An acoustic analysis of Korean EFL learners’ English prosody

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study compares prosodic features of English pronunciation in a Korean student cohort from 2000 with one from 2012 in order to investigate accent improvement in the latter that may be attributable to receiving English education from an earlier age, following its formal introduction in elementary schools. The data were collected from recordings of 94 speakers: 40 students who entered university in 2000, 40 students who did so in 2012, and 14 native English speakers serving as a control group. The data revealed that the student group of 2012 has better English prosody than that of 2000, although the degree by which it was better varied by gender. In terms of the acoustic features of stress, the ratios of stressed to unstressed vowels were significantly higher in duration and intensity but not in F0. The female group of 2012 showed better pronunciation in duration, while the male group pronounced better in intensity. With regard to syllable modification, vowel insertion decreased remarkably. In addition, speech rate and pitch range significantly improved for the female group but did so to a lesser extent for the male group. This study suggests that elementary school English education has had a positive effect on Korean EFL students’ English pronunciation, and also that this effect may differ by gender, a finding that may have implications for the potential usefulness of gender-specific teaching methods.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Literature review
• 3. Methodology
• 4. Results and discussion
• 5. Conclusion
• REFERENCES