earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to explain that Korean learners of English are likely to pronounce English word-initial voiced stops as tensificated sounds, attributing this phenomenon to perceptual similarity and articulatory ease. As voiced stops do not exist in the word-initial position in the Korean language, if English word-initial voiced stops are realized as voiceless tensificated ones, they are sometimes mistaken for different sounds. Therefore, this research examines whether the tensification of English word-initial voiced stops by Korean learners is the effect of their lack of awareness of a difference between English phonemes and the constraints imposed by Korean loanwords. I explore the relevance of English voiced stop and the tensification observed in Korean loanwords, considering constraints associated with ease of articulation and perceptual similarity using Optimality Theory. Furthermore, I analyze these using native English speakers' phonetic sounds as input, rather than focusing on English phonemes, since this study is focused on phonetic perception, not on the underlying features of English voiced stops.