Production of English Voicing Contrast in Different Prosodic Conditions by Tonal and Non-tonal Korean Dialect Speakers

Abstract

The use of phonetic correlates of Korean stops was found to be different among different dialect speakers, showing that Seoul speakers rely on both voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (f0), while Kyungsang speakers mainly use VOT in a three-way contrast among voiceless stops of Korean. Drawing on the relative use of phonetic cues by Korean tonal and non-tonal dialect speakers, this paper investigates how the two dialect speakers use phonetic cues for voicing contrast of English stops across different prosodic phrasings and accent conditions. Seoul and Kyungsang dialect speakers were asked to produce English voiceless and voiced stops in IP (intonational phrase) and Wd (word) levels under accented and unaccented conditions. The two dialect speakers showed different use of phonetic cues to signal the voicing contrast of English stops across different prosodic conditions. Compared to Seoul speakers, Kyungsang dialect speakers put more weight on the use of the VOT to enhance the voicing contrast of English stops in the higher prosodic position and accent condition. On the other hand, Seoul and Kyungsang dialect speakers used the onset of f0 in contrasting English voiced and voiceless stops across different prosodic conditions in a similar way. Both dialect speakers showed the significant difference in the onset f0 for English voiced and voiceless stops only in the accented condition regardless of prosodic phrasing. (Hanyang University)