• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.63-80
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• 1999

In this paper, an adaptive method of dividing a speech signal into an initial, a medial and a final sound of the form of utterance utilized by evaluating extreme limits of short term energy and autocorrelation functions. By applying this method into speech signal composed of a consonant, a vowel and a consonant, it was divided into an initial, a medial and a final sound and its feature analysis of sample by LPC were carried out. As a result of spectrum analysis in each period, it was observed that there existed spectrum features of a consonant and a vowel in the initial and medial periods respectively and features of both in a final sound. Also, when all kinds of words were adaptively divided into 3 periods by using the proposed method, it was found that the initial sounds of the same consonant and the medial sounds of the same vowels have the same spectrum characteristics respectively, but the final sound showed different spectrum characteristics even if it had the same consonant as the initial sound.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2009

The speech of Sino-Korean has been evolved from geopolitical cause since 1945. The aim of this study is to collect Yanji dialectal speech and to compare with South Korean dialectal speech. Twenty Yanbian university students participated as informants. Acoustic speech informations are analyzed using the Multi-Speech Windows Vista version. Dialectal speech characteristics of Yanji sino-Korean showed posterior vowel /${\alpha}$/, neutralization of mid-vowel /o/ between /o/ and /Ɔ/. Lenis stop sound showed the tendency of glottalization based on VOT value. Sibilant sound contains aspiration following constriction and lateral /l/ realized the approximant /r/.

• American Studies
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.83-110
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• 2020

This paper examines the meaning and significance of the rebirths narrated in Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus." While the previous readings of the poem have regarded the speaker's rebirth as a single event, this paper aims to understand its plurality and the underlying problem of language and sound by listening to the poet's own reading of the poem. I argue first that the sound structure of the poem can be characterized by the poet's unique employment of vowel sounds. Drawing upon Plath's another poem entitled "Morning Song" and Julia Kristeva's concept of the chora, I contend that the poet's vowels signal her desire for regression to the pre-Oedipal space where sound and body are in direct contact without the interference of language. It is my conclusion that the rebirths in "Lady Lazarus" dramatize the poet's ongoing struggle to bypass the symbolic language in order to make her body heard.

• 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.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.139-156
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• 2001

Speech intelligibility in patients with complete dentures is an important clinical problem depending on the material used. The objective of this study was to investigate the speech of two edentulous subjects fitted with a complete maxillary prosthesis made of two different palatal materials: chrome-cobalt alloy and acrylic resin. Three patients with complete dentures in the experiment group and ten people in the controls groups participated in the experiment. CSL, Visi-Pitch were used to measure speech characteristics. The test words consisted of a simple vowel /e/, meaningless three syllabic words containing fricative, affricated and stops sounds, and sustained fricative sounds /s/ and /$\int$/. The analysis speech parameters were vowel and lateral formants, VOT, sound durations, sound pressure level and fricative frequency. Data analysis was conducted by a series of paired T-test. The findings like the following: (1) Vowel formant one of patients with complete denture is higher than that of the control group (p<0.05), while lateral formant three of patients with complete denture is lower than that of the control group (p<0.0l). (2) Patients with complete denture produced lower speech intelligibility with low fricative frequency (/$\int$/) than control group (p<0.0). The speech intelligibility of patients with metal prosthesis was higher than that of those with resin prosthesis (p<0.05). (3) Fricative, lateral and stop sound durations of patients with complete denture were longer than those of the control group (p<0.01 and p<0.05), respectively. Total sound durations of patients with metal prosthesis were similar to that of the control group (p<0.05), while those with resin prosthesis had a shorter duration (p<0.01). This implied that those with metal prosthesis had higher speech intelligibility than those with resin prosthesis. (4) Patients with complete denture had higher sound pressure levels /t/ and /c/ than the control group (p<0.01). However, sound pressure levels for /c/ of patients with metal prosthesis or resin prosthesis was similar to the control group (p<0.05). (5) Patients with complete denture had higher fundamental frequency than the control group (p<0.01).

• Speech Sciences
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• v.3
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• pp.83-92
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• 1998

Vowels are classified by vocal tract shapes. These shapes form constriction points along the tract, which have an influence on such vocal tract resonance as $F_l,\;F_2,\;F_3$, and so on. This study reviews the perturbation theory of the tract and determines the corresponding formant frequencies from modified vocal tracts using vocal tract area function. Then, formant variation is observed from the theory. Finally, each set of $F_l,\;F_2,\;and\;F_3$ frequency is input to a speech synthesis software to make a vowel sound. Auditory impression of each sound without any modification of its vocal tract shape is almost the same as the corresponding phonetic symbol. Formant frequencies of $F_l,\;F_2,\;F_3$ vary according to the perturbation theory. Generally, constriction along the node causes formant values to decrease while constriction along the anti-node cause it to increase. Vocal tracts modified by more than $3\;cm^2$ change vowel qualities of /a/ and /i/ into those of f /v/ and /$\varepsilon$/, respectively. This study will be helpful in simulating sounds from modified vocal tracts before any operation. Further studies are desirable to compare vocal tract shapes of various languages and their sounds together.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.239-252
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• 1993

This study was done to analyze phonetic dysfunction and the effect of orthognathic surgery to phonation in the patients of mandibular prognathism. 20 persons were chosen as normal group and 20 patients of mandibular prognathism as abnormal for this study. 5 vowel sounds-'ㅏ(a)', 'ㅔ(e)', 'ㅣ(i)', 'ㅗ(o)', 'ㅜ(u)' and 14 consonant sounds-'ㄱ(g)', "ㄴ(n), 'ㄷ(d)', 'ㄹ(l)', 'ㅁ(m)', 'ㅂ(b)', 'ㅅ(s)', 'ㅇ(ng)', 'ㅈ(j)', 'ㅊ(ch)', 'ㅋ(k)', 'ㅌ(t)', 'ㅍ(p)', 'ㅎ(h)', were checked. We recorded these sounds in the period of preopration, postop. 12 months, postop. 24 months. A Formant ratio and a length of consonant time were studied with discriminant analysis. As a result of the study, the following conclusion were gained. 1. As a result of the analysis on vowel dysfunction patiensts of mandibular prognathism, more than 80% of men patients showed the dysfunction in prelingual sound 'ㅔ(e)' and 'ㅣ(i)'. More than 70% of women patients showed the dysfunction in all vowel. 2. One year later from the orthognathic surgery, men patients showed a marked improvement in 'ㅏ(a)'. The next were 'ㅗ(o)', 'ㅜ(u)' and 'ㅣ(i)'. Women patients showed a marked improvement in 'ㅜ(u)'. 3. Two year later from the orthognathic surgery, men patients showed a marked improvement in prelingual sound 'ㅔ(e)' and postlingual sound 'ㅗ(o)'. Women patients showed a marked improvement in 'ㅏ(a)'. More than 20% of patients showed the phonetic improvement compared with the condition of the postop. 12 months. 4. As a result of the analysis on consonant dysfunction patient of mandibular prognathism. more than 80% of men patients showed the dysfunction in lingual sound 'ㅅ(s)'. Most women patients showed the dysfunction in labial sound 'ㅁ(m)' and lingual sound 'ㄴ(n)'. More than 50% of patients showed the dysfunction in labial sound and lingual sound. 5. One year later from the orthognathic surgery. men patients showed a complete improvement in hard palatal sound 'ㅈ(j)'. The next were labial sound 'ㅂ(b)', lingual sound 'ㅅ(s)', soft palatal sound 'ㄱ(g)' and 'ㅋ(k)'. Women patients showed a marked improvement in soft palatal sound 'ㅇ(ng)' and 'ㄱ(g)'. 6. Two year later from the orthognathic surgery, all patients showed remarkable improvement in consonant sounds. except for labial sound 'ㅁ(m)', 'ㅍ(p)' and lingual sound 'ㄴ(n)'. The improvement ratio was increased as the time was going on compared with the condition of postop 12 months.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.3-16
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• 2010

This study aims at setting the hierarchy of difficulty of the 7 Korean monophthongs for Mongolian learners of Korean according to Prator's theory based on the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. In addition to that, it will be shown that the difficulties and errors for Mongolian learners of Korean as a second or foreign language proceed directly from this hierarchy of difficulty. This study began by looking at the speeches of 60 Mongolians for Mongolian monophthongs; data were investigated and analyzed into formant frequencies F1 and F2 of each vowel. Then, the 7 Korean monophthongs were compared with the resultant Mongolian formant values and are assigned to 3 levels, 'same', 'similar' or 'different sound'. The findings in assessing the differences of the 8 nearest equivalents of Korean and Mongolian vowels are as follows: First, Korean /a/ and /$\wedge$/ turned out as a 'same sound' with their counterparts, Mongolian /a/ and /ɔ/. Second, Korean /i/, /e/, /o/, /u/ turned out as a 'similar sound' with each their Mongolian counterparts /i/, /e/, /o/, /u/. Third, Korean /ɨ/ which is nearest to Mongolian /i/ in terms of phonetic features seriously differs from it and is thus assigned to 'different sound'. And lastly, Mongolian /$\mho$/ turned out as a 'different sound' with its nearest counterpart, Korean /u/. Based on these findings the hierarchy of difficulty was constructed. Firstly, 4 Korean monophthongs /a/, /$\wedge$/, /i/, /e/ would be Level 0(Transfer); they would be transferred positively from their Mongolian counterparts when Mongolians learn Korean. Secondly, Korean /o/, /u/ would be Level 5(Split); they would require the Mongolian learner to make a new distinction and cause interference in learning the Korean language because Mongolian /o/, /u/ each have 2 similar counterpart sounds; Korean /o, u/, /u, o/. Thirdly, Korean /ɨ/ which is not in the Mongolian vowel system will be Level 4(Overdifferentiation); the new vowel /ɨ/ which bears little similarity to Mongolian /i/, must be learned entirely anew and will cause much difficulty for Mongolian learners in speaking and writing Korean. And lastly, Mongolian /$\mho$/ will be Level 2(Underdifferentiation); it is absent in the Korean language and doesn‘t cause interference in learning Korean as long as Mongolian learners avoid using it.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.291-305
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• 2020

Purpose : The duration of speech segments reflects children's speech motor development. The purpose of this study was to determine whether segmental sound and word duration varies by age among preschool children. Methods : A total of 60 children aged 4~5 years participated in this study. Participants took the picture-naming test to produce single-word speech data. The duration of the consonant at the initial position of the word and the final position of the word, the voice onset time of plosive, the duration of the vowel following the initial consonant, and the duration of the word were measured. Results : As age increased, the duration of the initial consonant, the duration of the word, and the voice onset time decreased significantly. The main effects of age, manner of articulation, and place of articulation on the duration of the initial consonant were significant. The duration of consonants in the nasal sound and plosives and the duration of bilabial and alveolar sound differed significantly between groups. The main effects of age and vocal type on voice onset time were significant. The main effect of age on the duration of the consonant in the final position of word and on the duration of the vowel were not statistically significant. Conclusion : The results of this study showed that the duration of segmental sound and the word were associated with speech development between 4 and 5 years old. Accordingly, duration of the segmental sound and the word may serve as an acoustic cue as they reflect speech development and speech motor control maturity.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.93-105
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• 2000

The English schwa sound has special characteristics which are distinct from other vowels. It is non-phonemic and occurs only in an unstressed syllable. Compared with the English schwa, the Korean /e/ is a full vowel which has phonemic contrast. This paper had three aims. One was to see whether there is any relationship between English full vowels and their reduced vowel schwas. Second was to see whether there is any possible target in the English schwa sounds which are derived from different full vowels. The third was to compare the English non-phoneme vowel schwa and the Korean full vowel /e/ in terms of articulatory positions and duration. The study results showed that there is no relationship between each of the full vowels and its schwa. The schwa tended to converge into a possible target which was F1 456 and F2 1560. The Korean vowel /e/ seemed to have its distinct position speaker-individual which is different from the neutral tongue position. The evidence that the Korean /e/ is a back vowel was supported by the Seoul dialect speaker. In duration, the English schwa was much shorter than the full vowels, but there was no significant difference in length between the Korean /e/ and other Korean vowels.