Masters Theses
Date of Award
5-1999
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Major
Speech Pathology
Major Professor
Carl W. Asp
Committee Members
Mary Erickson, Mark Hedrick, Sue Hume, Bernard Silverstein
Abstract
Ten native-Korean male speakers and ten native-American-English male speakers produced the target vowels /i,I,u,U/ in both words and sustained phonation. These recorded speech samples were judged by a panel of three expert judges for vowel identification. They also were analyzed by the experimenter to determine the formant fi-equencies (F1 and F2) and the vowel duration. All measurements had a high degree of reliability. Korean speakers produced the phonemic vowels, /i/ and /u/ with a high accuracy similar to that of native English speakers. Korean speakers produced the non-phonemic vowels, /I/ and /U/ with very low accuracy (high number of errors); these errors were not observed in the Americans. Korean errors for non-phonemic /I/ and /U/ were predictable errors, i.e., /i/ for /I/, and /u/ for /U/. In addition, Korean speakers had more errors for sustained vowel phonation than words. The first formant (F1) was a better predictor for both the Koreans' phonemic and non-phonemic vowel identification. The second formant (F2) and vowel duration were inconsistent predictors of vowel identification. The Korean phonetic patterns provided information for ESL teaching strategies.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Youngsun, "Phonetic patterns of Koreans producing English vowels, /i, I, u, U/, in words and in sustained phonation. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1999.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/9881