• 음성과학
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• 제2권
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• pp.95-108
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• 1997

The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate prosodic characteristics of English as spoken by Koreans. Test materials were four English words, a sentence, and a paragraph. Six female Korean speakers and five native English speakers participated in acoustic and perceptual experiments. Pitch and duration of word syllables were measured from signals and spectrograms made by the Signalize 3.04 software program for Power Mac 7200. In the perceptual experiment, accent position, intonation patterns, rhythm patterns and phrasing were evaluated by the five native English speakers. Preliminary results from this limited study show that prosodic characteristics of Koreans include (1) pitch on the first part of a word and sentence is lower than that of English speakers, but the pitch on the last part is the opposite; (2) word prosody is quite similar to that of an English speaker, but sentence prosody is quite different; (3) the weakest point of sentence prosody spoken by Koreans is in the rhythmic pattern.

• 음성과학
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• 제1권
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• pp.27-38
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• 1997

The differences in French Intonation between French and Korean learners can be applied to French intonation education. One native French speaker and three native Korean speakers who learned French language at High school were selected for this study. The subjects spoke test phrases based on the different syntactic structures. High-Speed speech Analysis system(RILP) was used for this experiment. The different intonation curves were showed at the end of phrase and at the beginning of phrase between French and Korean learners. At the end of phrases, French intonation appeared to have increasing and decending pitch contours in the case of wh-question, exclamation and finality. However, Korean learner's intonation showed only increasing pitch contours. At the beginning of phrase, French intonation shows decending pitch contours in the case of minor continuation and command. In contrast, Korean learner's intonation appeared to have increasing pitch contours. The new intonation training system using PC can have great effect on education of French as a second language.

• 중국학논총
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• 제66호
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• pp.85-103
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• 2020

We use prototypes (also known as referent in semiotics) when we understand the outside world. Different language users use different prototypes to decode the same sound. When we learn Chinese language as a foreign language, during it's sound perceptual process, Korean learners' target language prototypes are different from Chinese native speakers'. The purpose of the paper is to examine the theory of speech perception and the theory of constructivism teaching, and to suggest to the Chinese language teachers to have Cunstructivist approach while they design there teaching course. For this, we concerned three things: First is to review speech perception theory and constructivism teaching theory. Second based on the preceding study, we review that learner's prototypes are different from Chinese native speaker and this cause the error of listening and pronunciation. Finally, we introduced two simple speech visualization programs developed to help us learn pronunciation.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.13-20
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• 2023

This study explores the potential of automated speech recognition (ASR) in assessing English learners' pronunciation. We employed ASR technology, acknowledged for its impartiality and consistent results, to analyze speech audio files, including synthesized speech, both native-like English and Korean-accented English, and speech recordings from a native English speaker. Through this analysis, we establish baseline values for the word error rate (WER). These were then compared with those obtained for human raters in perception experiments that assessed the speech productions of 30 first-year college students before and after taking a pronunciation course. Our sub-group analyses revealed positive training effects for Whisper, an ASR tool, and human raters, and identified distinct human rater strategies in different assessment aspects, such as proficiency, intelligibility, accuracy, and comprehensibility, that were not observed in ASR. Despite such challenges as recognizing accented speech traits, our findings suggest that digital tools such as ASR can streamline the pronunciation assessment process. With ongoing advancements in ASR technology, its potential as not only an assessment aid but also a self-directed learning tool for pronunciation feedback merits further exploration.

• ETRI Journal
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• 제46권1호
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• pp.48-58
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• 2024

This paper presents the development of language tutoring systems for nonnative speakers by leveraging advanced end-to-end automatic speech recognition (ASR) and proficiency evaluation. Given the frequent errors in non-native speech, high-performance spontaneous speech recognition must be applied. Our systems accurately evaluate pronunciation and speaking fluency and provide feedback on errors by relying on precise transcriptions. End-to-end ASR is implemented and enhanced by using diverse non-native speaker speech data for model training. For performance enhancement, we combine semisupervised and transfer learning techniques using labeled and unlabeled speech data. Automatic proficiency evaluation is performed by a model trained to maximize the statistical correlation between the fluency score manually determined by a human expert and a calculated fluency score. We developed an English tutoring system for Korean elementary students called EBS AI Peng-Talk and a Korean tutoring system for foreigners called KSI Korean AI Tutor. Both systems were deployed by South Korean government agencies.

• 디지털융복합연구
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• 제10권8호
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• pp.317-326
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• 2012

본 연구의 목적은 원어민 원격화상 영어수업이 초등학생들의 수업만족도와 자기효능감에 미치는 영향을 학년별로 비교 분석하는 것이다. 이를 위해 자체 제작한 수업만족도 검사도구와 김강식(2003)의 자기효능감 검사도구를 수정하여 활용하였다. 수업만족도는 3학년이 가장 높은 것으로 나타났고, 6학년이 가장 낮게 나타났다. 자기효능감 분석 결과, 사전 사후 비교 결과는 전체적으로 사후 검사가 낮게 나타났는데, 3학년의 경우에는 사후 검사에서 높게 나타났다. 자기효능감 학년별 비교에서는 3학년이 가장 높았고, 6학년이 가장 낮은 것으로 드러났다. 이러한 연구 결과는 원격화상시스템과 원어민을 새롭게 접하는 3학년 학습자들의 관심과 흥미가 학년이 올라갈수록 점점 떨어지는 것으로 분석되었다.

• 음성과학
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.25-36
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• 2008

Language transfer means that the speaker's first language or previously acquired language influences on the production of the target language. This study aims at examining if there is native language influence on the production of English intonation by Korean speakers. The pitch accent patterns and the values of duration, F0, and intensity of the stressed vowel of the word with emphatic accent in the sentence produced by Korean speakers are compared to those of American English speakers. The results show that when the word receives emphatic accent in the sentence, American English speakers put H* accent on the stressed syllable of the word, but Korean speakers mostly assign high pitch on the last syllable of the word and have LH tonal pattern despite the fact that primary stress does not come on the last syllable within a word. In addition, comparison of the values of duration, F0, and intensity of the stressed vowel of the word with emphatic accent to those of the word with unmarked neutral accent shows that Korean speakers do not realize the intonation of the accented word appropriately because the values decrease even though the word has emphatic accent. This study finds out that there are differences in the production of English intonation of the word with emphatic accent between native speakers of English and Korean speakers, and that there is negative transfer of Korean intonation pattern to the production of English intonation by Korean speakers.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.63-69
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• 2016

Twenty five English native speakers with two different L2 experienced groups and nineteen native Koreans heard both Korean word-initial nasals (/m/ and /n/) in three vowel contexts (low, mid, and high) produced by a native Korean speaker. The experiment examined the hypothesis that Korean nasals are more likely to be judged or perceived correctly by the L2-experienced English learners of Korean than the unexperienced counterparts. The result showed that L2 experienced group was more sensitive to effects of vowel height in judging the Korean nasals in which the perception of nasals before the high vowels was more subject to it. In addition, place of nasal articulation causes asymmetry relations - bilabial nasal /m/ is more likely to be perceived as plosives rather than alveolar nasal /n/. The study found that the L2 experience has a somewhat limited role in perceiving the nasals correctly in the word-initial position, especially before the high vowels, in that even the L2 experienced English subjects have difficulty in identifying the Korean nasals correctly in this environment. Nevertheless, low L2 proficiency might be accounted for the difficulty in the bilabial nasal identification observed by the L2 experienced group.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.430-431
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• 1996

Among the scholars of second language (L2) acquisition who have used prosodic considerations in syntactic analyses, pausing and intonation contours have been used to define utterances in the speech of second language learners (e.g., Sato, 1990). In recent research on conversational analysis, it has been found that lexically marked causal clause combining in the discourse of native speakers can be distinguished as "intonational subordination" and "intonational coordination(Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, forthcoming.)". This study uses Pienemann's Processability Theory (1995) for an analysis of the speech of native speakers of Japanese (L1) learning English. In order to accurately assess the psycholinguistic stages of syntactic development, it is shown that pitch, loudness, and timing must all be considered together with the syntactic analysis of interlanguage speech production. Twelve Japanese subjects participated in eight fifteen minute interviews, ninety-six dyads. The speech analyzed in this report is limited to the twelve subjects interacting with two different non-native speaker interviews for a total of twenty-four dyads. Within each of the interviews, four different tasks are analyzed to determine the stage of acquisition of English for each subject. Initially the speech is segmented according to intonation contour arid pauses. It is then classified accoding to specific syntactic units and further analysed for pitch, loudness and timing. Results indicate that the speech must be first claasified prosodic ally and lexically, prior to beginning syntactic analysis. This analysis stinguishes three interlanguage lexical categories: discourse markers, coordinator $s_ordinators, and transfer from Japanese. After these lexical categories have been determined, the psycholinguistic stages of syntactic development can be more accurately assessed.d.

• 음성과학
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.259-273
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• 2001

This study investigates the accentual realization of negation denying the presupposition of a previous utterance compared with that of a general negation. Specifically we study what types and positions of accent are realized in the speech of Korean speakers using English as a second language as well as English native speakers. Gussenhoven (1983) and Bolinger (1985, 1986) suggested that when presupposition of previous utterances is denied through negation, focal accent is assigned to empty (functional) words, rather than negative morphemes. The results of this study, however, show that negation sentences denying presupposition have accents not only on empty (functional) words but also on content words. Almost every English native speaker places an H* accent on the negative morphemes themselves (not, no, nothing, etc.) in general negation, as well as on the other lexical items-verbs and prepositions in our data-in negations denying presuppositions. On the other hand, Korean speakers hardly distinguish between the two kinds of negation sentences, unlike native speakers through accentual differences. Rather, they give accent an every content word, including the negative morphemes in both general negations and negations denying presuppositions. Therefore, the results of this study do not absolutely support the previous studies on the denial of presupposition.