Comparisons of Perceptual Judgment for Hypernasality in Monolingual Korean, Bilingual-Korean-Japanes, Cantonese, Filipino and Vietnamese Populations

Kim, Sun-Hee; Sim, Hyun-Sub; Song, Yun-Kyung; Choi, Jin-Young; Yang, Jee-Hyung

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2011;16(2): 114-126.

Sun-Hee Kim^` , Hyun-Sub Sim^` , Yun-Kyung Song^` , Jin-Young Choi^` , and Jee-Hyung Yang^`

김선희(Sun-Hee Kim)| 심현섭(Hyun-Sub Sim)| 송윤경(Yun-Kyung Song)| 최진영(Jin-Young Choi)| 양지형(Jee-Hyung Yang)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
Hypernasal perception is affected by the severity of hypernasality of the speaker and the linguistic background of listener, including the phonetic characteristics of the primary language. Diversity of the linguistic background is gaining interest with speechlanguage pathologists. The purpose of this study is to examine differences regarding perception of hypernasality according to listener linguistic background and speaker hypernasality severity.
Methods
The participants were monolingual Korean and bilingual Korean-Japanese, Cantonese, Filipino, and Vietnamese listeners. A total of 49 female listeners from the five language groups rated voices with mild or severe hypernasality in order to investigate the effects of linguistic background and hypernasality severity. A five-item Likert scale was used to rate the degree of hypernasality.
Results
In repeated measures ANOVA, a main effect of speaker hypernasality severity was observed, while a one-way ANOVA indicated the effect of the linguistic background of the listener. Results also indicate that bilingual Vietnamesese, Filipino, e phonetic chaseverity of hypernasality as more mild than did the other language groups. Discussion & Conclusions: The study demonstrates that hypernasality perception was differently rated according to the listener linguistic background. This study provides useful information to clinicians not only about the importance of individual background, but also about priority intervention in speech therapy.