| Acknowledging the fact that English is a major language in voice literature, English diction courses have been offered for more than two decades in Korea. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons, these courses have not been taught effectively to Korean singers.;This study presents a new approach to English diction teaching for Korean singers based on a phonological analysis of errors made by Korean singers when singing in English. It lays the ground work for a new kind of diction textbook.;According to a survey of English diction courses in Korea, none of the textbooks currently used were written specially for singers whose native language is Korean. Therefore the textbooks do not deal with the difficulties that Korean singers might encounter. These areas of difficulty were investigated through an analysis of sample recordings of forty Korean voice students. Three graduate students in the voice department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and three non-music majors at the same institution participated in the analysis. The central finding was that Korean singers' errors were closely related to their native language background. In addition, problems regarded as singing problems, such as singing diphthongs, weak articulation of stop and nasal consonants, phrasing, and tensing of vowels were also caused by their language background. Other problems arose from following outdated suggestions in the diction textbooks written for native English speakers.;A detailed phonological analysis of problematic areas has led to guidance for teaching English diction at the sound-level, word-level, and phrase-level. For teaching segmentals, the articulatory position of individual consonant and vowel phoneme is introduced. Despite their importance for Korean singers, suprasegmentals have been given little attention in earlier diction texts. In my study, suprasegmentals are discussed in detail. There is a guide on the word level, and on the phrase level. Moreover, in the later part of the textbook, the exercises are designed not only to improve students' English pronunciation but also to develop their ability to analyze and interpret English song texts by themselves. |
