This study examined Korean learners' production of intervocalic English biconsonantal clusters consisting of /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, or /[eng] / followed by /l/ or /[voiced alveolar approximant]/. The results of the production experiment showed several factors influencing Korean learners' production. First, Korean learners' production was…

This study investigated the influence of L1 allophonic rule, L1 segment articulation, and gender in Korean learners' production of English /s/ in two different contexts (i.e., before a high front vowel vs. elsewhere) and at three different proficiency levels in English (i.e., low vs. intermediate vs. high). The influence of the Korean allophonic…

This article explores the teaching of an acceptable alternative articulation to correct the mispronunciation of the English /l/ sound by speakers of some Asian languages and dialects who struggle to differentiate the English liquids /r/ and /l/. Although teaching pronunciation, and especially segmentals, has generated controversy over whether…

Research attempting to understand the intermediate stages of first-language acquisition and disordered speech has led to the discovery of covert contrast. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable difference between phonemes that is produced by a language learner, but in a way that cannot be heard readily by a listener of the target language.…

This study investigated where the consonantal constrictions take place when Korean coronal obstruents are articulated since there is disagreement over the place of articulation of these consonants. Unlike other studies in Korean phonetics, which focus on various acoustic features, the current study used static palatography (SPG) in the form of…

Links between perception and production were investigated for two adult native speakers of Korean who participated in electropalatographic (EPG) treatment designed to teach phonological and articulatory contrasts between English /s/ - /[esh]/, /z/ - /[voiced palato-alveolar affricate]/, and /l/ - /[alveolar approximant]/. Participants were…

This study examined the quality of three English vowels and their Korean counterpart vowels by measuring F1/F2 frequencies and investigating how the different vowel qualities influenced consonant voicing. Participants were six native speakers (NS) of English and six NS of Korean who were graduate students at a large U.S. university. F1/F2…

A test of the ability of adult Japanese and Korean students to perceive correct and misarticulated /r/ involved tape recordings of native English speakers and the students themselves. Comparison of the results "subjects made more errors perceiving their own speech" with similar research on first- and second-language acquisition has pedagogical…