• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate the aspect of production and perception of Korean vowels /${\Lambda}$/ and /o/ and to discuss the correlation between production and perception of the two vowels. For this purpose, two separate experiments were conducted. 19 Chinese learners and 20 Korean native speakers produced Korean vowels /${\Lambda}$/ and /o/. Production experiments indicated that Koreans and Chinese female groups revealed common features in production, showing that they all pronounced /${\Lambda}$/ and /o/ in a distinguishable manner in the acoustic space. On the other hand, the Chinese male group failed to show that they could pronounce two vowels distinctively. The Chinese male group seemed to be confused in vowel height between the two vowels. A perception experiment was carried out on a continuum consisting of 11 synthesized stimuli. The perceptual judgment from referred Chinese and Korean subjects showed that Koreans and Chinese female groups had the same phonological boundaries (stimulus '04') for the two vowels on the continuum. However, the Chinese male group made perceptual criterion on stimulus '03'. These results confirmed that there was strong correlation between the aspect of production and perception.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.27-36
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• 2014

This study provided longitudinal examination of the Chinese learners' acquisition of Korean vowels. Specifically, I examined the Chinese learners' Korean monophthongs /i, e, ɨ, ${\Lambda}$, a, u, o/ that were created at the time of 1 month and 12 months, tried to verify empirically how they learn by dealing with their mother tongue, and Korean vowels through dealing with pattern of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (henceforth PAM) of Best (Best, 1993; 1994; Best & Tyler, 2007) and the Speech Learning Model (henceforth SLM) of Flege (Flege, 1987; Bohn & Flege, 1992, Flege, 1995). As a result, most of the present results are shown to be similarly explained by the PAM and SLM, and the only discrepancy between these two models is found in the 'similar' category of sounds between the learners' native language and the target language. Specifically, the acquisition pattern of /u/ and /o/ in Korean is well accounted for the PAM, but not in the SLM. The SLM did not explain why the Chinese learners had difficulty in acquiring the Korean vowel /u/, because according to the SLM, the vowel /u/ in Chinese (the native language) is matched either to the vowel /u/ or /o/ in Korean (the target language). Namely, there is only a one-to-one matching relationship between the native language and the target language. In contrast, the Chinese learners' difficulty for the Korean vowel /u/ is well accounted for in the PAM in that the Chinese vowel /u/ is matched to the vowel pair /o, u/ in Korean, not the single vowel, /o/ or /u/.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.287-301
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the same vowel sounds are perceived differently by the two local dialect speakers, Seoul dialect speakers (SDS) and Kyungnam dialect speakers (KDS), whose vowel systems differ each other. In the first experiment SDS and KDS heard vowels synthesized in vowel space with F1 by F2 and categorized them into one of 10 Korean monophthongs. The results showed that SDS and KDS perceived the synthesized vowels differently. For example, /$\varepsilon$ versus /e/ contrast, ${\o}$/, and /y/ are differentiated by SDS, whereas they are perceptually confused by KDS. We also observed that /i/ could not be perceived unless the vowel synthesis included F3 or higher formants. In the second experiment SDS and KDS performed the similarity rating task of 10 synthesized Korean monophthongs. Two-dimensional MDS solution based on the similarity rating scores was obtained for each dialect group. The first dimension can be named 'vowel advancement' and the second 'vowel height'. The comparison of the two MDS solutions showed that the overall psychological distances among the vowels are shorter in KDS than SDS and that especially the distance between /$\Lambda$/ and /i/ is shorter in KDS than SDS. The result suggested that perception or mental representation of vowels depends on the vowel system of the listener's dialect or language. Further research problems were discussed in the final section.

• MALSORI
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• no.51
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• pp.1-16
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• 2004

The aim of this paper is to analyze vowels in voice imitation and disguised voice, and to find the invariable phonetic features of the speaker. In this paper we examined the formants of monophthongs /a, u, i, o, {$\omega},{\;}{\varepsilon},{\;}{\Lambda}$/. The results of the present are as follows : $\circled1$ Speakers change their vocal tract features. $\circled2$ Vowels /a, ${\varepsilon}$, i/ appear to be proper for speaker recognition since they show invariable acoustic feature during voice modulation. $\circled3$ F1 does not change easily compared to higher formants. $\circled4$ F3-F2 appears to be constituent for a speaker identification in vowel /a/ and /$\varepsilon$/, and F4-F2 in vowel /i/. $\circled5$ Resulting of F-ratio, differences of each formants were more useful than individual formant of a vowel to speaker recognition.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.129-140
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• 2009

The purpose of the present study is to investigate frequency related information and syllable structure constraints on Sino-Korean. Previous studies on Sino-Korean have mostly investigated the historical change of sounds and reviewed archaic features of Chinese language in Sino-Korean. Unfortunately, there is little study on the sounds of contemporary Sino-Korean in terms of syllable structure constraints. For the purpose of the present study, sounds of 7,742 Chinese characters used in Sino-Korean (7,795 syllables) were investigated and syllable matrices made based on the results of frequency related information. As a result, 483 syllable types were observed and the most frequently observed syllables were as follows: /ku/ (103) > /ki/ (100) > /ju/ (87) > /pi/ (86). Only 16 out of 19 consonants are used for Sino-Korean. /$t^{\ast}$/ and /$p^{\ast}$/ are never used in Sino-Korean and /kh, $s^{\ast}$, $k^{\ast}$/ occur only a few times (3, 2, 1 respectively). /k/ (17.5%) shows the highest frequency and /n, ${\eta}$, 1, tc, m/ occupied the next rankings. Among 20 vowel types, /a/ showed the highest frequency and /o, u, i, $j{\Lambda}$, ${\Lambda}$/ occupied the next rankings. Based on the syllable matrices, gaps were observed and classified into accidental or systematic ones. Onset and nucleus, nucleus and coda, onset and coda, and other syllable structure constraints of Sino-Korean were listed.