Acoustic Realization of English Word Stress Produced by English and Korean Speakers: Suprasegmental and Segmental Differences

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2017 영어학연구 Vol.23 No.3

This study examines how Korean-speaking learners of English produce English word stress in comparison to native English speakers. Participants were trained with nonword stress-minimal pairs (e.g., /ˈkʌnædʒau/ vs. /kʌˈnædʒu/) that do not carry reduced vowels in unstressed syllables. Acoustic-phonetic analyses on the suprasegmental and segmental correlates of English word stress revealed that Korean-speaking learners of English were very similar to native English speakers in their production of suprasegmental cues, with longer duration, higher fundamental frequency (F0), and greater intensity in stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables. However, compared to native English speakers, Korean speakers produced smaller vowel spaces. In addition, unlike native English speakers who often reduced vowels in unstressed syllables (e.g., schwa and its variants), Korean-speaking learners of English didn’t make significant vowel quality change in unstressed syllables. These findings indicate that, even with the exposure to L2 English dominant environment, Korean speakers’ production of English word stress is still influenced by L1 phonology at both suprasegmental and segmental levels.

The Prosody-semantic Interface in the Resolution of L2 Syntactic Ambiguity

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2019 영어학연구 Vol.25 No.3

The present study examines the interface between semantic and prosodic boundary information in the resolution of L2 syntactic ambiguity. In a cross-modal auditory comprehension experiment, 5 native English speakers as a control group and 20 Korean learners of English listened to syntactically ambiguous English sentences with or without semantically and prosodically-biased information. The results showed that both native English speakers and L2 learners utilized semantic and prosodic information to resolve the syntactic ambiguities. Different types of semantic information yielded different effects on the use of prosodic boundary cues in both groups. The native and non-native groups, however, were different in their preferences for the use of semantic and prosodic cues, especially when the two cues were in conflict. Native English listeners relied more on semantic cues than on prosodic cues to resolve the syntactic ambiguity when the two cues were conflicting, and they utilized prosodic information more reliably only when the syntactic ambiguity was not resolved with semantic information. Whereas, L2 learners’ parsing was influenced by the prosodic cues even when the semantic cues clearly directed the meaning of the ambiguous sentence. The results indicate that L2 sentence processing can be accounted for by the universal interactive-constraint model (MacDonald et al. 1994). However, L2 auditory sentence processing is different from L1 in that L2 learners are more susceptible to cognitive interference from conflicting cues than native speakers (Cunnings 2016).

Relationships among Individual Differences, Learning Styles, Learning Strategies and EFL Learners’ Speaking Fluency

( Jeonghwa Shin ) 21세기영어영문학회 2018 영어영문학21 Vol.31 No.4

The present study examines the relationships between individual learner differences, learning styles, learning strategies, and learners’ speaking fluency in English as a foreign language (EFL). To investigate the relationships, a questionnaire that asked about five individual learner differences (age of acquisition, the nature of prior learning, frequency of in-class presentations, motivation, and study hours), learning styles, and learning strategies was given to 54 Korean learners of English. The results of correlation analyses revealed a positive correlation between learners’ integrative motivation and English fluency, and between study hours and English fluency. Learning styles did not show any correlations with English fluency. However, language learning strategies, especially memory, cognitive, metacogntive, and compensatory learning strategies, were positively correlated with L2 English fluency, suggesting they play a mediating role between learners' individual differences and their English fluency. Given the findings, instructors are encouraged to help learners become aware of language learning strategies to improve their fluency in English that they can employ in class and on their own.

Trypsin Detection Using Electrochemical Reduction-based Redox Cycling

Jeonghwa Shin,Kiryeon Park,박선화,양해식 대한화학회 2021 Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society Vol.42 No.1

It is more difficult to obtain high signal-to-background ratios in biosensors using electrochemical reduction than using electrochemical oxidation. Here, we present a method for trypsin detection using electrochemical reduction-based redox cycling. Electrochemical-enzymatic (EN) redox cycling and electrochemical-chemical (EC) redox cycling for trypsin detection were tested and compared. Trypsin cleaves a peptide bond in an electrochemically inactive p-aminophenol (AP)-conjugated oligopeptide, and this cleavage results in the release of electrochemically active AP, which is involved in EN and EC redox-cycling reactions. Horseradish peroxidase and cytochrome c (Cyt c) were tested as redox enzymes for EN redox cycling involving a redox enzyme and H2O2. Cyt c was better than horseradish peroxidase, as its use resulted in lower background levels. The trypsin detection based on the EN redox cycling involving Cyt c and H2O2 (~50?ng/mL) exhibited lower detection limits than the detection based on EC redox cycling involving IO3? (~100?ng/mL), because of higher signal levels.

Morphological Transfer in the Development of L2 English Dative Constructions

Jeonghwa Shin 서울대학교 인지과학연구소 2022 Journal of Cognitive Science Vol.23 No.4

Within a processing-based framework of L2 acquisition, we revise the morphological transfer hypothesis to explain how Korean learners of English process English dative constructions. Our revised morphological transfer hypothesis holds that a combination of L1 Korean morphemes that are not required for the well-formedness of L2 English sentences will be negatively transferred and cause processing difficulty in the grammatical judgment of L2 sentences. The accusative marker, the dative marker, and the additional verbal morpheme cwu- (only in benefactive double object constructions) are required to build well-formed dative constructions in Korean. However, such morphological cues are absent in English dative counterparts, which potentially impedes the processing of English dative sentences by Korean learners of English. We predicted that Korean L2 English learners’ difficulty would depend on the number of such impeding factors and the learners’ English proficiency level - lower-proficiency learners would have more difficulties than higher-proficiency learners with English datives containing multiple impeding factors, while learners would be better at processing datives with one impeding factor than the ones with multiple impeding factors. Results from a grammatical judgment task (GJT) supported the revised hypothesis, suggesting that the presence of overt morphological cues in L1 dative sentences disturbs the grammatical acceptability of L2 counterparts without such cues.

Bidirectional Influence of L1 and L2 on Syntactic Parsing in L2 learners

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2014 영어학연구 Vol.20 No.1

The present study explores bidirectional influence of L1 and L2 on syntactic parsing by examining parsing preferences in English monolingual speakers, Korean monolingual speakers and Korean-speaking learners of English with some exposure to an L2 English environment. Six different types of English syntactic ambiguity were given to English monolingual speakers and Korean-English L2 learners. Contrary to the prediction that English and Korean speakers would show different baseline parsing preferences, Korean-speaking learners of English were similar to native English speakers in their parsing of the ambiguous constituents. In another experiment where Korean monolingual speakers and Korean-speaking learners of English read Korean equivalents of the English ambiguities, the L2 learners were different from Korean monolingual speakers in their parsing preferences, being more like native English speakers. The results provide evidence for Dussias and Sagarra (2007)'s claim that bilinguals' parsing experience with L2 sentences affects parsing strategies that bilinguals employ for the corresponding L1 sentences, suggesting that language exposure and experience influence the sentence parsing mechanism that operates for both L1 and L2.

The Production Effect on L2 English Lexical Access and Retrieval

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2018 영어학연구 Vol.24 No.3

The present study examines the production effect on explicit memory of second language (L2) words. Three groups of Korean-speaking learners of English read one of the three lists of 24 words - two pure lists (with either silent or aloud reading) and a mixed list (with both silent and aloud reading). A free recall demonstrated the production effect, with greater recall of the words that were read aloud than the words that were read silently. However, the production benefit was found in tandem with the memory loss for silent items, especially when the items were tested in a mixed design. A subsequent recognition experiment also revealed the similar results in accuracy and response times. L2 learners were better and more accurate at recognizing the words that they encoded with active articulation act rather than the words that they read passively. The results suggest that the production benefit is enduring and generalized to the retention of linguistic information in an L2.

Asymmetric Development of Perception and Production of Lexical Stress in Korean-Speaking Learners of English

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2015 영어학연구 Vol.21 No.3

The present study explores perceptual processing and production of English lexical stress in L2 English learners whose L1 employs a fixed rhythmic pattern at the lexical level. Twenty three native English speakers and 19 Korean-speaking learners of English were trained to learn 16 stress near-minimal pairs (/ʤákunaɪ/ vs. /ʤakúnə/) with picture referents. The acoustic analyses of productions revealed the L2 learners used fundamental frequency, loudness and durational cues to indicate alternative prominence of the first two syllables as did English L1 speakers. In the eye-tracking perception experiment, however, Korean L2 learners' identification of the target word was delayed until the disambiguating last syllable, whereas English L1 speakers exploited lexical stress information of the first two syllables to find the target word. The results indicate that production and perceptual processing of lexical stress in L2 word learning is developed asymmetrically.

Underlying Factors in Non-native Listeners’ Recognition of High-Variability Speech

Jeonghwa Shin 한국영어학학회 2021 영어학연구 Vol.27 No.3

The present study explores how non-native listeners recognize high-variability L2 speech by the function of task paradigm, masking type, and individual listener differences. Eighteen Korean-speaking learners of English who were different in English fluency, immersion experience, and working memory capacity participated in a series of four sentence recall tasks - one was presented in a single sentence paradigm with single-talker babble and the other three were presented in a sequential sentence paradigm (with single-talker babble vs. multi-talker babble with 8 dialects vs. mixed-gender multi-talker babble with 8 dialects). The arcsine-transformed accuracy of recalled keywords indicates that the sequential sentence paradigm provides a more sensitive measure to the cognitive processing load required for high-variability speech recognition than the traditional recall paradigm. Of the two indexical maskers (talker dialect and gender), only dialect variety significantly increased listeners’ processing load during L2 speech recognition. Advanced non-native listeners were better at recognizing words in both low- and high-variability L2 speech than less advanced non-native listeners, suggesting L2 fluency is a more reliable index of non-native listeners’ ability to recognize variable L2 speech than other listener factors such as immersion experience and working memory capacity.

대학 영어토의 수업 모형과 학습자 인식 연구

신정화 ( Jeonghwa Shin ) 21세기영어영문학회 2021 영어영문학21 Vol.34 No.4

This study introduces a college English discussion course and examines learners’ perceptions of the course in terms of course satisfaction, learning efficiency, and its limitations. Fifty-two first year students enrolled in a required English discussion course participated in a survey at the end of the semester. In class, students learned and practiced 7 discussion principles and processes, participating in every step of each discussion in varying group sizes. They also learned key English phrases that can be used to initiate, maintain, and close a discussion before practicing discussions. In the mixed survey with 5-point Likert scale and open-ended questions, students showed a high degree of satisfaction with the course and reflected that their English vocabulary, expressions, and delivery skills had improved through the discussion practice. In addition, they considered that the group discussions provided a good ground for creative and logical thinking as well as comprehensive thinking on the issues discussed and thus their cognitive abilities could be improved. To better design the course, however, it is suggested to design a more active learning environment that allows students to make decisions on discussion topics of interest to them and not to restrict language use to the key expressions learned in class.