This page needs significant updates! Other than the projects below, many interesting L2 projects are in progress. Check Dr. Park’s webpage for recent research projects in the lab.
Current Projects
The role of perceived variability in L2 perceptual training
In perceptual training of L2 sounds, training with multiple-talker materials is more effective (e.g., better generalization to novel exemplars of the learned categories, longer retention of training effects) than that with single-talker materials. It has been argued that such benefits are due to high stimulus variability in the multiple-talker produced materials. In this project, I investigate whether trainees perceive the variability (e.g., number of talkers) in the training materials and whether such a perception plays a role in learning non-native categories.
Ruh, Preston. (2022). Does Perceived Talker Similarity Play Any Role in Perceptual Training? [abstract] The 14th Annual UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium, UWM.
Listeners’ evaluations on fluency, accentedness, comprehensibility, and pleasantness of non-native speech
Listeners evaluate many aspects of the speech of their interlocutors. For example, the degree of foreign accent, comprehensibility, pleasantness, and fluency are some aspects that listeners would continuously assess while conversing with non-native speakers at a conscious or unconscious level. With graduate students Jieun Lee and Dong Jin Kim, I investigate how listeners’ subjective evaluations of the aforementioned dimensions are related to one another. Also, we explore the source of associations among these perceptual dimensions.
Lee, J., Kim, D. J., & Park, H. (2019). Native listeners’ evaluations of pleasantness, foreign accent, comprehensibility, and fluency in the speech of accented talkers. In J. Levis, C. Nagle, & E. Todey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference (pp. 168-178). ISSN 2380-9566, Ames, IA, September 2018 (pp. 168-178). Ames, IA: Iowa State University.
(Somewhat) on-going (i.e., slowing moving) Projects
Underlying sources of individual differences in L2 phonological development
In collaboration with Dr. Isabelle Darcy and Dr. Chung-Lin Yang, we investigate possible sources of individual differences (e.g., cognitive abilities such as working memory, processing speed, etc.) among second language learners in their phonological development.
Influence of the attitude toward L2-English on the VOT merger phenomenon in Seoul Korean (Graduate School Research Committee Awards, the Graduate School Research Committee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. April 2011)
We investigate how an L2 influences on the learners’ native language, through the case of sound change in Seoul Korean (lenis and aspirated stop category merge in voice onset time). We collected production data from college students in Korea with their language background information. Some preliminary results suggest that the Koreans’ attitude toward L2 (English) may play a role in the VOT merge among young male speakers from Seoul.
Park, H. & Mar, L.-Y. English influence as a possible barrier for the sound change in Korean. The 18th Annual Mid-Continental Phonetics & Phonology Phonetics Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. (March 2013). [pdf]
Production and perception development of Korean by English-speaking learners’ of Korean
We investigate how American students’ learning Korean as a second language progress in their learning Korean. Two areas (i.e., perception and production) are examined in their relationship in the developmental patterns.
Past Projects (These projects may be resurrected in future)
Thai tone neutralization
In collaboration with Dr. Garry Davis, we examined whether tonal distinction between high and low tones in Thai in disyllabic words is psychologically real.
Davis, G., Park, H., & Lerdpaisalwong, S. Tone Neutralizalization in Thai Disyllables of the Type CV(ʔ). The 23rd Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society Conference, Chulalongkorn University, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. (May 2013). [pdf]