Korean Heritage Speakers Research Articles

Perception of speaker identity for bilingual voices

Voice is often described as an “auditory face”; it provides important information concerning speaker identity (e.g., age, height, sex). The acoustic properties related to voice can also vary substantially within a speaker based on one’s emotional, social, and linguistic states. Recent work suggests that biological components have the greatest impact in the acoustic variability found in voice, followed by language-specific factors and speaking style [Lee & Kreiman, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 153, A295 (2023)]. The effects of such within- vs. between-speaker acoustic variability on the perception of speaker identity, however, have not been explored. The present study therefore examines the perception of speaker identity in bilingual voices. The prediction is that acoustic variability will also affect speaker identity perception: voices will be discriminated best for between-speaker samples, while within-speaker variability will not affect perception of speaker to the same extent. To test this prediction, listeners participated in a voice discrimination task using bilingual voice data produced by Korean heritage speakers across different languages (Korean, English) and speech styles (read, extemporaneous). The data will be analyzed to measure the effects of speaker, language, and speech style on voice discrimination. The results will be reported in relevance to the relationship between bilingualism and speech style on voice quality and speaker identity.

Good-enough processing, home language proficiency, cognitive skills, and task effects for Korean heritage speakers' sentence comprehension.

The present study investigates how heritage speakers conduct good-enough processing at the interface of home-language proficiency, cognitive skills (inhibitory control; working memory), and task types (acceptability judgement; self-paced reading). For this purpose, we employ two word-order patterns (verb-final vs. verb-initial) of two clausal constructions in Korean-suffixal passive and morphological causative-which contrast pertaining to the mapping between thematic roles and case-marking and the interpretive procedures driven by verbal morphology. We find that, while Korean heritage speakers demonstrate the same kind of acceptability-rating behaviour as monolingual Korean speakers do, their reading-time patterns are notably modulated by construction-specific properties, cognitive skills, and proficiency. This suggests a heritage speaker's ability and willingness to conduct both parsing routes, induced by linguistic cues in a non-dominant language, which are proportional to the computational complexity involving these cues. Implications of this study are expected to advance our understanding of a learner's mind for underrepresented languages and populations in the field.

Acoustic adjustments of clear speech in Korean heritage vowel production

Aims and objectives: This study aims to explore the segmental and suprasegmental acoustic adjustments in the clear speech of Korean vowels produced by English-dominant Korean-heritage speakers and native Korean speakers. Methodology: Native Korean students at a university in the United States and Korean-American students enrolled in an intermediate Korean language course at the same university read isolated sentences featuring three representative Korean vowels (i.e., /i, a, u/), once in casual speech, and once in clear speech. They repeated this sequence five times. Data and analysis: The vowel space of the first and second formants (F1 and F2) in the clear speech was expanded for both heritage and native speakers, and the heritage vowel space was more fronted than the native vowel space, suggesting the influence of English among heritage speakers. However, the peripheral extent and direction in the clear speech and the dominant language effect in heritage speakers were inconsistent across the vowels. Also, pitch dynamics were highly significant in clear speech, exhibiting the salient fundamental frequency (F0) rising at the syllable offset for both heritage and native speakers. The vowel length enhancement in the clear speech was also confirmed in both native and heritage Korean vowels. Conclusions: The results confirmed the cross-language tendency in clear speech to induce the modification of vowel quality, pitch, and duration, which also applies to Korean heritage vowel production. Furthermore, the asymmetrical acoustic modifications across the vowels in heritage clear speech support the Speech Learning Model (SLM) prediction. Originality and implications: The findings present new data for the clear speech effects of Korean heritage vowel production and a further enhancement strategy of syllable offset pitch raising in clear speech for both native and heritage groups. The results contribute to the theoretical implication of bilingualism by connecting the SLM premise and heritage clear speech.

What does it mean to sound Korean-Canadian, eh? A comparative study on Canadian English vowel space

Existing research on Canadian English shows evidence of dialectal differences between regions. Not only are there differences based on region, but groups (e.g., heritage, immigrant) in these respective regions are not participating in the ongoing sound changes of Canadian English (e.g., Canadian Raising) to the same degree. In respect to sound changes, studies have found that some sounds are undergoing more drastic change than others, young female groups are usually more advanced in the progress, and that the largest heritage groups in major Canadian cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal) are participating in sound changes—with some reported differences in vowel quality. This study extends the existing literature on Canadian sound changes by investigating the acoustic vowel quality of Korean heritage speakers in Vancouver. The speech of 11 monolingual Canadian English speakers and 22 Korean heritage speakers were analyzed for specific sound patterns (/u/-fronting, /æ/ raising) as well as overall vowel space area. This study finds that Korean heritage speakers also participate in the ongoing sound changes (e.g., /u/-fronting) but there are also some notable differences in their vowel acoustics, when compared to their monolingual counterparts.

Crosslinguistic differences in cue primacy affect bilinguals' discrimination performance

Onset f0 – pitch at the onset of the vowel following the consonant – is an important cue to laryngeal stop distinctions in Korean, especially the lenis-aspirated contrast, while in English onset f0 plays only a secondary role in distinguishing voiced and voiceless stops. The current study investigates to what extent Korean heritage speakers (n = 29) who are English dominant can perceptually discriminate Korean lenis and aspirated stops differing acoustically only in terms of onset f0, but not in terms of VOT. Heritage speakers’ performance is compared to that of Korean-immersed native speakers as a control group (n = 29). We hypothesized that heritage speakers would experience more difficulty than Korean-immersed speakers in using onset f0 as the sole cue to laryngeal contrast, due to the influence from English, where VOT dominates onset f0 as a cue to voicing. The results of a mixed-effects logistic regression model confirmed that heritage speakers were less accurate in the lenis-aspirated discrimination task than Korean-immersed speakers, providing support to the hypothesis that bilinguals’ perception of their first language speech can be subject to crosslinguistic influence from their second language.

Language maintenance and ethnic identity among Korean heritage speakers in the Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii)

ABSTRACT This study investigated heritage language (HL) maintenance and ethnic identity among Korean heritage speakers in the Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii), an understudied population in the field. It focused on patterns of language use and factors (i.e. age at immigration (AI), self-rated language proficiency, and frequency of language use) influencing Korean heritage speakers’ self-defined identity. A total of 167 Korean immigrant adults aged 18–40 completed an online survey regarding their HL (i.e. Korean) and majority language (ML) (i.e. English) use in everyday contexts (e.g. with family members and at work), their self-rated HL and ML proficiency, and their sense of identity. The survey results showed high HL use with parents/grandparents at home, high self-rated HL proficiency, and a strong sense of identity as Korean, among participants across the three locations. However, as with other ethnic minority communities, they tended to use ML more than HL in most of their daily activities, and with their siblings and friends, indicating a perceptible shift towards ML. This supports the findings of previous studies conducted in North America. Notably, this study found that AI was significantly correlated to the participants’ self-identification. Regional differences were discussed, along with recommendations for future research.

Heritage learners are more sensitive to effects of script: Evidence from Korean

This study reports on the processing differences of script between native (or L1) and heritage speakers of Korean to provide further theoretical insight into heritage languages. We address questions concerning the effects of script and how this varies depending on differential proficiencies in the written language. We find that heritage speakers of Korean are sensitive to different aspects of written Korean (Hangul and Hanja), during visual word recognition, compared to native speakers. That is, factors causing interference for native speakers facilitate processing for heritage speakers. This suggests that (1) written language does play key role in lexical knowledge, and (2) there are potentially important differences between native and heritage speakers in how written language shapes lexical knowledge.

한국어 계승어 화자의 발화오류와 사용 특징 연구

This study investigated the types of speech errors by Korean heritage speakers. A total of 238 speech errors were obtained from 14 groups of Korean heritage speakers in their twenties or thirties living in the USA, and we they were classified according to their linguistic components and forms of errors. The rates and types of the errors were compared with those of native speaker groups. The overall results led us to the claim that their errors were made not randomly, but in systematic ways, which reflected their knowledge of Korean. Such comparisons provide some linguistic clues for the process of language production and development. Considering the lack of studies on Korean speech errors made by native Koreans and heritage speakers, this research provides valuable data and analyses for researchers of speech error patterns, speech production modeling, language development, and/or heritage speakers’ linguistic system.

The Receptive and Productive Knowledge of Collocations: The Effects of Frequency, Exposure, and Phonological Short-term Memory

The present study examined the receptive and productive knowledge of collocations of second language (L2) and heritage speakers of Korean and also investigated the influence of phrasal frequency, exposure to Korean, and phonological short-term memory (PSTM). Seventeen L2 learners and 14 heritage speakers of Korean were tested on 30 Korean noun-verb collocations, which varied in phrasal frequency, using an acceptability judgment task and a collocation completion test. The results showed that both L2 and heritage speakers demonstrated considerable receptive knowledge of Korean collocations while productive knowledge was more limited for both groups. The mixed-effects modelling results of four independent variables of interest (i.e., phrasal frequency, exposure via media, academic use, and PSTM) showed that phrasal frequency was the only significant predictor of receptive knowledge of collocations for both L2 and heritage speakers; none of the four factors had a significant impact on productive knowledge of collocations for either group. These data are discussed in relation to previous studies on collocation development of L2 learners and heritage speakers.

Crosslinguistic Influence in the Discrimination of Korean Stop Contrast by Heritage Speakers and Second Language Learners

The present study examines the extent of crosslinguistic influence from English as a dominant language in the perception of the Korean lenis–aspirated contrast among Korean heritage speakers in the United States (N = 20) and English-speaking learners of Korean as a second language (N = 20), as compared to native speakers of Korean immersed in the first language environment (N = 20), by using an AX discrimination task. In addition, we sought to determine whether significant dependencies could be observed between participants’ linguistic background and experiences and their perceptual accuracy in the discrimination task. Results of a mixed-effects logistic regression model demonstrated that heritage speakers outperformed second language learners with 85% vs. 63% accurate discrimination, while no significant difference was detected between heritage speakers and first language-immersed native speakers (85% vs. 88% correct). Furthermore, higher verbal fluency was significantly predictive of greater perceptual accuracy for the heritage speakers. The results are compatible with the interpretation that the influence of English on the discrimination of the Korean laryngeal contrast was stronger for second language learners of Korean than for heritage speakers, while heritage speakers were not apparently affected by dominance in English in their discrimination of Korean lenis and aspirated stops.

계승언어별 영어화자의 한국어 ’자기’ 습득 양상

This study investigates whether KFL(Korean as a Foreign Language) learners’ heritage languages can affect their interpretations of a Korean reflexive, caki, with respect to the c-commanding requirement of the antecedent, especially when caki appears in a context in which a non c-commanding antecedent is favored by pragmatic factors. We compared the interpretations of the Korean control group with those of three different native English speaker KFL groups: Korean heritage group, Chinese heritage group, and English speakers without any heritage background. Different levels of sensitivity to pragmatic factors among the KFL groups indicate that heritage languages have an influence on L2 acquisition. Korean heritage speakers have the highest level of sensitivity to pragmatic manipulation. The sensitivity of Chinese heritage speakers to the pragmatic factors was higher than that of English speakers without any heritage language but lower than that of Korean heritage speakers.

Receptive Knowledge of Transitivity Alternation by Korean Heritage Speakers

Heritage speakers (HS) have historically been attributed with what they cannot do or what they have lost; however while heritage grammars are inevitably different from the monolingual variety, investigating HS knowledge and abilities can reveal much about their capacity for retention. This article investigates Korean HS living in the U.S. and their receptive knowledge of Korean transitivity alternation, specifically, whether they are able to retain a phonologically reduced transitivity marker that is not reinforced in the dominant language, a previous unstudied area of heritage grammar and a feature that does not exist in the speakers’ dominant language, English. Participants (N = 20) rated their acceptability judgment of four sentence conditions on a self-paced online assessment. In a second task, other participants (N = 14) translated the four sentence conditions into English. Results revealed a significant effect of sentence condition for the HS on their acceptability ratings, Wald χ2(3) = 61.133, p < .001, indicating that participants’ judgments of test sentences were significantly influenced by which category of sentence they were given. The HS also demonstrated keen distinctions between sentences with and without the transitivity marker in their translations. Overall, the study shows that Korean HS are able to retain this the transitivity marker.

“No” versus “Aniyo”: Back vowel diphthongization in heritage Korean

The effects of a second language on a speaker’s first language phonology are well documented (e.g., Chang, 2013), and much has been done work specifically for heritage language speakers (Polinsky and Kagan, 2007; Montrul, 2010, 2015), who may be bilingual to some degree but are dominant in the majority language. Bilingualism research has identified “separate but nonautonomous phonological systems” (Paradis, 2001) in bilingual children, but few studies address heritage speakers’ phonological systems in relation to ongoing sound change (Konopka and Pierrehumbert, 2010). The current study examines F1 and F2 of the back vowels /o/ and /u/ in samples of read Korean speech from a population of Korean American Californians who identified as natively bilingual and/or heritage speakers of Korean. Forty speakers read short conversational passages in Korean during a bilingual interview. Preliminary results indicate that the heritage speakers’ /u/ vowel shows influence from California English, with greater F2 on average than their central /a/ vowel. The /o/ vowel also has a much lower F1 than expected given Korean’s canonical five-vowel system. Ongoing analysis examines the trajectory of both vowels to determine the influence of California English diphthongized back vowels on Korean monophthongs, and accent perception of the speakers’ Korean.The effects of a second language on a speaker’s first language phonology are well documented (e.g., Chang, 2013), and much has been done work specifically for heritage language speakers (Polinsky and Kagan, 2007; Montrul, 2010, 2015), who may be bilingual to some degree but are dominant in the majority language. Bilingualism research has identified “separate but nonautonomous phonological systems” (Paradis, 2001) in bilingual children, but few studies address heritage speakers’ phonological systems in relation to ongoing sound change (Konopka and Pierrehumbert, 2010). The current study examines F1 and F2 of the back vowels /o/ and /u/ in samples of read Korean speech from a population of Korean American Californians who identified as natively bilingual and/or heritage speakers of Korean. Forty speakers read short conversational passages in Korean during a bilingual interview. Preliminary results indicate that the heritage speakers’ /u/ vowel shows influence from California English, with greater F2 on aver...

Long-form Negation in Adult Korean Heritage Speakers

Long-form Negation in Adult Korean Heritage Speakers

L2 and Heritage Korean Tense Morphology in Discourse: Interplay between Lexical and Discursive Meaning

This article reports on a study examining the tense and aspect morphology in oral narratives from L1 English L2 learners and heritage speakers of Korean, focusing on the relative contribution of lexical and discursive meaning in non-European languages by comparing the predictions of Discourse Hypothesis and Aspect Hypothesis. We also examine heritage speakers’ acquisition to discover whether an early age of acquisition, despite significant attrition later in life, leads to more native-like attainment of Korean. Unlike previous studies, our results suggest that discursive factors play a more significant role than lexical factors in determining the tense/aspect choice, and that temporal categories are interpreted indexically in the early stage of development.

Case Ellipsis: Acquisition of Variability by Young Heritage Speakers of Korean

ABSTRACT Korean employs case ellipsis (CE), in which nouns are permitted to appear without case markers in certain contexts, particularly in informal settings. Heritage speakers (HS) are typically exposed to informal registers and thus exposed to fewer uses of overt case markers in the input. Given the limited exposure, it is predicted that young HS of Korean will not have control over CE. Three Korean heritage children were observed longitudinally over two years. Findings revealed that all three of the children use CE from as early as 3;09. The results also show no decrease of the use of CE over two years and that CE appears more frequently with canonical word order and deixis terms, patterning similarly to other Korean speakers. Despite the fact that the children predominantly hear Korean spoken in informal registers and the data were collected during informal, low register contexts, the children exhibit competence of CE.

Heritage language proficiency in relation to attitudes, motivation, and age at immigration: a case of Korean-Australians

ABSTRACTThis study investigated Korean heritage speakers’ Korean language proficiency (i.e. morphosyntax, collocation, and lexicon) in relation to their attitudes, motivation, and age at immigration (AI). Seventy-six adult Korean-Australians with Korean literacy participated. Overall, participants showed high levels of Korean proficiency in all three linguistic areas (over 80% of accuracy), and exhibited features of successful second/foreign language learners: a positive attitude toward learning Korean, strong interest in foreign languages, high motivation and self-efficacy, and low speaking anxiety. Their relatively high level of Korean proficiency can be explained by the crucial role of the family in maintaining the heritage language, supported by successive Australian governments’ positive attitudes toward multiculturalism and active support from the local Korean community. Late-childhood bilinguals (AI: 9–12) were found to be the ‘ideal 1.5 generation’, having the most positive attitudes and strongest motivations among the groups, while maintaining relatively high levels of Korean proficiency. This may be a result of frequent use of Korean at home and their self-perceived high proficiency in both Korean and English. Korean speaking anxiety was found to be the best predictor of Korean proficiency, implying room for instructional support. Providing explicit form-focused instruction and using Korean pop culture materials were discussed as pedagogical implications.

Code Mixing as a Window into Language Dominance: Evidence from Korean Heritage Speakers

It is well-documented that children of immigrants often undergo language dominance shift as a result of increased exposure to the mainstream language of their environment (Bialystok, 2001; Portes & Schauffler, 1994; Ro & Cheatham, 2009). One of the ways in which this shift can manifest in natural speech is through language choice and, in particular, intrasentential code mixing. This article investigates the shift in language dominance through a longitudinal study of four young Korean heritage speakers living in the United States. Spontaneous play interaction data was collected on a monthly basis across a two-year span following the children’s entrance into English-medium schools in order to investigate the shift of dominance. In observing the children’s use of Korean, English, and Korean-English code-mixed utterances over time, it was expected that the amount of Korean utterances would decrease, while the amount of English and code-mixed utterances would increase due to the shift of language dominance. Findings revealed that while use of Korean decreased and use of English increased, the amount utterances containing code mixing remained stable across time for all children. The article argues that code mixing is not an indicator of weakened language proficiency.

Heritage Language Self-Assessment: The Role of Cultural Identity and Language Domain

In this study, we investigated the role of cultural identity in self-assessment of heritage language skills for Korean heritage speakers in the U.S. The influence of a language domain i.e., speaking vs. writing, on self-assessment outcomes was also examined. Thirty Korean- American participants completed questionnaires on their language background, cultural identity, and self-rating of Korean speaking and writing skills. Speech and writing samples in Korean were then elicited with picture stimuli. Results of the self-assessment were closely related, but not identical, to those of the formal assessment, which suggests the potential of self-assessment as a complementary assessment tool in heritage language learning to provide information not obtained from other traditional types of assessment. In addition, bicultural identity was a strong predictor for self-assessment of speaking and writing in Korean. While the heritage speakers’ reported language exposure before age 5 and current patterns of language use predicted the self-assessment of speaking, the quality of output from external assessment was a strong predictor for the self-assessment of writing in Korean.

Islands and Non-islands in Native and Heritage Korean.

To a large extent, island phenomena are cross-linguistically invariable, but English and Korean present some striking differences in this domain. English has wh-movement and Korean does not, and while both languages show sensitivity to wh-islands, only English has island effects for adjunct clauses. Given this complex set of differences, one might expect Korean/English bilinguals, and especially heritage Korean speakers (i.e., early bilinguals whose L2 became their dominant language during childhood) to be different from native speakers, since heritage speakers have had more limited exposure to Korean, may have had incomplete acquisition and/or attrition, and may show significant transfer effects from the L2. Here we examine islands in heritage speakers of Korean in the U.S. Through a series of four formal acceptability experiments comparing these heritage speakers with native speakers residing in Korea, we show that the two groups are remarkably similar. Both show clear evidence for wh-islands and an equally clear lack of adjunct island effects. Given the very different linguistic environment that the heritage speakers have had since early childhood, this result lends support to the idea that island phenomena are largely immune to environmental influences and stem from deeper properties of the processor and/or grammar. Similarly, it casts some doubt on recent proposals that islands are learned from the input.