‘ㅅ’ 연장음에 대한 일반인과 언어재활사 간의 지각 비교

Comparison of Perception of the Prolonged /s/ in Korean by Average Adult Listeners and Speech-Language Pathologists

Purpose: This study examines 1) whether two groups of Korean listeners (i.e., average adult listeners and speech-language pathologists) show any difference(s) in the minimal duration of the prolonged Korean fricative /s/ perceived as ‘abnormal’ and 2) whether the two groups perceive the prolonged sound ‘categorically’ or ‘continuously.’ Methods: Fifty participants (25 average adult listeners and 25 speech-language pathologists) have been asked to identify whether each version of the plain voiceless fricative /s/ in the word san ‘mountain’produced by a normally fluent Korean speaker and manipulated to create a range of prolonged sounds (i.e., from 0 ms to 380 ms by 20-ms increments) is normal (0) or abnormal (1), and to rate each version of the fricative based on a rating of normal to abnormal or stuttered) (1 to 100). Results: Results show that the minimal threshold for the prolonged sound perceived as ‘abnormal’ is 375 ms for average adult listeners and 355 ms for speech-language pathologists. In addition, both groups perceive the range of sounds more continuously than categorically. Also, a significant group difference exists in that speech-language pathologists rate disfluent sounds more strictly (or higher) than average adult listeners. Conclusion: Speech-language pathologists are more sensitive than average adult listeners. The implications of these results are further discussed.