This thesis deals with /t/ errors by Korean middle school students. For this, I plan determine how the students pronounce the allophones of /t/ like aspirate, flap, unaspirate and glottal stop, what kinds of errors are shown and if there are any diffe...
This thesis deals with /t/ errors by Korean middle school students. For this, I plan determine how the students pronounce the allophones of /t/ like aspirate, flap, unaspirate and glottal stop, what kinds of errors are shown and if there are any differences among students who take the level-based classes. Also, I hope that this thesis can help other researchers for the continuation of this or similar studies.
Korean students have been affected by american English and it has affected the pronunciation of /t/, but Korean middle school students do not understand the differences among the allophones of /t/ and they pronounce them in the wrong ways because /t/ has the most allophones.
Therefore, this thesis focuses on the allophones of /t/ like aspirate, flap, glottal stop, unaspirated sound and voiced sound. Audio environment consists of the words with various /t/ allophones which occur before three maximally different vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/. Test subjects are two English native speakers and 18 Korean Middle school students. The students are divided into upper, Intermediate and elementary classes. The following results are drawn from the analysis of the phonetic experiment.
First, the differences among middle school students' pronunciations were not big. Even the upper class students' pronunciations were not as good as the English native speakers because the level-based classes were divided by a written test and not by a speaking test.
Second, the values of VOT by the following vowels were different but there was no big difference because they did not affect the /t/ that much. There was no big difference between the English native speakers and Korean middle school students in the case of word-initial /t/, but there was big difference between English native speakers and Korean middle school students in the case of s/t/. Therefore, students need some correction in the case of s/t/.
Third, with regard to the flap, students pronounced only one word well. That was computer. Except that word, almost all students pronounced the flap as an aspirated [th]. The assumption is that students do not know what the flap is because they make errors in pronouncing even familiar words with the /t/ between stressed vowels and unstressed vowels.
Fourth, Korean middle school students have difficulty in pronouncing the word final /t/. Many of them pronounced the words with final /t/ differently from the native speakers. Upper-level students tended to pronounce the word final /t/ correctly but lower lever students are attested to apply their native phonological rules to the pronunciation of English. Specifically, they pronounced the final /t/ as /n/ when it is followed by a word beginning with /n/. This error is attributed to the Korean nasal assimilation rule: t→n / _ n.
Last, Korean middle school students do not quite know that a glottal stop is, thus they pronounced a glottal stop into aspirate. Only one girl in upper class and one boy in intermediate class pronounced glottal stop once in three times separately. Therefore, students need some correction in the case of glottal stops.
According to this research, I determined howthe /t/ is pronounced in the various kinds of environments. I hope that the teachers will not stick to old theories anymore and provide the students with more opportunities for more speaking and better pronunciation at the key spots.
，韩语论文，韩语论文范文 |
