• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.245-251
• /
• 2017

This presents an English conversation training system with which learners train their conversation skills in English, which makes them converse with native speaker characters in a virtual reality environment with voice. The proposed system allows the learners to talk with multiple native speaker characters in varous scenarios in the virtual reality environment. It recongizes voices spoken by the learners and generates voices by a speech synthesis method. The interaction with characters in the virtual reality environment in voice makes the learners immerged in the conversation situations. The scoring system which evaluates the learner's pronunciation provides the positive feedback for the learners to get engaged in the learning context.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.303-321
• /
• 2006

According to Harris'(1966) distributional hypothesis, understanding the meaning of a word is thought to be dependent on its context. Under this hypothesis about human language ability, this paper proposes a computational model for native speaker's language processing mechanism concerning word sense disambiguation, based on two sets of experiments. Among the three computational models discussed in this paper, namely, the logic model, the probabilistic model, and the probabilistic inference model, the experiment shows that the logic model is first applied fer semantic disambiguation of the key word. Nexr, if the logic model fails to apply, then the probabilistic model becomes most relevant. The three models were also compared with the test results in terms of Pearson correlation coefficient value. It turns out that the logic model best explains the human decision behaviour on the ambiguous words, and the probabilistic inference model tomes next. The experiment consists of two pans; one involves 30 sentences extracted from 1 million graphic-word corpus, and the result shows the agreement rate anong native speakers is at 98% in terms of word sense disambiguation. The other pm of the experiment, which was designed to exclude the logic model effect, is composed of 50 cleft sentences.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.37 no.4
• /
• pp.159-168
• /
• 2016

Objective: This study investigated the age at which monolingual children can understand that different languages are different conventional systems of communication. In particular, we investigated when children can suspend using the mutual exclusivity (ME) assumption that a label solely refers to one category when interpreting novel words from foreign languages. Methods: Two-year-olds (n = 16) and 3-year-olds (n = 16) participated in the procedure, which consisted of three blocks. In the first block, a Korean speaker taught the children a novel word, muppi, referring to a novel object. The children were presented with two objects, muppi and another novel object. The Korean speaker then asked the children to find a referent of either muppi or the other novel Korean label, kkati. In the second block, a foreign language (either English or Spanish) speaker asked children to find the object for a foreign novel word, sefo, presenting two objects: muppi and the third novel object, which had not been presented before. The procedure of the third block was identical to that of the first block. Results: Three-year-olds exploited the ME assumption when interpreting a Korean novel word but not when interpreting a foreign novel word. In contrast, 2-year-old children did not use the ME assumption when interpreting native and foreign words. Conclusion: Children acquire an understanding that native and foreign languages have different words for an object at least by 3 years of age.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.353-380
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study is to analyze the preconceptions Korean EFL learners have about team teaching in the field of English education at a secondary level. Team teaching is a method of teaching where a Korean English teacher works in co-junction with a native English speaker. Generally speaking, when we discuss teaching methods for a foreign language, the most important objective is to improve our communication skills. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect on communication skills when team teaching is employed, and to find ways to maximize the benefit when team teaching. The underlying issues are; firstly, what are the precedent conditions for team teaching? Secondly, what are the best teaching methods and preparations for teaching materials for improving the effectiveness of team teaching? Third, how do the programs for team teaching with native teachers assist in improving the student's communication skills? Ideally, this study will assist in overcoming the fear that foreign language learners have when communicating with real native speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.21-29
• /
• 2016

This study examined how native Korean speakers realize the acoustic characteristics of /d, t/ flaps in American English. Fourteen subjects, who had lived in foreign countries for less than one year, read words containing the alveolar stops in flapping environments. /d/ (91%) became flaps more frequently than /t/ (42%). The closure durations for /d/ flaps were significantly longer than /t/ flaps, and the durations of the preceding vowels were not significantly different between /d/ and /t/ flaps. Female learners demonstrated a higher percentage of /t/ flapping than their male counterparts. Differences in flap patterns were observed among individual learners.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.23-42
• /
• 2006

This paper reports a preliminary result of an acoustic study on the stress and intonational system in Lakhota, a native American language. It investigates how the stress and intonation in Lakhota are phonetically manifested; and how the stress interacts with other prosodic factors. The results preliminarily obtained from one native Lakhota speaker suggest that the primary cue of the stress is relatively high F0 which is often accompanied by higher intensity (for the vowel) and longer VOT (for aspirated stops). The results also indicate that stress is not reliably marked by duration. The stress system, however, interacts with the intonational pattern, such that, for example, intonational peak falls on the stressed syllable with a general pattern of L+H* and that it interacts with the boundary tone L%, resulting in mid tone utterance-finally. This paper can be viewed largely as a qualitative study on an understudied native American language, Lakhota and as forming a basis for further development of its stress and intonation system whose acoustic properties of its prosodic system have not been investigated before.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.117-130
• /
• 2004

This paper investigates the English intonation of Korean speakers of English as a second language and compares it to that of English native speakers. The speech data of ten Korean speakers and three native speaker controls were tape recorded in an oral reading task in which the subjects were asked to read aloud the given text which was used in the study of Wennerstrom (1994). Following Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg (1990) who distinguishes the discrete units of meaning in intonation, pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones were measured. It was found that Korean speakers' use of phrase accents and boundary tones were relatively good compared to their use of pitch accents. That is, Korean speakers conform to native speakers' use of phrase or boundary tones for the purpose of marking the relationship between intermediate or intonational phrases. In contrast, the main difference of Korean speakers' use of intonation from that of native speakers was the use of pitch accents. That is, Korean speakers tend to have difficulty in assigning an appropriate pitch accent to signal relationships between new or contrastive information and that which is assumed to be understood or contributes little to the meaning of the utterance.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.482-489
• /
• 2014

The purposes of this study are (1) to see if the length of residence in Korea affects to the VOT values of Korean plosives produced by Chinese speakers (2) to investigate if such VOT values are different in non-sense words and real words and (3) to find out how such VOT values are related to the native Korean speakers' understanding of the words. For these purposes, eighteen Chinese speakers' VOT values of Korean plosives were measured using Speech Analyzer and their pronunciations were evaluated by three native Korean speakers. The results show that there is no effect of both (1) length of residence in Korea and (2) production of non-sensed words and sensed words. In addition, it is noticed that VOT values of some plosives affect more to the native Korean speakers' understanding of the words, while some are not.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.53-68
• /
• 2012

This study investigated the speech intelligibility of Korean-accented and native English focus speech for Korean and native English listeners. Three different types of focus in English, broad, narrow and contrastive, were naturally induced in semantically optimal dialogues. Seven high and seven low proficiency Korean speakers and seven native speakers participated in recording the stimuli with another native speaker. Fifteen listeners from each of Korean high & low proficiency and native groups judged audio signals of focus sentences. Results showed that Korean listeners were more accurate at identifying the focal prominence for Korean speakers' narrow focus speech than that of native speakers, and this suggests that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit-talker (ISIB-T) held true for narrow focus regardless of Korean speakers' and listeners' proficiency. However, Korean listeners did not outperform native listeners for Korean speakers' production of narrow focus, which did not support for the ISIB-listener (L). Broad and contrastive focus speech did not provide evidence for either the ISIB-T or ISIB-L. These findings are explained by the interlanguage shared by Korean speakers and listeners where they have established more L1-like common phonetic features and phonological representations. Once semantically and syntactically interpreted in a higher level processing in Korean narrow focus speech, the narrow focus was phonetically realized in a more intelligible way to Korean listeners due to the interlanguage. This may elicit ISIB. However, Korean speakers did not appear to make complete semantic/syntactic access to either broad or contrastive focus, which might lead to detrimental effects on lower level phonetic outputs in top-down processing. This is, therefore, attributed to the fact that Korean listeners did not take advantage over native listeners for Korean talkers and vice versa.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.155-168
• /
• 2002

The intervocalic Korean liquid sound has been recognized as a flap in the studies of the Korean language. But there has been very little experimental data corroborating it. The electropalatographic (EPG) experiment was conducted to test this. The subjects were one Korean speaker and one native English speaker who had a pseudopalate and did the EPG experiment at the UCLA phonetics laboratory. The spectrographic evidence of the flaps in both the English t-flap and the Korean liquid flap was also sought. The English and Korean flaps were between mid/low back vowels so that the vowels themselves would not affect palatal contacts of the tongue. The results confirmed that the Korean liquid is realized as a flap in intervocallical position with many similar properties to English flap in both EPG and spectrographic data. The Korean initial liquid sound in borrowed words such as 'rotary' and 'radio' was also a flap. But the Korean liquid in the word-final and geminate positions was a lateral as in words 'dol ' (stone), 'dollo' (with stone), 'nal' (day) and 'nallara' (carry). The intuitive theory of the Korean liquid flap was proved by the EPG and spectrographic data.