Acoustic study of the perceptual significance of F2 transition of [w] in English and Korean

Abstract

The intent of the present study is to investigate the acoustic properties of Korean /w/ in various phonological contexts, compare them with those of English /w/, and attempt to explain why english /w/'s are perceived differently by Korean speakers depending on the phonological contexts. Experiments 1 and 2 present the acoustic measure of F2 of Korean /w/ in various linguistic positions and show that unlike English /w/, Korean /w/ shows quite a strong coarticulation with the following vowel. Based on these experiments, Experiment 3 investigates why English /w/ is adapted differently into Korean. Specifically, it discusses why English /wain/ is adapted as /wain/ whereas English /twin/ is adapted into Korean as /thiwin/ with an extra vowel. This study argues that the different perception of English /w/ by Korean and English speakers is due to the different F2 transitional pattern of /w/ in Korean and English in various phonological contexts. It also argues that the F2 transitional pattern is an important factor in the perception of /w/.