The purpose of this study is to analyze the prosodic characteristics of Korean read speech by Chinese who have learned Korean at beginner level from the viewpoint of acoustic phonetics and to examine whether the acoustic parameters adequately explain the difference between Chinese and Korean groups. According to the analysis, statistically significant prosodic differences were observed between Chinese learners of Korean and native Korean speakers in accentual phrase(AP), intonation phrase(IP), and entire sentence.
In the accentual phrase tier, Chinese learners of Korean showed an error in recognizing the H tone when the first consonant of the initial accentual phrase is a lenis, whereas Korean native speakers recognized the L tone without an exception. Also, Chinese learners of Korean recognized the second tone as relatively lower than the first tone when the first consonant of the initial accentual phrase was a fortis. By contrast, Korean native speakers recognized the second tone as relatively higher than the first tone. In terms of the F0 slope and the q-tone slope of accentual phrase, Chinese learners of Korean showed steeper slopes than Korean native speakers. This is because Chinese learners of Korean use more fluctuations in intonation of accentual phrases than Korean native speakers. The F0 slope and the q-tone slope, which are frame-based slope parameters, adequately explain the characteristics of slope in accentual phrases between speakers from China and Korea.
In the intonation phrase tier, it was observed that the degree of final lengthening of the initial intonation phrase among Chinese learners of Korean was shorter than that of Korean native speakers. Also, it was found that compared to Korean native speakers, the ratio of IP duration to sentence duration was lower for Chinese learners of Korean. This finding demonstrates that Chinese learners of Korean recognize reading by punctuating more often than Korean native speakers. It also indicated that the mean absolute slope, F0 slope, and q-tone slope of the intonation phrase was generally steeper for Chinese learners of Korean than Korean native speakers. The present study confirmed that, compared to the frame-based F0 slope, the frame-based q-tone slope, which reflects the fine pitch difference within accentuated phrase, is a more appropriate acoustic phonetics parameter to adequately explain the slope characteristics of intonation phrase.
In the sentence tier, it was observed that the total speech time, articulation time and pause duration was longer among Chinese learners of Korean than Korean native speakers, indicating that sentence rate and articulation rate are slower among Chinese learners of Korean than Korean native speakers. In addition, declination in a sentence was observed from both Chinese learners of Korean and Korean native speakers and the slope became gradual as the number of accentuated phrases in a sentence increased. The declination slope was gentler for Chinese learners of Korean than Korean native speakers. This can be viewed as the result of a physiological aspect of Chinese native speakers. Their speech energy can be sustained longer due to their speech pattern which has many pause durations and accentuated phrases. The declination slope, which indicates the declination in a sentence, is best measured by the pitches of the second syllable assigned with the highest tone in accentuated phrases and the last syllable which determines the actual degree of declination in a sentence. This declination slope adequately explains the prosodic difference between Chinese and Korean.
This study analyzed the prosodic characteristics of Korean read speech by Chinese learners of Korean from the viewpoint of acoustic phonetics. However, the study is limited in that the Korean proficiency of the subjects was restricted to elementary level and the study only describes the prosodic differences revealed outwardly by focusing on the production of Chinese learners. Nevertheless, this study is significant in that it is empirical research that provides objective explanatory power based on appropriate statistical tests and it improves the understanding of the immediacy of prosodic differences between speakers of two Asian countries through visual presentations of various analysis results.