Perception and production of English vowels by Korean learners: A Case study

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between perception and production of English vowels by Korean EFL learners. To this end, 21 Korean students participated in perception and production tests in order to probe the extent to which the perception and production accuracies conform to each other. Overall, the participants had difficulty perceiving and producing English vowels since the mean accuracies of perception and production only amounted to 60%. The results showed that perception accuracy was not always higher than production accuracy, which runs counter to the traditional assumption that perception precedes production. Moreover, it was revealed that no significant correlation between perception and production was found, thus suggesting that perception and production may not be related and that perception and production capabilities may be developing independently depending on vowels and individuals. As for the results of the perception test, monophthong and short vowels were more difficult to perceive in relation to their counterpart diphthong and long vowels. Regarding the results of the production test, the participants were better at producing tense vowels than lax vowels. In addition, confusion matrixes for perception and production were presented and confusion patterns as well as the direction of confusability are discussed in detail.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 이주경, "한국인 영어 학습자와 원어민의 긴장 및 이완 모음 발화이해도: 고모음을 중심으로" 한국음운론학회 17 (17): 497-520, 2011

2 신승훈, "발화 및 인지 학습의 상호 전이 연구: 영어 음소 및 음소배열을 중심으로" 현대영미어문학회 30 (30): 47-73, 2012

3 홍순현, "The relative perceptual easiness between perceptually assimilated vowels for university-level Korean learners of American English and measurement bias in an identification test" 한국음운론학회 18 (18): 491-511, 2012

4 이신숙, "The relationship between perception and production in L2 English stress acquisition" 한국음운론학회 12 (12): 661-685, 2006

5 ESCUDERO, PAOLA, "The perception of English front vowels by North Holland and Flemish listeners: Acoustic similarity predicts and explains cross-linguistic and L2 perception" 40 : 280-288, 2012

6 ARCHIBALD, JOHN, "The learnability of English metrical parameters by adult Spanish speakers" 31 (31): 129-142, 1993

7 HAYES-HARB, RACHEL, "The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for native speakers of Mandarin: Production and perception of English word-final voicing contrasts" 36 : 664-679, 2008

8 윤관희, "The effects of neighborhood density and word frequency on the production of English-learning Korean speakers" 한국음운론학회 16 (16): 217-243, 2010

9 강지민, "The effect of pronunciation training on Korean adults learners’ perception and production of English Vowels," 한국외국어교육학회 13 (13): 45-65, 2006

10 ARCHIBALD, JOHN, "The acquisition of English stress by speakers of nonaccentual languages: Lexical storage versus computation of stress" 35 : 167-181, 1997

11 CHO, MI-HUI, "The acquisition of English onglides by EFL students in Korea" 56 (56): 79-96, 2001

12 SHELDON, AMY, "The acquisition of /r/ and /l/ by Japanese learners of English: Evidence that speech production can precede speech perception" 3 : 243-261, 1982

13 BRONSTEIN, ARTHUR. J., "The Pronunciation of American English: An Introduction to Phonetics" Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc 1960

14 한정임, "The Interlanguage Speech Intelligibility Benefit for Korean Learners of English: Perception of English Front Vowels" 한국영어학회 11 (11): 385-413, 2011

15 JUSCZYK, PETER, "The Discovery of Spoken Language" MIT Press 1997

16 CELCE-MURCIA, MARIANNE, "Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages" Cambridge University Press 1996

17 AVERY, PETER, "Teaching American English pronunciation" Oxford University Press 1992

18 FLEGE, JAMES EMIL, "Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems, In Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience: Issues in Cross-language Research" York Press 233-277, 1995

19 JOH, JEONGSOON, "Relationship between sound perception and production in L2 phonology acquisition" 17 (17): 127-145, 2001

20 성은경, "Phonotactic knowledge in L2 speech perception and production by Korean learners of English" 한국음운론학회 15 (15): 231-262, 2009

21 WOLFRAM, WALT, "Phonological Analysis: Focus on American English" Prentice Hall Regents 1982

22 윤은경, "Perceptual Training of L2 Segments" 한국외국어교육학회 14 (14): 65-87, 2007

23 이신숙, "Perception and production of English fricative sounds by advanced Korean EFL learners" 한국음운론학회 17 (17): 259-281, 2011

24 박미애, "On the acquisition of English word stress by adult Korean speakers" 한국외국어교육학회 13 (13): 141-169, 2006

25 TENCH, PAUL, "Non-native speakers' misperceptions of English vowels and consonants: Evidence from Korean adults in UK" 41 : 145-173, 2003

26 GNANADESIKAN AMALIA, "Markedness and faithfulness constraints in child phonology, In Constraints in Phonological Acquisition" Cambridge University 73-108, 2004

27 PRATOR, CLIFFORD H., "Manual of American English Pronunciation" Thomson 2007

28 BEST, T. CATHERINE, "Learning to perceive the sound pattern of English, In Advances in Infancy Research Vol. 8" Ablex Publish 217-304, 1994

29 Eun-kyung Sung, "L2 sound perception and productionby Korean adults and children" 한국음운론학회 12 (12): 577-596, 2006

30 DE JONG, KENNETH, "Generalization across Segments in Second Language Consonant Identification" 59 (59): 1-31, 2009

31 GIEGERICH, J. HEINZ, "English Phonology" Cambridge University Press 1992

32 CARR, PHILIP, "English Phonetics and Phonology: An Introduction" Blackwell Publishes 1999

33 초미희, "Efficacy of Teaching English Diphthongs [eɪ] and [oʊ] to Korean EFL Learners" 한국외국어교육학회 16 (16): 123-146, 2009

34 FLEGE, JAMES EMIL, "Effects of experience on non-native speakers’ production and perception of English vowels" 25 : 437-470, 1997

35 GUION, SUSAN G., "Early and late Spanish-English bilinguals’ acquisition of English word stress patterns" 7 : 207-226, 2004

36 HOLBROOK, ANTHONY, "Diphthong formants and their movements" 5 : 38-58, 1962

37 PATER, JOE, "Bridging the gap between receptive and productive development with minimally violable constraints, In Constraints in Phonological Acquisition" Cambridge University 219-244, 2004

38 초미희, "Asymmetries in the perception and production of the English incomplete off-gliding diphthongs by Korean speakers" 한국음운론학회 14 (14): 483-499, 2008

39 EDWARDS, HAROLD T., "Applied Phonetics: The Sounds of American English" Thomson 2003

40 ShinsookLee, "Acquisition of English Consonant Clusters Among Korean EFL Learners" 한국언어학회 27 (27): 439-472, 2002

41 HILLENBRAND, JAMES, "Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels" 97 (97): 3099-3111, 1995

42 TSUKADA, KIMIKO, "A developmental study of English vowel production and perception by native Korean adults and children" 33 : 263-290, 2005

43 LADEFOGED, PETER, "A course in phonetics" Thomson 2006

44 YANG, BYUNGGON, "A comparative study of American English and Korean vowels produced by male and female speakers" 24 : 245-261, 1996

45 이신숙, "A Positional Effect in the Perception of English Anterior Obstruents" 한국영어학회 6 (6): 849-867, 2006