ENGLISH SOUNDS PERCEIVED BY

KOREAN SPEAKERS

- An Experiment -

Yang-Seo Pae (Taejon College)

It is usua lly assumed that if one had complete, equivalent descriptions of the two languages

and then compared these it should be possible to predict the interferences that would occur.

Most bilingual descriptions and contrastive studies are squarely based on this assumption.

According to my own experiments, however, this theo ry does not prove to be adequate in

many instances. It is especially so in the cases of consonants. 1

The folowing table shows the resu lt of an experiment of an aural perception of some of

the American English sounds on the part of the Korean primary school children who have

not been supposedly exposed to a native speaker of English before. The informant was Miss

Sara Barry from Mississippi. The fifth g raders of Sunwha Primary School in Taejon, Korea

were told to take down, as soon as they heard each word twice, in terms of K orean

orthography. 2 It was not exactly quiet outside. Thus mishearing is partly due to the noise .

It may also be said that there are at least a few gra phic misrepresentations. Since this is th e

first time they hear the native speaker's English the table indicates tremendous randomness

in 'certain cases, thus it often seems to be d ifficu lt to draw any decisive conclusion.

First, will present the articulatory contrastive charts of Korean and English, and then

tabulate the result of my experiments.

Korean Vowels

i (..2..)

a (oD

u C-?-) o (..2..)

if> (e-J)

English Vowels (Tragerian system)

u

e o

a

I left out the two obscured front·rounded Korean vowels /il l and /0/ since they ha ve

1 This experiment was conducted as a prelimina ry study for my doctoral disse rta tion English Loallwords in K orean, presented to the facu lty of the Graduate School of the University of T exas

in the summer of 1967. 2 There were about 70 pupils in this class room. Not all of them presented the ir transcriptions.

Thus approximately half the num ber was used for my stati stics .

- 118 -

English Sounds Perceived by Korean Speakers 119

no r elevance to the presen t pu rpose. (As a matter of fact, these two vowels 0 certain ly do

not exist in mos t speakers' speech though many claim that they have these vowels. This

fa ct was borne out by my own in vestigation.) T he nine-vowel system of Trager and Smith

is thought to suffice here . It is usuall y considere::l that there is one to one correspondence

between Korean /V and English IV, and that English word pin is heard by KoreaOn spea·

kers as phin ( 'fl) . Surpris i?gly enough, on ly less than ten per cent of the subjects meet

this expectation (see below) .

It is also interes tin g to note tha t English shwa is perceived as Korean /</> / , though

Korean o-J is perceived by English speakers as low·back / J/ o

Korean Consonants

The twenty-one Korean consonant phonemes, which are well defin ed and agreed on by

a lmost all linguists, show a symmetrical a rra y as follows :

Manner of Articulation Point of Articulation

Bilabia l Dental Alveolar Velar G lottal

Stops: lax: p (B) t (t:. ) k (,)

tense: pp ( ll1l ) tt (n:) kk(ll)

aspirated : ph( .iL ) theE) kh( "1)

Affricates: lax: c ( A )

tense : cc(~)

aspirated: chC ~ )

F rica ti ves: lax: 5 CA ) h(-t )

tense: ss( .JI.. )

Nasals: me!]) n Ct:. ) ng( 0)

Lateral: I ( 2. )

Semivowels: w y

English Consonants

There a re twenty- four consonant phonemes in English. All these, except /z /, / ng/ , / w I ,

/y / , / h/ can occur initially , medially and fin ally:

Manner of Articulation Point of Articulation

Bilabial Labio- Inter- Alveolar Alveo- Velar Glottal dental dental palata l

Stops: vI. p t k vd. b d g

Affricates: v!. C vd. j

Fricatives: vI. s S h vd . v z Z

120 Language Research Vol. I , No. 2

Bilabial Labio- Inter- Alveolar Alveo- Velar Glottal dental dental palatal

Nasals: m n ng

Lateral :

Nonlateral :

Semivowels: w y

Given Words English Phoneme Heard As Number of Students Note

pimp e (oJl) 20 57%

a (o~) 12 34%

i (ol) 3 9%

miss e (oJl) 18 62%

a (o~) 11 38%

boy b m ( 0) 21 70%

p (1:1) 9 38%

book b m (0 ) 21 68%

p (1:1 ) 9 29%

ph (n..) 1 3%

dam d n CL) 18 55%

t (t:) 3 9%

I C 2.) 12 36%

dog d n (L) 18 55%

t C t:) 5 15%

1 C 2.) 10 30%

dia d n CL) 10 33%

t C t:) 5 17%

I C 2.) 15 50%

goal g k C 'l) 16 69%

kh C 4) 2 9%

kk C 11) 2 9%

I (2.) 1 4%

n CL) 1 4%

game g k C i) 8 38%

y (oJl) 6 28%

kh C 4) 3 14%

n ( L) 2 10%

kk C 11) 1 5%

1 ( 2. ) 1 5%

gas g k C ,) 7 47 %

Y Co~) 6 40%

English Sounds Perceived by Korean Speakers 121

Given Words English Phoneme Heard As Number of Students Note

kh (~) 2 13% muffler s (A) 24 73%

ph (31.) 4 12% h ("6") 3 9%

kh (~) 1 3% P (31.) 1 3%

father hw (~) 19 83% ph (31.) 3 13%

p (8) 1 4% foundation f hw (~D 8 29%

ph (31.) 8 25%

if> (oD if> = zero 6 21 % p (8) 3 11% m (n) 3 11 % k C-1) 1 3%

form h ("6") 13 54% p (8) 6 25%

ph ( 31. ) 4 17%

s (A) 1 4% sphinx f ph (31.) 22 68%

p (8) 4 13% th (E) 4 13%

t (c) 1 3% pp (1lIl) 1 3%

course if> or length 14 67 % I (to.) 7 33%

Peter r if> or length 6 26%

I (to.) 17 74% father r cp 15 79%

I (to.) 4 21 % gas g I (to.) 2 100% will I V + if> 21 100% call V + if> 19 V=Vowel 95%

I ( to. ) 1 1% apple V + cp 23 100%

call :> ifJ 14 64%

a ( oD 7 32%

e (oll) 4%

122 Language Research Vol. I , No_ 2

Given Words English Phoneme Heard As Number ~of Students Note run d ifJ 21 100% s tand th (E) 16 88%

tt (OL ) 1 6% t (c) 1 6%

bi rthday e s (A) 29 91% ss (N.) 1 3%

t (c) 1 3% h (~) 1 3%

smooth e ifJ 19 83% s (..L) 3 13%

th C.§.. ) 1 4% thrill e t: (c) 7 44%

th (E) 5 31% ph CD:) 3 19%

s CA) 1 6% three e s CA) 7 29%

h (~) 6 25% p C l:l) 5 21% t (c) 4 17%

ss C ,,).) 2 8% peter I (2.) 19 73%

n CL) 5 19% t Cc) 1 4%

th (E) 1 4% wish s si ().]) 18 50%

syu C1r) 4 11 % s C..L) 6 17%

ssi ( -11)) 22 6% swe ( 41)) 2 6% syi -C4]) 2 6%

ss ( .oIL ) 1 2% ssyu ~ C'rr-) 1 2% '

purge chi U )) 16 80%

chu (4r) 1 5% chwi ( ~n 1 5% '

ci (~) 1 5%

cu (4-) 1 5% mid ge chi (7.]) 4 24%

English Sounds Perceived by Korea n Speakers

Given Words English Phoneme Heard As Number of Students

chwi (-'?D 4 cu ("T-) 4

chu (.:}) 3 Cl (A]) 1

ch ("'-) 1 cage J chwi ({J) 8

chu (.:}) 6

c (~) 4 cyu (''IT-) 2

chi (~]) 3 CWI ( <r]) 2

cu (4-) 2 s e o.) 2

k yi (7]) 1

ch ("'-) 2 push s (/- ) 19

syu ("iT-) 7

swi (4]) 4

si (A]) 1

jazz c (~) 27

ch ( 5; ) 1

123

Note

24%

24%

18%

5% 5%

25%

19%

13%

6% 10%

6% 6% 6% 3%

6% 61%

23%

13%

3%

96% 4%

O nce there was a time, in th e history of linguistics, w hen phonetic similarity was consi­

dered to be as clear as the morning sta r. Thus Pike once declared that "there is only one

accu rate phonemic analysis for a specific data" ( Phonemics ; 1961: 61) . It is on such an

assumpt ion that some Korean scholars claim tha t Engli sh / b/ in bus is closer to Korean

lenis / p/ , i. e. tl than to the fortis / pp/ , i. e. UH, recommending to transcribe bus_ as Bl-"- . 3

The present experiment at least part ly disproves such an assumption. It is good to make

predictions. But it seems better to experiment. Thus Eugene ]. Briere states that "while

the theoretical considerations a re extremely important, descriptions and predictions of diffi­

cult y based soly on theoretical ana lyses at the phonemic level will be inadequate ( Lg. 42.4

(1966), p. 769) .

REFERENCES

Aim, Ho Sam, "The Romaniza tion of the Korean Language," The English Language

3 I can confidently claim that 99 percent of Korean speakers pronollnce "I ~ or IIIj ~ with the tense initial stop.

124 Language Research Vol. ., No. 2

and Literature. Vo!. IV 1967, pp. 295-305.

Haugen, E. Bilingualism in the Americas. American Dialect Society, University of Alabama

Press, 1956.

Hockett, Charles F. A Course in Modern LinguiJtics. New York: Macmillan, 1958

jones, D. , "Koreanization of Loanwords," Hangul, No. 124, 1959, pp. 7-24.

Lado, Robert, Linguistics Across Cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957.

Moulton, William G. The Sounds of English and German . Chicago, University of Chicago

Press, 1962

Pae, Yang Seo. English Loanwords In Korean ( unpublished Ph. D. dissertation) . The

University of Texas, 1967.

Pike, Kenneth L. Phonemics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1947.