대한언어학회 전자저널

Yune, Suejin. (2016). Perception of English Approximants by Korean-speaking Students. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 24(3), 63-85. This paper examines Korean speakers perception of English approximants [l], [r], [w], [j] which are thought to be difficult sounds for Korean-speaking English learners. Experimental studies were conducted to examine which sound(s) is the most difficult to perceive among the four English approximants and whether English proficiency plays a significant role when perceiving approximants. For this purpose, an identification test and discrimination test were implemented on 61 college students with two English proficiency levels: high proficiency (HP), and low proficiency (LP). The 4 stimuli are real English words beginning with each target sound. The result of the identification test showed that [r] and [w] were the least detectable sounds for high proficiency level. The result of discrimination test indicated that [l]-[r] sounds pairs (lap-rap, and rap-lap) were the most difficult sound pairs. Interestingly, the lap-rap pair was significantly less recognized than the rap-lap pair regardless of the participants' proficiency level.

# English approximants # liquids # glides # perception # English proficiency

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