The purpose of this study is to provide the basic objective data regarding the characteristics of multi-cultural childrens’ diphthongs. The subjects were comprised of 18 children(average age: 7 years and 5 months) from Vietnamese-Korean families rep...
The purpose of this study is to provide the basic objective data regarding the characteristics of multi-cultural childrens’ diphthongs. The subjects were comprised of 18 children(average age: 7 years and 5 months) from Vietnamese-Korean families reportedly with no pronunciation problems and 18 children from just Korean families who all live in Daejon and other parts of Chungcheongnam-do. The selected diphthongs were: /j?, j?, jo, ju, j?, w?, w?, ?i/. The subjects were to imitate the target tokens or to read texts to say /diphthongs+da/.
The results are as follows: First, in case of the two diphthongs /j?/ and /j?/ the two groups of children showed a statistically meaningful difference in the F2 transition with respect to both the differentiation slope and the regression slope. By comparing and contrasting the diphthongs of the Korean language and the Vietnamese language, it was discovered that the counterparts of Korean /j?/ and /jo/ did not exist in the Vietnamese language. This fact may result in the slope difference between 2 groups.
Second, in case of the two diphthongs /j?/ and /j?/, the children from the Vietnamese-Korean families tended to have steeper slopes than those from the Korean families. It is deductible that the Vietnamese-Korean children move their tongues more excessively than the Korean ones when pronounce Korean diphthongs.