Prosodic focus in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean

이용철 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2017 언어연구 Vol.34 No.1

This study employed production and perception experiments in an exploration of whether “purely” prosodic marking of focus is weak and ambiguous in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean. Production data presented two important characteristics in the use of prosodic focus in both languages. Prosodic modulation by focus was weak, and focus effects spread to the adjacent position within a phrase as a function of focus. As a result, listeners had difficulty identifying the position of prosodic focus in perception-overall identification rates were about 37% for Seoul Korean and about 48% for South Kyungsang Korean. Additionally, incorrect answers often appeared within the same phrase before or after focus positions. The results of this study suggest that prosodic marking of focus is neither automatic nor universal, which is in contrast to the common claim that a focused element is maximally prominent in a sentence (Büring 2010; Samek-Lodovici 2005; Truckenbrodt 1995). Instead, this study claims that prosodic marking of focus differs according to a language’s prosodic structure, and that it can be weak and ambiguous in certain languages.

Prosodic focus in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean

Yong cheol Lee 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2017 언어연구 Vol.34 No.1

This study employed production and perception experiments in an exploration of whether “purely” prosodic marking of focus is weak and ambiguous in Seoul Korean and South Kyungsang Korean. Production data presented two important characteristics in the use of prosodic focus in both languages. Prosodic modulation by focus was weak, and focus effects spread to the adjacent position within a phrase as a function of focus. As a result, listeners had difficulty identifying the position of prosodic focus in perception-overall identification rates were about 37% for Seoul Korean and about 48% for South Kyungsang Korean. Additionally, incorrect answers often appeared within the same phrase before or after focus positions. The results of this study suggest that prosodic marking of focus is neither automatic nor universal, which is in contrast to the common claim that a focused element is maximally prominent in a sentence (Büring 2010; Samek-Lodovici 2005; Truckenbrodt 1995). Instead, this study claims that prosodic marking of focus differs according to a language’s prosodic structure, and that it can be weak and ambiguous in certain languages.

On the Pitch-Accent System of South Kyungsang Korean : A Phonological Perspective

Lee, Dongmyung,Davis, Stuart 서울대학교 언어교육원 (구 서울대학교 어학연구소) 2009 語學硏究 Vol.45 No.1

This paper presents an analysis of the pitch patterns of native nouns of contemporary South Kyungsang Korean. Following DM Lee (2009) we maintain that South Kyungsang Korean has a pitch-accent system that co-exists with an initial tone register. To illustrate this we focus on monomorphemic nouns and the nature of tonal alternations found under suffixation.

Speaker Variations in Pitch Alignment of English Loanwords

김성아 미래영어영문학회 2020 영어영문학 Vol.25 No.4

The majority of the previous studies on tone realization in South Kyungsang Korean are concerned with the vertical domain of fundamental frequency (F0 henceforth) values (in Hz or in semitones), little is known about F0 realization on the temporal domain. The present study examines paralinguistic factors affecting tonal realization on the temporal domain of South Kyungsang Korean. In the study, we compare F0 peak delay patterns across the genders of the speakers and the word types (English loanword and native words in South Kyungsang Korean). Forty eight young South Kyungsang native speakers were presented with virtual listeners and recorded twelve trisyllabic words composed of two categories of loanwords and native words. Normalized F0 peak delay was the focus of the investigation along with segmental landmarks. The statistical results revealed the different F0 delay patterns between native words and loanwords, and between female and male speakers. Loanwords and female speakers showed relatively more F0 peak than native words and male speakers respectively. This finding indicate paralinguistic factors such as genders and the word types affect tonal realization on the temporal domain.

Tones in the phrases of South Kyungsang Korean: focusing on the monosyllabic and the disyllabic words

이동명 한국음운론학회 2011 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.17 No.1

In this paper we investigate tone patterns in the phrases of South Kyungsang Korean (SK) in terms of [Word1+Word2] combination in all types of syllabic configurations and their tonal patterns. Even though we examined only the phrase structures that have monosyllabic and disyllabic words in W1 position in the current study, we make many intriguing observations in this research. Throughout the current research, we temporarily confirm that SK monosyllabic words have three basic tones, the accented H tone, the unaccented H tone, and the deaccenting L tone, also the SK pitch accent has the structure of H*+L. We observe that the unaccented class exists in SK monosyllabic and disyllabic words which is compatible with previous research (Lee 2009, Lee and Davis 2009, 2010) and this word class presents its own function and characteristic in the SK phrase construction processes. Current examination also indicates that SK generally does not prefer the three initial H tone sequence as well as the two initial L tone sequence at the initial position of a prosodic domain.

경남 방언 영어학습자들의 영어 고모음 인지 연구

이동명 ( Dong Myung Lee ),임수현 ( Su Hyeon Im ) 동아대학교 석당학술원 2014 석당논총 Vol.0 No.58

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception (mapping) of English high vowels /i, I, u, U/ of Korean EFL learners. The experiment subjects were 35 male middle school students who were born and have lived in South Kyungsang Korea. English high vowels are easy to be confused by Korean English learners thus these vowels were chosen as English target vowels for the current perception study. This study investigated how the subjects perceive these English high vowels and match them to what Korean vowels by carrying out the perception experiment. In addition, the current study implemented the test to look into the Korean subjects` perception concerning the degree of similarity between Korean and English high vowels which they listened to. The results are as follows. First, the English high front tense vowel /i/ is perceived as Korean vowel /이/ in 97.1% which is the highest mapping rate. The English high back lax vowel /U/ is perceived as Korean vowel /우/ in 42.5% which is the lowest mapping rate of this experiment. Second, in the case of the degree of similarity between English and Korean vowels, most South Kyungsang Korean subjects marked number 3 or 4 out of 1 (same as Korean) to 7 (totally different from Korean) Likert Scale. Thus, the subjects seemed to recognize only some degree of similarity between two different vowel systems. This study shows that South Kyungsang Korean middle school English learners have perceived and corresponded English high tense vowels better than English high lax vowels. That is, Korean vowel system does not distinguish tenseness and laxness distinctively, but the South Kyungsang Korean subjects mostly perceived English high tense vowels as Korean high tense vowels (97.1%) and they think the English vowels are somewhat similar to Korean vowels (3∼4 out of 7) even though they do not think Korean and English vowels are exactly the same. Therefore, South Kyungsang Korean English learners seem to perceive and match the English high tense vowels more easily than the lax vowels in the case of perception of English vowels and their mapping to Korean vowel system. This implies that South Kyungsang Korean EFL learners need to understand more accurately the vowel system of a target language when they learn the language. From the results of the present study, it does not seem to need a separate pronunciation education system for South Kyungsang Korean English learners. However, South Kyungsang Korean English learners need to be educated the difference between their native language (L1) and a second language (L2). Especially, it seems that South Kyungsang Korean English learners need a focused and intensive education for the acquisition of English lax vowels.

경남방언 남·여 화자의 영어 고모음 발화에 관한 연구

명윤미,이동명 한국언어과학회 2014 언어과학 Vol.21 No.1

The purpose of this study is to examine characteristics of English high vowels produced by South Kyungsang(SK) Korean (Busan dialect) speakers. The 10 SK Korean subjects who participated in this study are 5 male and 5 female university students. English target vowels for the current experiment, /i/-/ɪ/ and /u/-/ʊ/, were acoustically analyzed based on the formant frequencies of the vowels using Praat speech analysis program. In order to observe the relationship between SK Korean single vowels and standard Korean single vowels, the formant frequencies of 7 Korean single vowels /ㅏ/, /ㅔ/, /ㅣ/, /ㅗ/, /ㅜ/, /ㅡ/, /ㅓ/ were also measured using Praat. The collected data of the present study were also compared to the formant frequencies reported in previous studies. The results are as follows: First, SK Korean speakers have difficulty in distinguishing English tense and lax pairs regardless of gender. Second, there was a statistical difference in terms of the production of English high vowels, /i/, /ʊ/, /u/ between SK Korean speakers and standard Korean speakers. Third, in the case of Korean high vowels, the difference of F2 values between SK Korean speakers and standard Korean speakers is more than 100 Hz, especially in the Korean high back vowel /ㅜ/. These results show that each Korean dialect causes variance in terms of the production of English vowels and Korean vowels.

An Acoustic Study of L2 English Vowels Produced by Kyungsang Korean Speaking Learners

이현정 현대영미어문학회 2017 현대영미어문학 Vol.35 No.2

The present study investigated the acoustic properties of English vowels produced by regional dialect speaking Korean learners of English, focusing on South Kyungsang dialect speakers. Formant frequencies were analyzed for the acoustic data of L2 English and L1 Korean vowels collected by thirty-one Korean learners of English. Two phases of the present analyses, the group-averaged and correlation analyses, indicated several replicated and new findings regarding the English vowel production by Korean learners. First, the present group-averaged analysis confirmed previous observations regarding Korean learners’ difficulties in contrasting the 4-way vowel height distinction in English as well as distinguishing English tense-lax vowel contrasts. Second, the correlation analysis newly indicated that the difficulty in contrasting the tense-lax vowel pair patterned differently between the front and back vowels; while L1 Korean /i/ was correlated with L2 English /i/ rather than /ɪ/, the L1 /u/ vowel was correlated with both L2 /u/ and /ʊ/. The non-parallel correlation between front and back vowels regarding the tense-lax pairs was discussed in terms of the vowel properties of the regional dialect.

Evidence for accentless words in South Kyungsang Korean

Dongmyung Lee,Stuart Davis 한국음운론학회 2010 음성·음운·형태론 연구 Vol.16 No.2

Recent studies help to establish Kyungsang Korean as a pitch accent language, which differs from some traditional works that view it as a tone language. The purpose of the current paper is to discuss whether South Kyungsang (SK) Korean has an accentless class of words like other pitch accent languages i.e., Japanese. In an examination of SK words of different length, we maintain that SK Korean has accentless monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic words. We hold that SK Korean is not only a pitch accent language but also one that has an accentless class of words.

경남방언 영어학습자의 영어 강세발화: 길이, 높이, 강도를 중심으로

정고은,이동명 한국언어과학회 2023 언어과학 Vol.30 No.4

this paper is to examine whether South Kyungsang (SK) Korean English learners can produce English stress well comparing to native speakers of English in terms of duration, pitch and intensity. The current paper measures the duration, intensity, and pitch of primary English stress of SK Korean English learners as well as native English speakers. The 15 female SK Korean participants were born and have lived in the South Kyungsang region of Korea. The key tasks associated with the current research objectives are to compare and analyze the length of the main stressed vowel of English words spoken by SK Korean English learners and native speakers of English and also to examine the difference of the average intensity and pitch values between SK Korean English learners and native English speakers. The results indicate there seems to be no difference in terms of the duration; however, the current results show statistical differences in pitch and intensity between SK Korean English learners and native English speakers.