• MALSORI
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• no.58
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• pp.19-34
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• 2006

The present study investigates the vowels of Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia in terms of the first two formant frequencies and provides a three-dimensional formant chart of vowels by plotting F1, F2, and the frequency of datapoints on 4 different scales: Hz, mel, bark, and the number of ERB. For this study, we recruited 30 male native speakers of Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia (15 each) which include 6 vowels (i, e, a, o, u, e) in various contexts. The three-dimensional formant chart showed geophysics of vowel space, such that mountain peaks stand in particular locations with a higher frequency of occurrence of datapoints. The geophysics of vowel space may shed lights on the perceptual structure of vowel space. The results also showed that vowels in utterance-final positions have a significantly higher F1 and a significantly lower F2 than those in utterance-medial or utterance-initial positions, which means that vowels in utterance-final positions are more back and lower in vowel space than those in utterance-medial or utterance-initial positions.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.59-72
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• 2000

Vocal tract resonances are of paramount importance to voice sounds. Resonance frequencies determine vowel quality and the personal voice timber. The aim of this study was to make an effective diction program according to tuning formant frequencies by adjusting the vocal tract shape in professional voice users. Twelve male student singers and eleven female student singers participated in this study. The subjects repeated five simple vowels /a, e, i, o, u/ in normal speech and singing. The spoken vowels and sung vowels were measured by formant frequencies and the singer's formant frequencies using CSL and DSP Sona-Graph. Separately, Plot formants program was used to draw the vowel chart. The results were as follows. (1) Total formant frequencies of female singers were 11% higher than those of males singers in singing. (2) The F1 and F3 of sung vowels increased compared to F1 and F3 spoken vowels. However, The F2 of sung vowels decreased in comparison with F2 of spoken vowels. (3) Posterior vowel /u/ were moved anteriorly. This phenomenon seemed to be due to head voice singing training. (4) Singer's formant frequencies in student singers appeared according to the part: 2560 Hz for baritone, 2760 Hz for Tenor, 2821 Hz for Mezzo soprano and 3420 Hz for soprano.

• 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.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.51-58
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• 2010

English vowels play an important role in the daily communication between Korean students and international visitors. However, many Korean students still have difficulty producing them distinctively. Vowels vary according to shapes of oral and pharyngeal cavities, which are mainly determined by the degree of jaw opening and tongue position. Yang (2008a) proposed a simplified chart of English and Korean vowels for an educational purpose. He also suggested to use wooden chopsticks to secure distinguishable jaw openings. The purpose of this study is to tap whether wooden chopsticks can be applicable to a method for correcting English vowel pronunciation. Twelve male and female students participated in the recordings of eight /hVd/ words followed by additional recordings with wooden chopsticks between upper and lower teeth. The first and second formant trajectories of both natural and controlled vowel productions were obtained and compared at six equidistant measurement points using Praat. Results showed that the formant values of natural vowel productions were comparable to those of controlled productions. Vowels with similar formant trajectories of male students were separated with the aid of chopsticks. The width of each chopstick could be controlled similarly in the experiment. The author concludes that wooden chopsticks can be useful to correct vowel pronunciation. Further studies are desirable for native speakers to make perceptual evaluations of controlled vowel productions by nonnative speakers.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.49-65
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• 2006

Recently, several theories on the digital speech signal processing expanded the communication boundary between human beings and machines drastically. The aim of this study is to collect dialectal speech in Korea on a large scale and to establish a digital speech data base in order to provide the data base for further research on the Korean dialectal and the creation of value-added network. 528 informants across the country participated in this study. Acoustic characteristics of vowels and consonants are analyzed by Power spectrum and Spectrogram of CSL. Test words were made on the picture cards and letter cards which contained each vowel and each consonant in the initial position of words. Plot formants were depicted on a vowel chart and transitions of diphthongs were compared according to dialectal speech. Spectral times, VOT, VD, and TD were measured on a Spectrogram for stop consonants, and fricative frequency, intensity, and lateral formants (LF1, LF2, LF3) for fricative consonants. Nasal formants (NF1, NF2, NF3) were analyzed for different nasalities of nasal consonants. The acoustic characteristics of dialectal speech showed that young generation speakers did not show distinction between close-mid /e/ and open-mid$/\epsilon/$. The diphthongs /we/ and /wj/ showed simple vowels or diphthongs depending to dialect speech. The sibilant sound /s/ showed the aspiration preceded to fricative noise. Lateral /l/ realized variant /r/ in Kyungsang dialectal speech. The duration of nasal consonants in Chungchong dialectal speech were the longest among the dialects.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.181-188
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• 1998

In order to examine the legibility of the Hangul letters which is a syllabic, the three kind of visual charts were made of the ninety eight($14{\times}7$) Hangul Gothic type letters by the laser printer. These Hangul letters were constructed with the 13 consonant letters which are 'ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ', and the 6 vowel letters which are 'ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ'. The two examination methods were used, One is the discriminating the letters on the visual chart by men having 1.5 visual acuity. The other is the using the laser printer's resolution. Obtained data by these examination methods are the minimum readable size values of the letters and the maximum readable distance values from the reader to the objects. From these data the relative legibility of the Hangul letters were calculated, where the letter ㄱ was chosen for the standard. This resultant data were analyzed. In this result, the mean legibility of these Hangul letters descended in the order of 'ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅅ, ㄷ, ㅈ, ㅇ, ㅁ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ' Which are the consonant letters being in these letters. And the mean legibility descended in 'ㅣ, ㅡ, ㅏ, ㅗ, ㅓ, ㅜ' order. The mean legibility is dependent on used consonant letter more then on used vowel.