Correspondence between the Korean and Mandarin Chinese pronunciations of Chinese characters: A comparison at the sub-syllabic level (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Sino-Korean words have their etymological roots in Chinese characters. Previous studies showed that the correspondent relation between Chinese and the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters facilitates the reading of Sino-Korean words by Chinese learners of Korean as a second language (L2). This study quantifies such correspondence at the syllable level by calculating the degree of correspondence in Korean-Chinese syllables. The degree of correspondence between Korean and Chinese syllables was examined. Results show that among the 406 Chinese character families in Sino-Korean words, 22.7% have an average correspondent consistency lower than 0.5 and 33.3% are equal to or higher than 0.5 but lower than 1. Suggestions for teaching and learning Korean as an L2 are proposed.
Cross‐language identification of consonants. Part 1. Korean perception of English
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1996
Twenty native Korean-speaking subjects heard 22 English word-initial consonants in three vowel contexts produced by three native English talkers. The subjects orthographically labeled each English consonant as the closest Korean consonant. They then judged how similar the English consonant was to the Korean consonant on a scale of 1 to 5. Some English consonants were labeled consistently as a single Korean consonant and judged to be very similar. Other English consonants were labeled consistently as a single Korean consonant but judged to be less similar. Still other English consonants were inconsistently labeled. Korean acoustic cues, vowel context, and token differences appeared to influence labeling choices.
Realization of English Medial Consonant Clusters by Korean Speakers
Studies in English Language & Literature, 2013
The purpose of the current study is to investigate the realization of speech rhythm in English as spoken by Korean learners of English. The study particularly aims to examine the rhythm metrics of English read speech by learners who speak Busan or the South Kyungsang dialect of Korean. Twenty-four learners whose L1 is Busan Korean and eight native speakers of English read a passage wherein five sentences were segmented and labeled as vocalic and intervocalic intervals. Various rhythm metrics such as %V, Varcos, and Pairwise Variability Indexes (PVIs) were calculated. The results show that Korean learners read English sentences with significantly more vocalic and consonantal intervals at a slower speech rate than native English speakers. The analyses of rhythm metrics revealed that when the speech rate was not normalized, Korean learners' English showed more variability in the length of consonantal and vocalic intervals. However, speech-rate-normalized rhythm metrics for vocalic intervals indicated that Korean learners transferred their L1 rhythmic structures (a syllable-timed language) into their L2 speech (a stress-timed language). Overall, the results suggest that Korean learners' English reflects the rhythmic characteristics of their L1. The effect of the learners' L1 dialect on the realization of L2 speech rhythm is also speculated.
A Contrastive Study on Korean and Cia-Cia Language Vowels Based on an Acoustic Experiment
Humaniora, 2021
The Cia-Cia language, which spoken by around 79.000 people in the Bau-Bau area of Buton Island, does not have its own writing system. In 2009, the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, was approved by the Bau-Bau city government for transcribing Cia-Cia, owing to the similarity of phonemes in Korean to those in Cia-Cia. This research aimed to compare the acoustics of monophtongs in the Korean and Cia-Cia languages with an experimental phonetic approach, and to discuss writing system problems in Cia-Cia when adopting the Korean writing system. Based on the classification, the Cia-Cia vowels /i, e, a, u, and o/ are equivalent to the Korean vowels /이 ([i]), 에 ([e]), 아 ([a]), 우 ([u]), 오 ([o])/. However, there are two Korean vowels that have no Cia-Cia equivalents namely, /으/ ([ɨ]) and /어/ ([ə]). In general, the vowel equivalents between the two languages have significant differences in terms of their acoustic characteristics. Nonetheless, unlike other vowel equivalents, the Cia-Cia vowel /u/ and Korean vowel /우/ ([u]) when pronounced show similar phonetic features in terms of position and oral cavity opening level. In contrast, the Cia-Cia vowel /a/ and Korean vowel /아/ ([a]) when pronounced are shown to have the same oral cavity opening level, but different tongue positions. The use of the vowel /으/ ([ɨ]) in Hangeul writing in transcribing particular Cia-Cia wordsis a unique feature of Korean grammar. This renders some transcriptions different to the pronunciation of the source Cia-Cia word. This is because of the limitations of Korean syllables, which, unlike Cia-Cia words, are not able to be written as double consonants.
Production and Perception of North and South Korean Vowels: A Pilot Study
2019
Previous studies have reported that some North Korean and South Korean vowels have undergone changes in different directions after decades of relative isolation. This paper presents a pilot study concentrating on three such pairs of vowels ([ɯ]-[u], [ʌ]-[o], and [e]-[æ]), with a particular interest in examining language standards in each variety by comparing newscasters and regular speakers from each country. Acoustic analyses of vowel spaces confirmed some North-South differences, and a perception test verified that North Korean [ʌ] and [o] are highly confusable to South Korean speakers. Noteworthy in the data, North Korean regular speakers who now reside in South Korea showed some vowel patterns that were different from both North Korean newscasters and South Korean speech.
Exploring the Contrast Transitions of Korean Vowels
2017
What present study purports is to explore two kinds of contrast transitions occurring to Korean vowel inventory, i.e. diphthongization of front rounded vowels /y/ and /o/ and merger of front mid-vowels /e/ and /ɛ/. Overall, our endeavors start from the premise that the weak contrast associated with concerned vocalic segments might bring about the wavering of what they sound like. The null hypothesis is that the correlates derived from a certain amount of information as a measure of communicative efficiency deeply impact the determination of the degree of contrast among phonological units. For the purpose, relying on the corpora based on written and spoken texts, and other subsidiary data sources, the intervention of surprisal, entropic contribution, relative contrastiveness, and perceptual distance is examined as part of diagnostics on the segmental changes over time. What we found therein is that for a proper explication of /y/-/o/ disintegration and /e/-/ɛ/ merger, the Information...
Language Sciences, 2018
The L1 mapping model developed by Park and de Jong (2008) for English consonants was shown to predict Korean listeners' identifications of English stops with Korean analogs with great success while identifications of some English fricatives were much better than predicted, suggesting the creation of new L2 categories for these English fricatives. Given the different auditory-perceptual and functional nature of vowels versus consonants, the current study investigates to what extent Park and de Jong's L1 mapping model predicts native Korean listeners' L2 English vowel identification. This study also explores whether the extent to which pairs of Korean and English vowels are judged to be variants (or else an English vowel is judged to be "new") predicts English vowel identification. Korean listeners participated in English vowel identification and cross-language mapping tasks. Results indicated that the L1 mapping model very closely predicted identification of English vowels analogous to Korean vowels (e.g., / 3/, /oʊ/, and /u/). This phenomenon was also observed when the listeners' goodness ratings were incorporated. However, it was found that the predictive power of the L1 mapping model for vowels, which was based on the new and similar distinction, was reduced relative to that for consonants due to the less categorical nature of vowels. Thus, the new-similar distinction in the Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995) may not be so crucial to understanding the impact of vowel mapping in cross-language perception. Nonetheless, the results showed that Korean listeners may be developing new vowel categories for English vowels that are considered to be similar as well as new to Korean vowels.
Although the segmental properties of Kyungsang Korean have been known to be distinct from those of standard Seoul Korean, the increased influence of Seoul Korean on the regional variety casts doubt on the homogeneity of the dialect. The current study investigated whether the acoustic properties of the vowels and fricatives in Kyungsang Korean are retained by both younger and older generations through a comparison with Seoul Korean. Results of acoustic analyses with 38 female Korean speakers differing in dialect (Kyungsang, Seoul) and age (older, younger) showed that the younger Kyungsang speakers did not maintain the vowel and fricative features unique to their regional dialect, but rather approximate those of standard Seoul Korean. In the acoustic study of vowels, measures of formant frequencies showed that the younger Kyungsang and Seoul speakers share seven vowels, which result from the split of /ʌ/–/-i/ in Kyungsang and the merger of /e/–/ε/ in Seoul Korean. In the acoustic study of fricatives, measures of fricative duration and center of gravity showed that while the two-way fricative contrast is less distinct for older Kyungsang speakers, younger speakers clearly distinguish the two fricatives similar to Seoul speakers. As a consequence of these generational changes in Kyungsang Korean, the six vowels and lack of a fricative contrast exhibited by older generations have given way to seven vowels and a clear distinction between fortis and non-fortis fricatives for younger generations. Based on the similarities in segmental properties between younger Kyungsang and Seoul speakers, it appears that the diachronic sound change is underway in South Kyungsang Korean under the influence of Seoul Korean.
The contribution of consonantal and vocalic information to the perception of Korean initial stops
Journal of Phonetics, 2002
In word-initial position, Korean voiceless tense, lax, and aspirated stops di!er in acoustic properties that fall within the conventional &&consonant'' portion, as well as properties falling within the &&vowel'' portion beginning at voicing onset. Experiment 1 investigated the relative importance of these properties to stop identi"cation by testing Korean listeners' perception of cross-spliced stimuli whose initial consonant portion speci"ed one phonation type and whose vowel portion speci"ed another type. Experiment 2 tested whether the voiced vowel portion alone could cue the phonation type of a deleted initial consonant. The results of both experiments showed that vowel portions from syllables with lax onsets were necessary and largely su$cient to cue lax stops. For vowel portions from syllables with aspirated or tense onsets, the role of vocalic information in stop identi"cation depended on the particular combination of cross-spliced portions (Experiment 1); in the absence of any consonant portion (Experiment 2), both tense and aspirated vowel portions were usually heard as having had tense onsets. The perceptual patterns are interpreted in terms of the acoustic properties of the stimuli. Low vocalic f provided the most salient information for lax stops; tense and aspirated stop identi"cation depended on a combination of VOT, f , and H1!H2 characteristics. The perceptual dominance of f over VOT for lax stops is consistent with the size of the f di!erences in word-(and phrase-) initial position, as well as the prominent role of the resulting tonal patterns in Korean intonational phonology. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.
Cross-language vowel perception and production by Japanese and Korean learners of English
Journal of Phonetics, 1997
This paper investigates the roles of language-specific phonological learning and inherent phonetic contrastiveness in the perception of non-native vowels . Native speakers of Korean and Japanese , at two levels of English language experience , were assessed on the perception and production of Australian English monophthongal non-back vowels : / i : I e ( a : / . Prototypicality ratings , or perceived similarities of the foreign vowels to their nearest native (L1) phonemic targets , were also examined , to assess models of cross-language vowel perception . Korean is of interest because of a recent phonological merger of two front vowels ( / e / and / E / ) , which has produced a generation split among speakers of Seoul dialect above and below 45 -50 years of age (Hong , 1991) . The present study is the first reported case of how a phonemic merger , resulting in cross-generation dif ferences within a speech community , can influence speakers' perception and production of non-native vowels . The ef fects of L1 phonological learning on vowel perception were also observed in the tendency of the Japanese , but not the Korean listeners , to normalize tokens of non-native vowels for speaker-dependent durational variation , consistent with the respective phonological roles of vowel length in Japanese and Korean .