Acoustic characteristics of English liquids produced by Korean learners of English

Abstract

This paper investigates acoustic characteristics of English liquids produced by Korean EFL learners. Features of liquids such as F2, F3 and duration were extracted from target sounds produced by Koreans and native speakers. Then, normalization processes were applied to the features in order to eliminate minor factors such as speaker variability and speaking rate. Through statistical analyses, it was found that the way Korean EFL learners utilize major features to pronounce English liquids is different from native speakers. Also, it was confirmed that the learners’ L1 interferes with their pronunciation of English liquids. For instance, when EFL learners produced the English lateral incorrectly, acoustic characteristics of Korean [l], which are significantly different from those of English [l], were included in their production. Based on the analysis, a discussion follows as to whether the current results are in line with traditional theoretical models of nonnative pronunciation acquisition.