Cover not available
Article published In:
Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 3:1 (2017) ► pp.41–66

Parallel Voice Onset Time shift in Chinese Korean

A case for linguistic drift

| Kennesaw State University
| Salem State University

This study reveals the existence of a Voice Onset Time shift in the Korean spoken by native speakers residing in northeast China, a shift parallel to those reported in other Korean varieties in Korea, the USA, and Canada. The VOT pattern observed in the Chinese Korean community is argued to represent a change that cannot be simply explained in terms of diffusion via recent dialect contact, or as a feature directly inherited from the source language when it was transplanted into China over a century ago. We suggest that behind the parallel VOT shifts is the power of “drift” that drives the different Korean varieties along similar journeys of language evolution. This study presents an intriguing case where internal changes driven by “drift” may actually be initiated and further supported by language/dialect contact.

Keywords: Voice onset time (VOT), drift, parallel shift, Chinese Korean, language change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Processes leading to language similarity
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The community
    • 3.2The data
    • 3.3Acoustic measurement
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 28 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.3.1.03jin
References
Ahn, H.
(1999) Post-release phonatory processes in English and Korean: Acoustic correlates and implications for Korean phonology. Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Ahn, Jeong Khn
(1987) The social stratification of Umlaut. Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Bailey, Charles-James N.
(1973) Variation and linguistic theory. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, & Weenink, David
(2007) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program] (Version 4.6). Retrieved July 7, 2007, from [URL]Google Scholar
Chae, Seo-Young
(1995) External constraints on sound change: The raising of /o/ in Seoul Korean. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Che, Zhejiu
(1998) The formation and change of the ethnic Korean in China. Journal of Yanbian University, 31(3), 137–142.Google Scholar
Cho, Taehong
(1996) Vowel correlates to consonant phonation: An acoustic-perceptual study of Korean obstruents. Masters’ thesis, University of Texas, Arlington.Google Scholar
Cho, Taehong, Jun, Sun-Ah, & Ladefoged, Peter
(2002) Acoustic and aerodynamic correlates of Korean stops and fricatives. Journal of Phonetics, 30(2), 193–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, Woo-Gil
(2001) The Korean minority in China: The change of its identity. Development and Society, 30(1), 119–141.Google Scholar
Coates, Jennifer
(1998) Language and gender: A reader. Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Cui, Qingzhi
(2004) Thinking under the global background: China’s ethnic policy and ethnic Korean history, present and future. Doctoral dissertation, Central Minzu University, Beijing, China.Google Scholar
Current Status of Overseas Compatriots (재외동포현황)
(2013) South Korea: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) [A report]. Retrieved March 30, 2014, from [URL]Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
(1989) The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation. Language Variation and Change, 1(3), 245–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flege, James Emil
(1987) The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15(1), 47–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortescue, Michael
(2006) Drift and the grammaticalization divide between northern and southern Wakashan. International Journal of American Linguistics, 72(3), 295–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, Susan
(2008) Reversing “drift”: Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong system. Language Variation and Change, 20(3), 451–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gao, Yongyi
(1989) Studies on the history of the ethnic Koreans in China. Yanbian, China: Yanbian Education Publishing House.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory R.
(2003) Variationist approaches to phonological change. In Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (Ed.), The handbook of historical linguistics (pp. 367–400). Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Han, Jeong-Im
(1996) The phonetics and phonology of ‘tense’ and ‘plain’ consonants in Korean. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca.Google Scholar
Han, Mieko S., & Weitzman, Raymond S.
(1965) Studies in the phonology of Asian languages III: Acoustic characteristics of Korean stop consonants [A report]. Los Angeles: Acoustic Phonetics Research Laboratory, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
(1970) Acoustic Features of Korean /P, T, K/, /p, t, k/ and /ph, th, kh/. Phonetica, 22(2), 112–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haudricourt, André Georges
(1972) Two-way and three-way splitting of tonal systems in some far-eastern languages. In Jimmy G. Harris & Richard B. Noss (Eds.), Tai phonetics and phonology (pp. 58–86). Bangkok: Central Institute of English Language, Mahidol University.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet
(1992) An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Longman Group.Google Scholar
Hombert, J. -M.
(1978) Consonant types, vowel quality, and tone. In Victoria A. Fromkin (Ed.), Tone: A linguistic survey (pp. 77–111). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie, Ohala, John J., & Ewan, William G.
(1979) Phonetic explanations for the development of tones. Language, 55(1), 37–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hong, Yunsook
(1991) A sociolinguistic study of Seoul Korean (Korean Unification Studies Series 12). Research center for peace and unification of Korea. Seoul Computer Press.Google Scholar
Hutlerer, Claus J.
(1982) Sprachinselforschung als prüfstand für dialcktologischce Arbeitsprinzi pien. [Research of Language Islands as Test Bench for Dialectological Operation Methods]. In Werner Besch, Ulrich Knoop, Wolfgang Putschke, & Herbert Ernst Wiegand (Eds.), Dialektologie: ein handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung [Dialectology: A Handbook for German and General Dialect Research] (pp.178–189). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Jin, Wenhua
(2012) Variation and Change in Chinese Korean: The case of vowel /y/. Journal of Language Variation and Change, 24(1), 79–106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jin, Yuanshi
(1996) A review of the history of Korean immigration to China. Journal of Yanbian University, 29(3), 59–67.Google Scholar
(2003) On the connotation of ethnic Koreans in China. China’s borderland history and geography studies, 13(4), 35–44.Google Scholar
Jin, Wenhua
(2008) Sounds of Chinese Korean: A variationist approach. Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Arlington.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian D.
(1992) Diachronic explanation: Putting speakers back into the picture. In Garry W. Davis & Gregory K. Iverson (Eds.), Explanation in historical linguistics (pp. 123–144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kang, Hyeon-Seok
(1997) Phonological variation in glides and diphthongs of Seoul Korean: Its synchrony and diachrony. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, Columbus.Google Scholar
Kang, Kyoung-Ho, & Guion, Susan G.
(2006) Phonological systems in bilinguals: Age of learning effects on the stop consonant systems of Korean-English bilinguals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119(3), 1672–1683. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kang, Yoonjung
(2014) Voice onset time merger and development of tonal contrast in Seoul Korean stops: A corpus study. Journal of Phonetics, 451, 76–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kang, Yoonjung, & Nagy, Naomi
(2016) VOT merger in Heritage Korean in Toronto. Language Variation and Change, 28(2), 249–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Chin-W.
(1965) On the autonomy of the tensity feature in stop classification (with special reference to Korean stops). Word, 21(3), 339–359. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, M. -R.
(2000) Segmental and tonal interactions in English and Korean: A phonetic and phonological study. Doctoral dissertation. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Kim, Minjung, & Stoel-Gammon, Carol
(2009) The acquisition of Korean word-initial stops. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125(6), 3950–3961. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Mi-Ryoung, Beddor, Patrice Speeter, & Horrocks, Julie
(2002) “The contribution of consonantal and vocalic information to the perception of Korean initial stops”, Journal of Phonetics, 30(1), 77–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Si Joong
(2003) The economic status and role of ethnic Koreans in China. In C. Fred Bergsten & Inbom Choi (Eds.), The Korean diaspora in the world economy (pp. 101–127). Peterson Institute, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Labov, William
(1982) Building on empirical foundations. In Winfred P. Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel (Eds.), Perspectives on Historical Linguistics (pp. 17–92). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1994) Principles of language change: Internal factors, volume 11. Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
(2001) Principles of language change: Social factors, volume 21. Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
(2007) Transmission and diffusion. Language, 83(2), 344–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LaPolla, Randy
(1994) Parallel grammaticalizations in Tibeto-Burman languages: Evidence of Sapir’s ‘drift’. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 17(1), 61–80.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Simons, Gary F., & Fennig, Charles D.
(Eds.) (2016) Ethnologue: Languages of the World (19th edition). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved July 29, 2016, from [URL]Google Scholar
Lisker, Leigh, & Abramson, Arthur S.
(1964) A cross-language study of voicing in initial stops: Acoustical measurements. Word, 20(3), 384–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malkiel, Yakov
(1981) Drift, slope, slant: Background of, and variations upon, a Sapirian theme. Language, 57(3), 535–570. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maran, La Raw
(1973) On becoming a tone language: A Tibeto-Burman model of tonogenesis. In Larry M. Hyman (Ed.), Consonant types and tone. Southern California occasional papers in linguistics 1(1) (pp. 98–114). Los Angeles: University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A.
(1973) Tonogenesis in Southeast Asia. In Larry M. Hyman (Ed.), Consonant types and tone. Southern California occasional papers in linguistics 1 (1) (pp. 73–95). Los Angeles: University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Mattheier, Klaus J.
(1994) Theorie der sprachinsel voraussetzungen und strukturierungen [Theory of the language Island: Premises and structures]. In Nina Berrend & Klaus J. Mattheier (Eds.), Sprachinselforschung: eine gedenkschrift für Hugo Jedig [Research on language islands: In memoriam of Hugo Jedig] (pp. 333–348). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Milroy, James, & Milroy, Lesley
(1985) Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation. Journal of Linguistics, 21(2), 339–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Lesley
(2005) Social networks. In J. K. Chamber, Peter Trudgill, & Natalie Schilling-Estes (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change (pp. 549–572). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Newman, Paul
(1992) The drift from the coda into the syllable nucleus in Hausa. Diachronica, 9(2), 227–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oh, Eunjin
(2011) Effects of speaker gender on voice onset time in Korean stops. Journal of Phonetics, 39(1), 59–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Park, Haeil, & Iverson, Gregory K.
(2008) First and second language patterns of brain activation in Korean laryngeal contrasts. Korean Linguistics, 141, 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piao, Changyu
(1995) Studies on the history of ethnic Koreans in China. Yanbian University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Peter
(2005) Dialect convergence in the German language islands (Sprachinseln). In Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens, & Paul Kerswill (Eds.), Dialect change: Convergence and divergence in European languages (pp. 221–234). Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sancier, Michele L., & Fowler, Carol A.
(1997) Gestural drift in a bilingual speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and English. Journal of Phonetics, 25(4), 421–436. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sapir, Edward
(1921) Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
(1933) Language. In Edwin R. A. Seligman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Volume 91) (pp. 155–169). New York: MacMillian.Google Scholar
Shen, Xixu, & Cui, yunjia
(1985) A report on the investigation of current status of Chinese Korean. Minzu Press and People’s Press of Liaoning.Google Scholar
Silva, David James
(1992) The phonetics and phonology of stop lenition in Korean. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
(2006) Acoustic evidence for the emergence of tonal contrast in contemporary Korean. Phonology, 23(2), 287–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Out of one, many: The emergence of world Korean(s). In James Hye-Suk Yoon, Yongsoon Kang, Jae-Young Han, & Chung-Kon Shi (Eds.), Inquiries into Korean linguistics, volume IV1 (pp. 9–37). Seoul: Taehaksa.Google Scholar
Silva, David James, Choi, Younjeoung, & Kim, Ji Eun
(2004) Evidence for a diachronic shift in the VOT values of Korean stop consonants. In Susumu Kuno, Ik-Hwan Lee, John Whitman, Young-Se Kang, Joan Maling, Young-joo Kim (Eds.), Harvard studies in Korean linguistics X (pp. 173–185). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Silva, David James, & Jin, Wenhua
(2008) The merger of non-high front vowels in Korean: Mission accomplished. Paper presented at the Sixteenth Meeting of the International Circle of Korean Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.Google Scholar
Sneddon, James N.
(1993) The drift towards final open syllables in Sulawesi languages. Oceanic Linguistics, 32(1), 1–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thurgood, Graham
(2002) Vietnamese and tonogenesis. Diachronica, 19(2), 333–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter J.
(1972) Sex, covert prestige, and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. Language in Society, 1(2), 179–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1974) Linguistic change and diffusion: Description and explanation in sociolinguistic dialect geography. Language in Society, 3(2), 215–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) New dialect formation: The inevitability of colonial Englishes. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter, Gordon, Elizabeth, Lewis, Gillian, & MacLagan, Margaret
(2000) The role of drift in the formation of native-speaker southern hemisphere Englishes: Some New Zealand evidence. Diachronica, XVII(1), 111–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whalen, Douglas. H., & Levitt, Andrea G.
(1995) The universality of intrinsic F0 of vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 23(3), 349–366. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wright, Jonathan D.
(2007) Laryngeal contrast in Seoul Korean. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Wu, Zongji, & Lin, Maocan
(1989) Overview of experimental phonetics. Beijng: Higher Education Press.Google Scholar
Xu, Mingxun
(1985) Preliminary investigation of the Korean immigration process to Northeast. Heilongjiang ethnic series, 1(3), 68–78.Google Scholar
Yang, Jun, & Wang, Qiubin
(2006) History of the relationship between China and the Korean Peninsula. Beijing, China: Social Science Academic Press.Google Scholar
Yao, Yao, & Chang, Charles B.
in press). On the cognitive basis of contact-induced sound change: Vowel merger reversal in Shanghainese. Language.
Zhao, Yinglan
(2004) Socio-economic and cultural survey of the Korean immigrants in the Northeast. Northeast Asia Forum, 13(5), 48–52.Google Scholar
Zheng, Panlong
(2000) The turn of the century: Review and prospect of the ethnic Korean in China. Journal of Yanbian University, 33(1), 67–69.Google Scholar
Zheng, Xianri, & Li, Yinghao
(2005) A contrastive study of VOT of English and Korean stops. Journal of Yanbian University, 38(4), 99–102.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Lee, Hyunjung, Jeffrey J. Holliday & Eun Jong Kong
2020. Diachronic change and synchronic variation in the Korean stop laryngeal contrast. Language and Linguistics Compass 14:7 DOI logo
Schertz, Jessamyn, Yoonjung Kang & Sungwoo Han
2019. Sources of variability in phonetic perception: The joint influence of listener and talker characteristics on perception of the Korean stop contrast. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 10:1 ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.