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KMID : 0917520000070010187
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Journal of Speech Sciences
2000 Volume.7 No. 1 p.187 ~ p.201
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A study on the foreign accent of Koreans
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Park Hee-Suk
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Abstract
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This study was done to investigate the English vowels in relation to the foreign accent. In this study, I also tried to find out the foreign accent of the English diphthong /o/ and front low vowel /??/ when Koreans speak English. The reason why I chose these vowels is that these vowels, /o/ and /??/, are difficult for Koreans to discern and pronounce. Koreans show a foreign accent in their pronunciation. In order to find out the reaseon for a Korean foreign accent, experiments were carried out with the help of acoustic instruments. According to the results of the experiment, Koreans showed a foreign accent in their English pronunciation of vowels in relation to their utterance positions. Americans showed a final lengthening effect but Koreans showed a final shortening effect. This means that Koreans showed a foreign accent in the final stressed syllable of a sentence. In additon to this, the duration of two English vowels, /o/ and /??/, showed considerably different features between Koreans and Americans. In fact, in the pronunciation of the diphthong /o/, the tongue moves from one position to another. The two articulations of a diphthong can be described as the nucleus plus a glide. However, most Koreans have no idea of this phenomenon and pronounce the diphthongs like two separae monophthongs. This causes a great difference in the lengths of English diphthong /o/ between Koreans and Americans.
Keywords: foreign accent, vowel length, English diphthong, utterance position
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