The Production of German Final Devoicing by Korean Speakers

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study investigates how Korean speakers produce German final devoicing and whether they have acquired voicing contrast in German obstruents. Korean learners of German
produced real German words with the underlying voicing distinction in the five phonological contexts. One is the non-neutralization environment and the others are potential neutralization contexts (syllable-final, word-final, and utterance-final positions). In order to see whether the underlying voicing contrast is retained on the surface, five acoustic correlates of voicing were measured (duration of the preceding consonant, duration of the preceding vowel, duration of stop closure or frication, duration of release portion, and F0 of the preceding vowel). First, the results showed that in syllable initial or intervocalic position, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, longer closure or frication duration, and longer release duration than their counterpart voiceless obstruents. Next, in syllable final, voiceless condition, the underlying voicing contrast was retained with respect to closure duration of the preceding consonant, and duration of the preceding vowel. Third, in a word-final position as well, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, and longer closure
or frication duration than their voiced counterparts. Finally, in utterance-final position, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, and longer closure or frication duration than their voiced counterparts. These findings suggest that even Korean L2 speakers show incomplete neutralization in German final devoicing like some of the native speakers of German and can acquire phonemic voicing contrast, which does not exist in their L1.