• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.141-149
• /
• 2009

An emphasis on teaching suprasegmental features of English, specifically English rhythm, is essential in order to improve the 'intelligibility' of the pronunciation of Korean EFL learners among interlocutors who use English as a Lingua Franca(ELF). By redefining the ELF suggested by Jenkins (2000, 2002), this paper argues that Lingua Franca Core (LFC) must include suprasegmental features such as 'stress-based rhythm' and word stress. However, because 'isochrony' is difficult to measure in a foot, the rhythm unit must be expanded to an intonational phrase which has prominence in it and the rhythm of the unit can be measured by calculating the duration of each segment in context The rhythmic pattern of Korean learners of English and that of native speakers or other non-native English speakers can then be calculated and compared by using correlation coefficients of the segmental duration. In terms of sociolinguistic factors, improving the 'comprehensibility' and 'accentedness' of Korean EFL learners' pronunciation is also important in international communication, which calls for more emphasis on suprasegmental features.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.23-29
• /
• 2016

The present study tested if individual speakers showing great sound change in segments (i.e., vowels and fricatives) also had innovative changing patterns in suprasegmental properties (i.e., lexical pitch accents) in Kyungsang Korean. The acoustic analysis at a group level first confirmed the presence of group level differences in distinguishing /ɨ-ʌ/ and /s-s'/ both of which had different phonemic distinction from Seoul Korean. Younger speakers had more innovative segmental change than older speakers, and even within the younger generation, female speakers produced more innovative phonetic variants than male speakers. Regarding the individual observation within the younger group, the younger speakers with large acoustic distinction in vowels and fricatives also showed acoustically less distinct accent patterns, indicating the innovative sound change pattern consistent across segment and suprasegmental properties. The group and individual observations suggested that linguistic innovators introduced new phonetic variants with consistent degree of changing pattern between segment and suprasegmental properties.

• MALSORI
• /
• no.44
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2002

Because the accuracy and the fluency are the essence in English speaking, both of them are very important in English trencher training and in-service English training programs. To get the accuracy and the fluency, the causes and the phenomena of the unnatural pronunciation have to be diagnosed. Consequently, the problematic and unnatural pronunciation of Korean elementary and secondary English teachers should be analyzed with using Acoustic Analyzing tools like CSL, Multi-speech and Praat. In addition, an attempt to Pinpoint what the causes of unnatural pronunciation was executed. Next a procedure and steps were proposed for in-service training programs that would cultivate the fluency and the accuracy. In case of elementary teachers, the unnatural pronunciation of segmental features and suprasegmental features were found much. therefore segmental features should be emphasized in the begging of pronunciation training courses and then suprasegmental features have to be emphasized. In case of secondary teachers, the unnatural pronunciation of suprasegmental features were found much. Therefore segmental and suprasegmental features have to be focused at the same time. In other words, features in word level should be focused first for elementary English teacher, and features in word level and beyond word level should be trained at the same time for secondary English teachers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.3-10
• /
• 2011

This study investigates the role of suprasegmental features with respect to the intelligibility of Korean-spoken English judged by Korean and English raters as being good or bad. It has been hypothesized that Korean raters would have different evaluations from English native raters and that the effect may vary depending on the types of suprasegmental factors. Four Korean and four English native raters, respectively, took part in the evaluation of 14 Korean subjects' English speaking. The subjects read a given paragraph. The results show that the evaluation for 'intelligibility' is different for the two groups and that the difference comes from their perception of L2 English suprasegmentals.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2000.07a
• /
• pp.255-270
• /
• 2000

Because the accuracy is essential, in order to get the fluency in speaking, both of them are very important in English education and in-service training programs. To get the accuracy and the fluency, the causes and phenomena of the unnatural pronunciation have to be surveyed first of all. Therefore, this article surveyed the problematic and unnatural pronunciation of Korean English teachers in elementary and secondary schools using CSL and Multi-speech. And also, tried to pinpoint what the causes of unnatural pronunciation are\ulcorner Next a procedure or steps were offered for them to speak naturally through in-service training programs. Through this analysis, it was found that elementary teachers have unnatural pronunciation below, within and beyond word level, and the secondary teacher has unnatural pronunciation within and beyond word level. Therefore, pronunciation training courses have to put emphasis on segment features first, and move to suprasegmental features for elementary teachers. For secondary teachers, pronunciation training courses have to focus on word level and move to suprasegmental features, in other words beyond word level. And these pronunciation training courses have to be run integrated.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2005.11a
• /
• pp.17-20
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this project is to develop a device that can automatically measure pronunciation of English speech produced by Korean learners of English. Pronunciation proficiency will be measured largely in two areas; suprasegmental and segmental areas. In suprasegmental area, intonation and word stress will be traced and compared with those of native speakers by way of statistical methods using tilt parameters. Durations of phones are also examined to measure speakers' naturalness of their pronunciations. In doing so, statistical duration modelling from a large speech database using CART will be considered. For segmental measurement of pronunciation, acoustic probability of a phone, which is a byproduct when doing the forced alignment, will be a basis of scoring pronunciation accuracy of a phone. The final score will be a feedback to the learners to improve their pronunciation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.171-179
• /
• 2014

Purposes: Speech acceptability means the subjective judgement of listeners regarding the naturalness and normality of the speech. The purpose of this study was to determine the predicting variables for speech acceptabilities of children with cochlear implants. Methods: Twenty seven children with CI participated. They had profound pre-lingual hearing loss without any additional disabilities. The mean of chronological ages was 8;9, and mean of age of implantation was 2;11. Speech samples of reading and spontaneous speech were recorded separately. Twenty college students who were not familiar to the speech of deaf children evaluated the speech acceptabilities using visual analog scale. 1 segmental (articulation) and 6 suprasegmental features (pitch, loudness, quality, resonance, intonation, and speaking rate) of speech were perceptually evaluated by 3 SLPs. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were performed to evaluate the predicting variables. Results: The means of speech acceptability for reading and spontaneous speech were 73.47 and 71.96, respectively. Speech acceptability of reading was predicated by the severity of intonation and articulation. Speech acceptability of spontaneous speech was predicated by the severity of intonation and loudness. Discussion and conclusion: Severity of intonation was the most effective variable to predict the speech acceptabilities of both reading and spontaneous speech. A further study would be necessary to generalize the result and to apply this result to intervention in clinical settings.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.117-128
• /
• 2015

This paper investigates the acoustic-perceptual relation between Korean dent-alveolar fricatives and the English voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in varied prosodic contexts (e.g., stress, accent, and word initial position). The denti-alveolar fricatives in Korean show a two-way distinction, which can be referred to as either plain (lenis) /s/ or fortis /$s^*$/. The English alveolar voiceless fricative /s/ that corresponds to the two Korean fricatives would be placed in a one-to-two non-native phoneme mapping situation when Korean listeners hear English /s/. This raises an interesting question of how the single fricative of English perceptually maps into the two-way distinction in Korean. This paper reports the acoustic-perceptual mapping pattern by investigating spectral properties of the English stimuli that are heard as either /s/ or /$s^*$/ by Korean listeners, in order to answer the two questions: first, how prosody influences fricatives acoustically, and second, how the resultant properties drive non-native listeners to interpret them as segmental features instead of as prosodic information. The results indicate that Korean listeners' responses change depending on the prosodic context in which the stimuli are placed. It implies that Korean speakers interpret some of the information provided by prosody as segmental one, and that the listeners take advantage of the information in their judgment of non-native phonemes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
• /
• 2003.06a
• /
• pp.52-57
• /
• 2003

문장 안에서 새로운 정보를 닫고 있는 초점이 실제 말소리에서 드러나는 특징을 연구하였다. 초점과 초점 주변의 초분절소(suprasegmental, 강세, 길이, 성조)를 분석한 결과, 초점 보다 초점 앞의 강세구 길이가 크게 늘어나는 것을 관찰하였는데, 이때 강세구 전체 길이 보다 마지막 음절의 길이가 두드러지게 길게 발음되었다. 또한, 초점 앞에서 문장 단위의 끊어 읽기가 나타나는 것을 발견하였다. 인구어와는 달리 초점에 강세를 동반한다는 특징을 찾아볼 수는 없었다.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
• /
• 2005.11a
• /
• pp.127-130
• /
• 2005

Foreign Accent syndrome refers to segmental and suprasegmental changes of speech characteristics following brain lesion which is perceived by listeners as a foreign accent. Change in dialect after a stroke, however, have rarely been reported. We describe a patient who showed prominent change of accent from one to another Korean dialect and discuss about the alteration of prosodic patterns and the changes in segmental level of speech.