Article published in:
Korean Linguistics
Vol. 16:2 (2014) ► pp. 188–206

Processing of English /s/ in Korean

The role of duration

| Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea
| University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, USA

The single English phoneme /s/ can be borrowed into Korean as either of two different phonemes — lax /s/ or tense /s*/. The present study investigates how Korean native speakers process English /s/ by testing the role of the duration of English /s/ in determining the choice of phoneme in Korean. Two production experiments were conducted with twenty-eight participants, who were asked to repeat English pseudo-words in Korean. The results suggest that (1) the split borrowing pattern is indeed regular and systematic, and (2) while duration of English /s/ is certainly one factor in determining the split borrowing pattern, it may not be the key factor.

Keywords: Fricatives, Korean, loanword adaptation, production, duration, English
Published online: 26 January 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/kl.16.2.04cho
References
Ahn, Hyunkee
1999 An Acoustic Investigation of the Phonation Types of Post-Fricative Vowels in Korean. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics 8 ed. by Susumu Kuno, Ik-Hwan Lee, John Whitman, Joan Maling, Young-Se Kang & Young-joo Kim, 57–72. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Ahn, Miyeon
2011 Phonetics and Phonology Interplay in Loanword Adaptation: English Alveolar Fricative into Korean. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan.
Best, Catherine T
1994 The Emergence of Native-Language Phonological Influences in Infants: A Perceptual Assimilation Model. The Development of Speech Perception ed. by Judith C. Goodman & Howard C. Nusbaum, 167–224. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
1995 A Direct Realist View of Cross-Language Speech. Speech Perception and Linguistic Experience ed. by Winifred Strange, 171–204. Baltimore: York Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Charles, B
2008 The Acoustics of Korean Fricatives Revisited. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics XII ed. by Susumu Kuno, Ik-Hwan Lee, John Whitman, Joan Maling, Young-Se Kang, Peter Sells, Hyang-Sook Sohn & Youngjun Jang, 137–150. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Cheon, Sang Yee & Victoria B. Anderson
2008 Phonetic Similarities between English & Korean Sibilants: Implications for Second Language Acquisition. Journal of Korean Linguistics 141: 41–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cho, Taehong, Sun-Ah Jun & Peter Ladefoged
2002 Acoustic and Aerodynamic Correlates of Korean Stops and Fricatives. Journal of Phonetics 301: 193–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dupoux, Emmanuel, Yuki Hirose, Kazuhiko Kakehi, Christopher Pallier & Jacques Mehler
1999 Epenthetic Vowels in Japanese: A Perceptual Illusion? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 251: 1568–1578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iverson, Gregory K. & Ahrong Lee
2006 Variation in Korean Integration of English Word-Final /s/. Language Research 421: 239–251.Google Scholar
Kang, Yoonjung
2008 The Adaptation of English /s/ in Korean. Inquiries into Korean Linguistics III ed. by John Whitman, Ponghyung Lee, Chang-Kook Suh, Sungdai Cho, Yeun-Jin Jung, Jae-Young Chung & Jeong-Im Han, 1–13. Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa.Google Scholar
Kim, Hyunsoon
2009 Korean Adaptation of English Affricates and Fricatives in a Feature-driven Model of Loanword Adaptation. Loan phonology ed. by Andrea Calabrese & W. Leo Wetzels, 155–180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Hyunsoon, Shinji Maeda, Kiyoshi Honda & Stephane Hans
2010 The Laryngeal Characterization of Korean Fricatives: Acoustic and Aerodynamic Data. Turbulent Sounds: An Interdisciplinary Guide ed. by Susanne Fuchs, Martine Toda & Marzena Zygis, 143–166. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Hyunsoon, Shinji Maeda, & Kiyoshi Honda
2011 The Laryngeal Characterization of Korean Fricatives: Stroboscopic cine-MRI data. Journal of Phonetics 391: 626–641. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Hyunsoon & Chae-Lim Park
2011 An Acoustic Study of the Korean Fricatives /s, s’/: Implications for the Features [spread glottis] and [tense]. Tones and Features ed. by John A. Goldsmith, Elizabeth Hume & Leo Wetzels, 176–194. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Soohee
1999 Sub-Phonemic Duration Difference in English /s/ and Few-to-many Borrowings from English to Korean. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Washington.
Kim, Soohee & Emily Curtis
2002 Phonetic Duration of English /s/ and its Borrowing in Korean. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 101: 406–419.Google Scholar
Klatt, Dennis H
1974 The Duration of [s] in English Words. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 171: 51–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LaCharité, Darlene & Carole Paradis
2002 Addressing and Disconfirming Some Predictions of Phonetic Approximation for Loanword Adaptation. Langues et Linguistique 281: 71–91.Google Scholar
2005 Category Preservation and Proximity Versus Phonetic Approximation in Loanword Adaptation. Linguistic Inquiry 361: 223–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paradis, Carole & Darlene LaCharité
1997 Preservation and Minimality in Loanword Adaptation. Journal of Linguistics 331: 379–430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon
2005 A Psycholinguistic Theory of Loanword Adaptations. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society ed. by Mark Ettlinger, Nick Fleischer & Mischa Park-Doob, 341–352. Berkeley, CA: The Society.Google Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon & Emmanuel Dupoux
2003 Reinterpreting Loanword Adaptations: The Role of Perception. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 151: 367–370.Google Scholar