[DOI: 10.17959/sppm.2025.31.3.443]

[본문 파일]

미얀마인 한국어 학습자가 산출한 단모음에 대한 모어 화자의 지각

이주희 (경희대학교)

Abstract 
Korean speakers’ perception of Korean monophthong vowels produced by Myanmar learners of Korean. This study explores the perceptual categories of Korean native speakers for Korean monophthongs produced by Myanmar learners, aiming to enhance pronunciation education methodologies. In Chapter 2, a perception experiment with monophthongs from beginner learners showed that /i/, /e/, and /a/ were well perceived as target vowels, while the back vowels /ɯ/, /ʌ/, /u/, and /o/ had lower perception rates. The vowel /ɯ/ had the lowest perception rate due to its absence in the Myanmar language. In Chapter 3, an experiment with advanced learners revealed that their average perception rate was higher than beginners, particularly for /ɯ/, which improved to 95.3%. This indicates that advanced learners pronounce the target vowel more accurately, as reflected in native speakers' perception. Chapter 4 analyzed the categorization of back vowels produced by Myanmar learners by Korean native speakers. The vowels /ɯ/, /ʌ/, /u/, and /o/ were less frequently perceived as target vowels compared to /i/, /e/, and /a/, often being perceived in neighboring vowel categories. For /ɯ/, the perception rate improved from 53.5% for beginners to 95.3% for advanced learners, suggesting improved pronunciation accuracy in advanced learners. While /ʌ/ and /u/ showed slight improvements, /o/ did not improve even for advanced learners. These findings indicate that acquiring the pronunciation of back rounded vowels is relatively challenging, necessitating consideration in pronunciation education.  

Keywords 
Perception, native Korean, monophthong vowels, Myanmar learners, vowel category