2) Shimmer In the male group's production of vowel /a/, Soeumin's Octave1 Shimmer was significantly low compared with that of Taeumin and Soeumin. In the male group's production of vowel /i/, Soeumin's D-Shimmer was significantly low compared with that of Taeumin and Soeumin. In the female group's production of vowel /a/, the Soyangin's C-Shimmer was significantly high compared with that of Taeumin and Soeumin. 3) Octave In the male group's production of vowel /a/, the Soyangin's Octave3, Octave4, Octave5, Octave6 and Octave1 Ratio were significantly high compared with those of Taeumin and Soeumin. In the male group's production of vowels /a, i/, the Soyangin's Octave4 was significantly high compared with that of Taeumin and Soeumin. 4) Energy In the male group's production of vowel /a/, the Soyangin's Time Domain Total Sum /Time Domain Count, Freq Domain Total Sum /cnt(0), 0k-4k Total Sum, Dev., A(A#, C, E, D#, E, F#) tot E, and A(C,, D#, F#) Dev. were significantly high compared with those of Taeumin and Soeumin. In the male group's production of vowel /i/, the Soyangin's Time Domain Total Sum /Time Domain Count, Freq Domain Total Sum /cnt(0) and 0k-4k Total Sum, Dev. were significantly high compared with those of Taeumin and Soeumin. 5) Peak In the male group's production of vowels /a/ and /i/,, the Soyangin's Peak1 Ratio was significantly low compared with that of Taeumin and Soeumin. In the male group's production of vowels /a/ and /i/,, the Soyangin's Peak10 Ratio, Time Domain Peak Total/Total Energy Sum, Time Domain Peak Dev. and Total/Total Dev. Sum were significantly high compared with those of Taeumin and Soeumin. 6) It is necessary to expand the research of the acoustic analysis of American and Korean to other countries in the diagnosis of the Sasang Constitution by using the voice characteristics.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.69-76
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• 2017

The current study investigated whether Korean learners' English-learning environments, especially target English accent (General American English (GAE) vs. Southern British English (SBE)) and English-language experience affected their production of English vowels. Thirty six EFL learners, 27 ESL-US learners, and 33 ESL-UK learners produced 8 English vowels with a bVt frame (beat, bit, bet, bat, bought, bot, boat, boot). The learners' productions were acoustically analyzed in terms of F1 and F2 frequencies. The overall results revealed that the learners' target accent had an effect on their production of some English vowels. The EFL and ESL-US learners' (especially, female learners') production of bought, bot, boat, and boot, which show characteristic differences between the GAE and SBE accents, was closer to that of the native American English (AE) speakers than the native British English (BE) speakers. In contrast, the ESL-UK learners' production of bought and bot demonstrated the opposite pattern. Thus, the impact of target accent was not demonstrated across the board. The effect of the learners' different English-language experience was also rather limited. This was because the EFL learners' production was not much different from the ESL-US learners' production, in spite of the ESL-US learners' residence in the US for more than 9 years. Furthermore, the Korean learners, irrespective of their different English-language experience, tended to produce bit and bat with lower F1 than the native AE and BE speakers, thus resulting in bit and bat to be produced similarly to beat and bet, respectively. This demonstrates the learners' persistent L1 effects on their English vowel production despite the learners' residence in the English speaking countries or their high English proficiency.

• MALSORI
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• no.60
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• pp.47-66
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• 2006

This study examined the effect of English-language experience on Korean- and Japanese-English late learners' production of English unstressed vowels in terms of four acoustic phonetic features: F0, duration, intensity and vowel reduction. The learners manifested some improvement with experience. The native-like attainment of a phonetic feature, however, was related to the phonological status of that feature in the speakers' native language. The results suggest that the extent to which the non-native speakers' production of English unstressed vowels improved with English-language experience varied as a function of their native language background.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.81-90
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• 2013

This study explored how Korean L2 learners of English utilize multiple acoustic cues (VOT and F0) in perceiving and producing the English alveolar stop with a voicing contrast. Thirty-four 18-year-old high-school students participated in the study. Their English proficiency level was classified as either 'high' (HEP) or 'low' (LEP) according to high-school English level standardization. Thirty different synthesized syllables were presented in audio stimuli by combining a 6-step VOTs and a 5-step F0s. The listeners judged how close the audio stimulus was to /t/ or /d/ in L2 using a visual analogue scale. The L2 /d/ and /t/ productions collected from the 22 learners (12 HEP, 10 LEP) were acoustically analyzed by measuring VOT and F0 at the vowel onset. Results showed that LEP listeners attended to the F0 in the stimuli more sensitively than HEP listeners, suggesting that HEP listeners could inhibit less important acoustic dimensions better than LEP listeners in their L2 perception. The L2 production patterns also exhibited a group-difference between HEP and LEP in that HEP speakers utilized their VOT dimension (primary cue in L2) more effectively than LEP speakers. Taken together, the study showed that the relative cue-weighting strategies in L2 perception and production are closely related to the learner's L2 proficiency level in that more proficient learners had a better control of inhibiting and enhancing the relevant acoustic parameters.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.73-78
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• 2015

This study explores the degree of velarization of English word-final /l/ (i.e., /l/-darkness) according to the lexical status. Lexical status is defined as whether a speech stimulus is considered as a word or a non-word. We examined the temporal and spectral properties of word-final /l/ in terms of the duration and the frequency difference of F2-F1 values by varying the immediate pre-liquid vowels. The result showed that both temporal and spectral properties were contrastive across all vowel contexts in the way of real words having shorter [l] duration and low F2-F1 values, compared to non-words. That is, /l/ is more heavily velarized in words than in non-words, which suggests that lexical status whether language users encode the speech signal as a word or not is deeply involved in their speech production.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.08a
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• pp.188-191
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• 1998

호주 영어의 단어 중 한국인과 일본인이 구별하기 어려운 'work', 'walk', 'wok' 세 단어에 대해 다룬다. 우선 한국인과 일본인이 이들 세 단어를 어떻게 조음할 것인가를 예측하고, 실제로 한국인과 일본인 화자들이 조음한 자료를 가지고 모듬의 음질과 길이 두가지 측면으로 나누어 예측한 사항과 비교하고 또 이들 단어를 조음할 때 한국인과 일본인 사이에 어떤 음성 음운적 특징이 나타나는지도 비교 분석한다. 결과는 모국어의 음성, 음운적 영향이 목표어의 음소를 습득하고 발음하는데에 영향을 미친다는 사실을 보여주고 있다. 하지만 wok/wo k/의 예는 언어 보편적인 요소가 L2의 음소를 습득하는데 있어 또 하나의 요소로 작용하고 있음도 알려주고 있다.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.129-136
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• 2013

This study investigated how acoustic characteristics (i.e., duration, F1, F2) of English high front vowels /i, ɪ/ are modulated by boundary- and prominence-induced strengthening in native vs. non-native (Korean) speech production. The study also examined how the durational difference in vowels due to the voicing of a following consonant (i.e., voiced vs. voiceless) is modified by prosodic strengthening in two different (native vs. non-native) speaker groups. Five native speakers of Canadian English and eight Korean learners of English (intermediate-advanced level) produced 8 minimal pairs with the CVC sequence (e.g., 'beat'-'bit') in varying prosodic contexts. Native speakers distinguished the two vowels in terms of duration, F1, and F2, whereas non-native speakers only showed durational differences. The two groups were similar in that they maximally distinguished the two vowels when the vowels were accented (F2, duration), while neither group showed boundary-induced strengthening in any of the three measurements. The durational differences due to the voicing of the following consonant were also maximized when accented. The results are discussed further in terms of phonetics-prosody interface in L2 production.