A Study on Perception and Production of Korean Focus Interrogative Sentence by French learners of Korean
This study is aimed at examining perception and production of focus in Korean, especially in interrogative sentences. In terms of discourse, ...
A Study on Perception and Production of Korean Focus Interrogative Sentence by French learners of Korean
This study is aimed at examining perception and production of focus in Korean, especially in interrogative sentences. In terms of discourse, the acquisition focus is an important role not only to distinguish meaning but also to convey meaning clearly. To conduct this study, I chose French learners of Korean as subjects of this research to see their perception and production patterns in Korean focus interrogative sentences in comparison with those of Korean native speakers. Furthermore I examined which factors; Korean level, length of learning Korean, length of living in Korea, degree of interest in intonation, etc, are correlated with the acquisition focus of Korean.
Chapter 1 presents the purpose and necessity of this research, reviewing previous relevant studies especially on the focus in Korean and the focus in second language acquisition.
In chapter 2 I examined closely the concept of focus, the prosodic feature of Korean and French in general terms and then compared the characteristic of rhythmical features of focus in Korean and French. According to previous studies, focus in Korean is mainly realized in these ways: increasing the focused word's pitch known as fundamental frequency or F0, and dephrasing after the focused word, which means F0 reaches the peak on the second syllable and gradually falls over many syllables after focus. I chose these two factors to analyze the intonation contour of a focused utterance. However, realization of focus in French is quite different. It is realized that there is a sharp rise on the final syllable of the focus word, that is the peak is reached at the end of the word and the post-focus sequence is deaccented and tonally plat known as plateau tone.
Chapter 3 describes the procedure of ‘focus perception test’, the result of the experiment, and the correlation analysis of 12 factors with perception. The test has 32 questions, consisting of two types of interrogative sentences: yes/no questions and wh- questions. It was carried out to 40 subjects, 20 Korean natives and 20 French learners of Korean, to see whether they are able distinguish the meaning of each focus. The result suggested that the learners cannot understand questions varying with focus as much as native speakers and have difficulty with listening to and perceiving focus articulation. With regard to the correlation analysis, there is a positive correlation between perception and sensitivity of sound and it is likely for someone who is more sensitive to sound to better perceive focus.
Chapter 4 explains the procedure of ‘focus production test’ to compare the native speakers and learners in patterns of focused utterances, and the result of the experiment and the correlation analysis of 12 factors with production. The subjects articulated a set of 24 dialogues twice, which contained 24 experiment sentences of yes/no interrogative sentences and wh- interrogative sentences. I compared their utterances, especially on frequency of the pitch peak and dephrasing. As a result, it turned out that the learners had narrower pitch range and more irregular dephrasing compared to the native speakers. Also I found that the learners tended to articulate plateau tone after focus instead of sharp falling tone which I assumed is influenced by ‘crosslinguistic influence’. With regard to the correlation analysis, there is a positive correlation between the production and length of learning Korean.
Chapter 5 explains the procedure of ‘focus recognition test' to see if the learners and native speakers have differences in focus production and if so, whether the utterance has any problems with communication. I conducted this test to 6 native Korean speakers with the recorded material produced by the second experiment. Each subjects chose the likert scale 4 point of intonation's nature as an impression evaluation to see if there is a correlation between the intonation's nature and intonation's perception. The result showed that the subjects recognized remarkably less yes/no interrogative sentences produced by the learners than those of native speakers. It indicated that the learners' focus production could cause problem in actual communication. With regard to the correlation analysis, there is a positive correlation between the nature of intonation and perception; it is likely that the more natural the intonation is, the better the native speaker will perceive their articulation.
To conclude, this study has the following significance in several aspects.
First, this study was performed towards French learners of Korean who had not sufficiently studied in the second language acquisition field. Second, this study demonstrated that there is a positive correlation between perception and sensitivity of sound and between the production and length of learning Korean. Third, this study will be able to supply fundamental data for phonetic education.
，韩语论文范文，韩语论文题目 |
