• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.141-145
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• 2000

Background and Objectives : The nasalance score measured by Nasometer is a supplementary data for the perceptually rated nasality by a trained speech pathologist. The nasalance score varies with subjects. The objective of the present study was to examine whether there are differences in nasalance scores as a function of age and sex. Materials and Method : This study used 20 normal chidren aged from 3 to 8 and 40 normal adults aged from 21 to 37(male : female= 1 : 1) as subjects. The nasalance scores were analyzed in 3 different phonetic contests(nasal, /i/ vowel,/a/ vowel) and 4 different sentence lengths(1, 2, 4, 8 syllable). Results : The children had significantly higher nasalance scores in short sentences an the adults. The female subjects had significantly higher nasalance scores in nasal sentences and in short sentences than the male subjects. Conclusion : These results may indicate that sex and age differences should be considered in the interpretation of the nasalance score in nasal sentences or in short sentences.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.33-40
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• 2020

The purpose of this research was to find out the relation between Korean learners' English proficiency and the ratio of the length of the stressed vowel in a monosyllabic noun to that of the unstressed vowel in an article of the noun phrases (e.g., "a cup", "the bus", etcs.). Generally, the vowels in monosyllabic content words are phonetically more prominent than the ones in monosyllabic function words as the former have phrasal stress, making the vowels in content words longer in length, higher in pitch, and louder in amplitude. This study, based on the speech samples from Korean-Spoken English Corpus (K-SEC) and Rated Korean-Spoken English Corpus (Rated K-SEC), examined 879 English noun phrases, which are composed of an article and a monosyllabic noun, from sentences which are rated on 4 levels of proficiency. The lengths of the vowels in these 879 target NPs were measured and the ratio of the vowel lengths in nouns to those in articles was calculated. It turned out that the higher the proficiency level, the greater the mean ratio of the vowels in nouns to the vowels in articles, confirming the research's hypothesis. This research thus concluded that for the Korean English learners, the higher the English proficiency level, the better they could produce the stressed and unstressed vowels with more conspicuous length differences between them.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.187-201
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• 2000

This study was done to investigate the English vowels in relation to the foreign accent. In this study, I also tried to find out the foreign accent of the English diphthong /o/ and front low vowel /${\ae}$/ when Koreans speak English. The reason why I chose these vowels is that these vowels, /o/ and /${\ae}$/, are difficult for Koreans to discern and pronounce. Koreans show a foreign accent in their pronunciation. In order to find out the reason for a Korean foreign accent, experiments were carried out with the help of acoustic instruments. According to the results of the experiment, Koreans showed a foreign accent in their English pronunciation of vowels in relation to their utterance positions. Americans showed a final lengthening effect but Koreans showed a final shortening effect. This means that Koreans showed a foreign accent in the final stressed syllable of a sentence. In addition to this, the duration of two English vowels, /o/ and /${\ae}$/, showed considerably different features between Koreans and Americans. In fact, in the pronunciation of the diphthong /o/, the tongue moves from one position to another. The two articulations of a diphthong can be described as the nucleus plus a glide. However, most Koreans have no idea of this phenomenon and pronounce the diphthongs like two separate monophthongs. This causes a great difference in the lengths of English diphthong /o/ between Koreans and Americans.