• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2014

The focus of this study was to investigate whether there is a position effect on identification accuracy of L2 consonants by Korean listeners and to examine how Korean listeners perceive the phonetic properties of initial and final consonants produced by a Korean learner of English and an English native speaker. Most studies examining L2 learners' perception of L2 sounds have focused on the segmental level but very few studies have examined the role of prosodic position in L2 learners' perception. In the present study, an identification test was conducted for English consonants /p, t, k, f, ɵ, s, ʃ/ in CVC prosodic structures. The results revealed that Korean listeners identified syllable-initial consonants more accurately than syllable-final consonants. The perceptual accuracy in syllable initial consonants may be attributable to the enhanced phonetic properties in the initial consonants. A significant correlation was found between error rates and F2 onset/offset for stops and fricatives, and between perceptual accuracy and RMS burst energy for stops. However, the identification error patterns were found to be different across consonant types and between the different language speakers. In the final position, Korean listeners had difficulty in identifying /p/, /f/, /ɵ/, and /s/ when they were produced by a Korean speaker and showed more errors in /p/, /t/, /f/, /ɵ/, and /s/ when they were spoken by an English native speaker. Comparing to the perception of English consonants spoken by a Korean speaker, greater error rates and diverse error patterns were found in the perception of consonants produced by an English native speaker. The present study provides the evidence that prosodic position plays a crucial role in the perception of L2 segments.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.163-174
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• 2014

Korean L2 speakers have many problems learning the pronunciation of English words. One of these problems is vowel epenthesis. Vowel epenthesis is the insertion of vowels into or between words, and Korean learners of English typically do this between successive consonants, either within clusters, or across syllables, word boundaries or following final coda consonants. The aim of this study was to investigate whether individual differences in vowel epenthesis are more closely related to the perception and production of segments (vowels and consonants) and prosody or if they are relatively independent from these processes. Subjects completed a battery of production and perception tasks. They read sentences, identified vowels and consonants, read target words likely to have epenthetic vowels (e.g., abduction) and demonstrated stress recognition and epenthetic vowel perception. The results revealed that Korean second-language learners (L2) have problems with vowel epenthesis in production and perception, but production and perception abilities were not correlated with one another. Vowel epenthesis was strongly related to vowel production and perception, suggesting that problems with segments may be combined with L1 phonotactics to produce epenthesis.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.79-87
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• 2016

The purpose of this study aimed to examine the perceptual pattern of the Korean coda consonants by Chinese learners of Korean. Given that Mandarin allows only two nasals (/n, ŋ/) in the coda position, it was predicted that Chinese learners of Korean had difficulty in discriminating Korean coda consonants. In the experiment, the subjects were 21 beginner-level Chinese learners of Korean. They participated in the discrimination task four times a year in which they were asked to choose the right Korean coda consonants after listening the word from Korean native speakers. The results demonstrated that 1) Chinese learners of Korean improved their perception of the Korean coda consonants. 2) But Chinese learners of Korean performed differently according to the type of Korean coda consonants. Korean consonants /n, p, k, m/ showed significant differences, but /l, ŋ, t/ did not.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.197-217
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• 1999

In a noisy class, the acoustic-phonetic features of the teacher and the perceptual features of learners are changed comparison with a quiet environment. Acoustical analyses were carried out on a set of French monosyllables consisting of 17 consonants and three vowel /a, e, i/, produced by 1 male speaker talking in quiet and in 50, 60 and 70 dB SPL of masking noise on headphone. The results of the acoustic analyses showed consistent differences in energy and formant center frequency amplitude of consonants and vowels, $F_1$ frequency of vowel and duration of voiceless stops suggesting the increase of vocal effort. The perceptual experiments in which 18 undergraduate female students learning French served as the subjects, were conducted in quiet and in 50, 60 dB of masking noise. The identification scores on consonants were higher in Lombard speech than in normal speech, suggesting that the speaker's vocal effort is useful to overcome the masking effect of noise. And, with increased noise level, the perceptual response to the French consonants given had a tendency to be complex and the subjective reaction score on the noise using the vocabulary representative of 'unpleasant' sensation to be higher. And, in the point of view on the L2(second language) acquisition, the influence of L1 (first language) on L2 examined in the perceptual result supports the interference theory.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2005

This paper investigated the effect of audio and visual cues on Korean and Japanese EFL learners' perception of the lateral/retroflex contrast in English. In a perception experiment, the two English consonants /l/ and /r/ were embedded in initial and medial position in nonsense words in the context of the vowels /i, a, u/. Singletons and clusters were included in the speech material. Audio and video recordings were made using a total of 108 items. The items were presented to Korean and Japanese learners of English in three conditions: audio-alone (A), visual-alone (V) and audio-visual presentation (AV). The results showed that there was no evidence of AV benefit for the perception of the /l/-/r/ contrast for either Korean or Japanese learners of English. Korean listeners showed much better identification rates of the /l/-/r/ contrast than Japanese listeners when presented in audio or audio-visual conditions.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.63-70
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• 2019

This study investigated individual variability of L2 learners' categorical judgments of L2 stops by exploring English learners' perceptual processing of two acoustic cues (voice onset time [VOT] and f0) and working memory capacity as sources of variation. As prior research has reported that English speakers' greater use of the redundant cue f0 was responsible for gradient processing of native stops, we examined whether the same processing characteristics would be observed in L2 learners' perception of Korean stops (/t/-/t^h/). 22 English learners of L2 Korean with a range of L2 proficiency participated in a visual analogue scaling task and demonstrated variable manners of judging the L2 Korean stops: Some were more gradient than others in performing the task. Correlation analysis revealed that L2 learners' categorical responses were modestly related to individuals' utilizations of a primary cue for the stop contrast (VOT for L1 English stops and f0 for L2 Korean stops), and were also related to better working memory capacity. Together, the current experimental evidence demonstrates adult L2 learners' top-down processing of stop consonants where linguistic and cognitive resources are devoted to a process of determining abstract phonemic identity.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.19-33
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• 2019

This paper examines the perception of Korean phonemes by Egyptian learners of Korean and presents the learnability gradient of Korean consonants and vowels through High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT). 50 Egyptian learners of Korean (27 low proficiency learners and 23 high proficiency learners) participated in 10 sessions of HVPT for Korean vowels, word initial and final consonants. Participants were tested on their identification ability of Korean vowels, word initial consonants, and syllable codas before and after the training. The results showed that both low and high proficiency groups did benefit from the training. Low proficiency learners showed a higher improvement rate than high proficiency learners. Based on the HVPT results, a learnability gradient was established to give insights into priorities in teaching Korean sounds to Egyptian learners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.91-99
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• 2014

Although it is well documented that patients with cochlear implant experience hearing difficulties when processing their first language, very little is known whether or not and to what extent cochlear implant patients recognize segments in a second language. This preliminary study examines how Korean learners of English identify English segments in a normal hearing and cochlear implant simulation conditions. Participants heard English vowels and consonants in the following three conditions: normal hearing condition, 12-channel noise vocoding with 0mm spectral shift, and 12-channel noise vocoding with 3mm spectral shift. Results confirmed that nonnative listeners could also retrieve spectral information from vocoded speech signal, as they recognized vowel features fairly accurately despite the vocoding. In contrast, the intelligibility of manner and place features of consonants was significantly decreased by vocoding. In addition, we found that spectral shift affected listeners' vowel recognition, probably because information regarding F1 is diminished by spectral shifting. Results suggest that patients with cochlear implant and normal hearing second language learners would experience different patterns of listening errors when processing their second language(s).

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.31-41
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• 2012

Recent studies have shown that the stop system of Korean is undergoing a sound change in terms of the two acoustic parameters, voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (f0). Because of a VOT merger of a consonantal opposition and onset-f0 interaction, the relative importance of the two parameters has been changing in Korean where f0 is a primary cue and VOT is a secondary cue in distinguishing lax from aspirated stops in speech production as well as perception. In English, however, VOT is a primary cue and f0 is a secondary cue in contrasting voiced and voiceless stops. This study examines how Korean English learners use the two acoustic parameters of L1 in producing L2 English stops and whether the sound change of acoustic parameters in L1 affects L2 speech production. The data were collected from six adult Korean English learners. Results show that Korean English learners use not only VOT but also f0 to contrast L2 voiced and voiceless stops. However, unlike VOT variations among speakers, the magnitude effect of onset consonants on f0 in L2 English was steady and robust, indicating that f0 also plays an important role in contrasting the [voice] contrast in L2 English. The results suggest that the important role of f0 in contrasting lax and aspirated stops in L1 Korean is transferred to the contrast of voiced and voiceless stops in L2 English. The results imply that, for Korean English learners, f0 rather than VOT will play an important perceptual cue in contrasting voiced and voiceless stops in L2 English.