• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.225-243
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• 2009

This study investigates the use of different speech act of apology strategies between male and female EFL college students by comparing the components of intensity, stylistic competence, and semantic formulas. The data was collected from 37 participants who were studying freshmen English reading course at the Department of English Education of C University in Seoul. Most students were English majors taking pre-teacher course of teaching English for secondary school students. The participants were divided into two gender groups of male and female. The discourse completion test (DCT) which was revised from the speech act of apology by Olshtain and Cohen (1990) was provided with the participants after the researcher explained the speech act of apology in ten situations. The speech act of apology depends on situation variables: social solidarity, severity of offense, and social status. The results show that in the preference of intensity, male and female have almost the similar ratio in high (female: 24.7%, male 24%) and low intensity (female: 75.3%, male: 76%). In the use of stylistic competence, male group (21%) expresses more diversely formal features than female group (12%), while female (87%) use more informal features than male (66%). Most of participants show a limitation in the use of speaking four types of semantic formulas: expression of apology (APOL), acknowledgment of responsibility (RESP), offer of repair (REPR), and promise of forbearance (FORB). As nonnative speakers, the participants cannot conduct the semantic formula in some situations regardless of the tasks provided. The results suggest that English teachers should recognize pragmatic variations in which students feel difficulty in appropriate speaking strategies on apology. This study also contributes to teaching learners the strategies and speaking patterns in the course of various apology situations.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.401-406
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• 2002

Each Korean digit is composed of only a syllable, so recognizers as well as Korean often have difficulty in recognizing it. When digit strings are pronounced, the original pronunciation of each digit is largely changed due to the co-articulation effect. In addition to these problems, the distortion caused by various channels and noises degrades the recognition performance of Korean connected digit string. This paper dealt with some techniques to improve recognition performance of it, which include defining a set of PLUs by considering phonemic variations in Korean digit and constructing a recognizer to handle speakers various speaking styles. In the speaker-independent connected digit recognition experiments using telephone speech, the proposed techniques with 1-Gaussian/state gave string accuracy of 83.2%, i. e., 7.2% error rate reduction relative to baseline system. With 11-Gaussians/state, we achieved the highest string accuracy of 91.8%, i. e., 4.7% error rate reduction.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.26 no.12
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• pp.187-193
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to analyze the responses of 5,824 adults(2,574 males and 3,250 females over the age of 19 years) using raw data from the 7th period of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to investigate the relationship between systemic disease activity restriction and oral health. There were many systemic disease activity restrictions in adults with oral chewing and speaking problems, and it was statistically significant(p<.001). Factors influencing activity restriction due to systemic disease include age(odds ratio 1.03), Male(odds ratio 0.84), education level(odds ratio 0.57, 0.45, 0.31), drinking(odds ratio 1.38), chewing(odds ratio 1.86) and speaking(odds ratio 1.84) problems. There was a higher probability of activity restriction due to systemic disease when they received treatment for periodontal disease(odds ratio 1.27) and broken teeth(odds ratio 2.1). Also, it was statistically significant that the quality of life decreased when there was chewing and speaking problems.

• Clinical and Experimental Otorhinolaryngology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.250-258
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• 2018

Objectives. To compare narrative skills between fourth and fifth grades of Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments and typical hearing students of the same grade and also to evaluate the effects of group, sex, hearing age, and educational grade of the students on their spoken/written narrative performance. Methods. The subjects were 174 students aged 10-13 years, 54 of whom wore cochlear implants, 60 suffered from moderate to severe hearing losses and wore hearing aids, with the remaining 60 students being typical hearing in terms of the sense of hearing. The micro- and macrostructure components of spoken and written narrative were elicited from a pictorial story (The Playful Little Elephant) and then scored by raters. Results. Compared to the typical hearing, the students with hearing impairments had significantly lower scores in all of the microstructure components of narratives. However, the findings showed no significant difference among different groups in macrostructure components of narratives. It was also revealed that the students had equal performance in spoken and written narrative. Finally, factor analysis manifested that group, sex, hearing age, and educational level of children might alter the outcome measures in various interactions. Conclusion. Although cochlear implantation was more effective than hearing aid on spoken and written narrative skills, the Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments were seen to need additional trainings on microstructure components of spoken/written narrative.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

The current study examined English-speaking adult learners' production and perception of L2 Korean stops (/t/ or /t'/ or /t^h/) to investigate whether the two modalities are linked in utilizing voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) for the L2 sound distinction and how the learners' L2 proficiency mediates the relationship. Twenty-two English-speaking learners of Korean living in Seoul participated in the word-reading task of producing stop-initial words and the identification task of labelling CV stimuli synthesized to vary VOT and F0. Using logistic mixed-effects regression models, we quantified group- and individual-level weights of the VOT and F0 cues in differentiating the tense-lax, lax-aspirated, and tense-aspirated stops in Korean. The results showed that the learners as a group relied on VOT more than F0 both in production and perception (except the tense-lax pair), reflecting the dominant role of VOT in their L1 stop distinction. Individual-level analyses further revealed that the learners' L2 proficiency was related to their use of F0 in L2 production and their use of VOT in L2 perception. With this effect of L2 proficiency controlled in the partial correlation tests, we found a significant correlation between production and perception in using VOT and F0 for the lax-aspirated stop contrast. However, the same correlation was absent for the other stop pairs. We discuss a contrast-specific role of acoustic cues to address the non-uniform patterns of the production-perception link in the L2 sound learning context.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.119-129
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• 2019

Traditional speech training in acting education focused on the technical aspects of expressing the lines such as finding long/short syllables in the word, exercising articulation of consonants and vowels, and practicing diction etc. There was a limit on this education to transform written words to vivid verbal words. The lines become live when the actor sees the concrete mental images hidden in the words while speaking the lines. I will bring the knowledge of cognitive brain science and NLP(Neural Linguistic Programming) to investigate what mental images are and why mental images are fundamental elements of thought and emotion. In addition to that, I will examine how the muscles of the body react in the process of visualization of delicate mental images (subordinate form) and how to use the responsive muscles to express speaking materials such as intensity, pause, pitch, intonation etc. Conclusion, I will enumerate the obstacles encountered by actors in the course of practicing mental images, and suggest 'activation of breathing' as a thesis of the follow-up paper to eliminate those obstacles. This process, I intend to make mental images to be the concrete and practical information that can be applied to speak the dialogue in the play.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.797-802
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• 2023

In an environment where English is a foreign language, English learners can use AI voice chatbots in English-speaking practice activities to enhance their speaking motivation, provide opportunities for communication practice, and improve their English speaking ability. In this study, we propose a teaching-style AI voice chatbot that can be easily utilized by lower elementary school students and enhance their learning. To apply the Teachable Agent system to language learning, which is an activity based on tense, context, and memory, we proposed a new method of TA by applying the Teachable Agent to reflect the learner's English pronunciation and level and generate the agent's answers according to the learner's errors and implemented a Teachable Agent AI chatbot prototype. We conducted usability evaluations with actual elementary English teachers and elementary school students to demonstrate learning effects. The results of this study can be applied to motivate students who are not interested in learning or elementary school students to voluntarily participate in learning through role-switching.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.27-34
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• 2023

This study aimed to provide knowledge helpful for understanding voice problems related to occupations in the clinical field through an investigation and comparison of subjective vocal symptoms of 12 professional actors and 12 speech-language pathologists Among the 11 symptoms, "Difficulty with high pitch when singing," "Hypertension in the neck when speaking," and "Feel voice fatigue" were the most frequent symptoms in both groups. Additionally, the professional voice users reported a higher frequency of "Difficulty with high pitch when singing" (p=.049), "Hoarse voice" (p=.021), "Difficulty (requiring effort) when speaking" (p=.032), "Pain in the neck when speaking" (p=.009), and "Feel vocal fatigue" (p=.018) than the elite vocal performer group. This may be due to the different voice-related environments and differences in voice demands during occupational activities between the two groups.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.550-558
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• 2014

The purposes of the study are to introduce and apply an activity that can help improve student-initiated learning on the TOEIC Speaking Test (TOEICST) performance and to see students' attitude toward the activity. Twenty-eight university students in Chungcheong province engaged in learning based on this activity. In the present study, the activity proposed by McCormick and Vercellotti (2013) and Stillwell, Curabba, Alexander, Kidd, Kim, Stone, & Wyle (2010) was modified and adapted[14][19]. The outline of the Task Recording Activity (TRA) consisted of three steps: preparation step, Task Recording Activity step, and evaluation step. As data collection of the study, a survey and students' journal were utilized and qualitatively analyzed. The results showed that student-initiated learning activity could be applied positively not only in communicative lessons, but in TOEICST specific lessons as well. Additionally, participants showed positive attitudes toward self-transcription and self-correction. Some implications of the study are that the TRA can be applied to generate autonomous learners studying for the TOEIC Speaking Test, that the guideline for different proficiency can be developed to help them improve their self-reflection, and that students need to have an active attitude to lead their own learning.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.412-422
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• 2018

The purpose of this research was to compare structural organization of North Korean English textbooks pre and post North Korean 2013 curriculum revision. 5 revised textbooks were selected and compared with old textbooks. First, revised textbooks are dramatically changed into colored printed edition. Second, there appears phrases related to Kim Jong Un for the very first time in the preface. Third, while old textbooks emphasized only reading and writing skills, new textbooks integrate 4 skills. Fourth, new textbooks follow united organization system according to the kinds of school; 7 sub skills of Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing, Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation for general high middle textbooks and 5 sub skills of Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, English in Use for the first high middle textbooks. Also, new textbooks integrate English and other subject contents such as science, geography or computer. Finally, the changed structure organization of new textbooks seems to be similar with the ones of English books in the reference which is presented for the first time in North Korean textbooks.