The purpose of this study is first to compare acoustic phonetic features of Korean single vowels pronounced by Chinese Korean learners with those of Korean pronounced by Korean, and then to analyze them more scientifically and more objectively using an experimental phonetic method; Praat, further, analyze pronunciation gathered by the experiment basing on independent t-test. Finally to compare the vowel space between the two groups.
In chapter Ⅰ, we elaborate the objective and scope of this study and chapter Ⅱ, introduce theoretical backgrounds.
The main part of this study divides into four chapters: experiment, results and analysis.
In chapter Ⅲ, I explain the method of this study including subjects, procedure, analysis and handling. The experiment take effect with 30 Chinse Korean learner and 30 Korean. In each group, half are female and the others are male. The Chinese group divided into three sub-group again according to their study level : beginning, intermediate, high. In each group, there are five members. This study let the subjects read some passage including Korean monophthong at comfortable condition. The reading passage consists of three section: Korean monophthong(a, i, u, ae, o, ?, ?), sentences including meaningless words which contain each monophthong and sentences including meaningful words which contain each monophthong. Researcher recorded the reading passage with praat and analyze Korean vowels contained in the passage especially F1 and F2 by the means of PASW and then figure out the vowel space.
The results are on chapter Ⅳ. First, the researcher examined the differences of the F1, F2 and vowel space on Korean single vowels between two groups. The results are summed up as follow: (1) Korean male''s vowel space area was 377937.40 In the Chinese male beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 176144.75, 366929.51 in the intermediate group, 343935.55 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /u, ae, ?/ and at F1, F2 were /a, i, o, ?/. (2) Korean female''s vowel space area was 558525.25. In the Chinese female beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 444762.75, 515764.43 in the intermediate group, 521075.54 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /u, ae/, F2 were /i, ?/ and F1, F2 were /a, o, ?/. Next, the researcher examined the differences of the F1, F2 and vowel space on Korean single vowels included in meaningless words. The results are below: (1) Korean male''s vowel space area was 360882.10. In the Chinese male beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 168754.30, 234703.73 in the intermediate group, 244724.50 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /a, i, u, ?/, F2 were /?/ and F1, F2 were /ae, o/. (2) Korean female''s vowel space area was 361120.50. In the Chinese female beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 239653.70, 247968.12 in the intermediate group, 254837.30 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /i/, F2 were /u/ and F1, F2 were /a, ae, o, ?, ?/. Lastely, the researcher examined the differences of the F1, F2 and vowel space on Korean single vowels included in meaningful words. The results are listed below: (1) Korean male''s vowel space area was 231020.50. In the Chinese male beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 169061.70, 204249.90 in the intermediate group, 221751.00 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /i, u, ?/, and F1, F2 were /a, o, ?/. (2) Korean female''s vowel space area was 441310.30. In the Chinese female beginning level group, the area of vowel space is 314945.60, 355996.70 in the intermediate group, 364819.20 in the high level group. As a result of t-test, the vowels which showed statistically meaningful difference at F1 were /i, ?/, F2 were /?/ and F1, F2 were /a, ae/.
Chapter Ⅴ and Ⅵ are the discussion about results and conclusion. In this study, the researcher analyzed F1 and F2 on Korean vowels which are pronounced by Chinese Korean learner and Korean by praat and calculated vowel space. First, Chines Korean learners pronounced Korean vowel more high and front vowel than Korean. In addition Chinese Korean learners could not distinguish the phonetic values between /u, o, ?, ?/ and it is because there are no such monophthong(/?, ?/) in Chines. Second, due to the different study period, male Chinse Korean learners pronounced Korean single vowels more accurately than females. According to study level, the higher the subjects study level was, the more accurate the pronunciation was and the wider the vowel space was.
There are high demand of co-work between Korean education and Speech-language Pathology. In this situation this study can be the meaningful basic material. Besides this study can propose that the order to educate Korean vowels to Chinese Korean learners.