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Article published In:
Pedagogical Linguistics
Vol. 5:1 (2024) ► pp.76–101

The efficacy of lexical stress diacritics on the English comprehensibility and accentedness of Korean speakers

ORCID logo | Byeongjeom Middle School
| University of Victoria

The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of lexical stress diacritics on the English comprehensibility and accentedness of Korean speakers. To this end, 30 native Korean participants read aloud 15 English sentences without diacritics in the pretest. Then, they were given explicit instructions on the production of higher pitch and extended duration as a marker of English stress with musical notation provided. In the posttest, the participants read aloud the same sentences as were in the pretest but which had diacritics indicating stress placement. In the delayed posttest, two days after the pretest and the posttest, the participants read 15 sentences without diacritics again to see if the effects of the treatment were retained. Randomized speech samples were rated by three native speakers of English in relation to comprehensibility and accentedness. Findings showed that significant improvements were observed after the treatment in both comprehensibility and accentedness.

Keywords: accentedness, comprehensibility, lexical stress, Korean speakers, Pronunciation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness
    • 1.2Prosodic differences in English and Korean
    • 1.3Enhanced input and English orthography
  • 2.The current study
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2English sentence reading materials
    • 2.3Pretest
    • 2.4Treatment instructions
    • 2.5Posttest
    • 2.6Delayed posttest
    • 2.7Rating procedures
  • 3.Results & discussion
    • 3.1Inter-rater reliability
    • 3.2Comprehensibility
    • 3.3Accentedness
    • 3.4Summary of results
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Future directions
      • 4.1.1Necessity of control group?
      • 4.1.2Inter-rater reliability
    • 4.2Retention of the effects of the treatment
    • 4.3Practical implications
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 29 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.22001.kim
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