Production of English vowels preceding voiced and voiceless consonants by Korean learners of English

Abstract

In English, consonant voicing has large effects on both the quality and duration of the previous vowel, as does the status of the vowel as tense or lax. Our aim is to examine whether there is L1 interference on L2 English vowel productions and whether temporal acquisition is easier than vowel quality acquisition. Korean L2 speakers were chosen as participants; Korean has no contrasts in tense vs. lax vowels, and no coda consonant voicing contrast in a monosyllabic structure, but does exhibit post-vocalic voicing contrasts in disyllabic structures, and in these cases, voiced consonants exhibit lengthening of the preceding vowel. The participants were asked to read the list of English nonce words consisting of the English high vowels and sets of plosives contrasting in voicing as a coda in the two different structures. None of the speakers exhibited different patterns in monosyllabic and disyllabic structures. All speakers did exhibit durational correlates to the voicing contrast, and to the tense-lax distinction. Formant frequency differences were found for both voicing and the tense-lax distinction, however, not as consistently. Specifically, back vowels were not distinguished by a number of subjects. In sum, temporal properties were more easily acquired than vowel quality properties.