Korean Student Granted President's Undergraduate Research Award

Posted December 17, 2019

Samuel Weiss-Cowie, a second year ALIS major (double major in Korean and Neuroscience) has been granted the PURA (President's Undergraduate Research Award) for his conference presentation with Lecturer of Korean in the School of Modern Languages and mentor, Seung-Eun Chang, at the LSA (Linguistic Society of America). Weiss-Cowie will present his research on Hyper-articulation in Korean glides by heritage language learners at the upcoming conference.

The study examined how the Korean glides are phonetically implemented in hyper-articulated speech by English-speaking heritage learners of Korean. Analysis of Hyper-articulated speech found that the syllable duration of the glide more than doubled and the upward transitional feature of /w/ was significantly expanded. Also, pitch was found to significantly increase at syllable offset in clear speech, suggesting an additional enhancement strategy related to pitch at the final area of the syllable. Data supports that heritage learners’ enhancement strategies are consistent with that of native speakers in exaggerated acoustic features, but their acoustic value ranges are not comparable.

Weiss-Cowie and Chang will be travelling to New Orleans for the LSA Conference taking place January 2-5, 2020 representing the School of Modern Languages’ Korean program.