Conceptual deviance as a cause of fossilization in performance of Korean advanced learners of English

Abstract

Despite considerable controversy over the definition and interpretation of fossilization in the literature of SLA, fossilization has been considered one of the most difficult yet interesting topics (Long 2003). Yet, rarely have studies been conducted to investigate fossilization found in the English performance of Korean learners of English. The present study explores fossilization in the performance of advanced Korean adult learners of English. The current study revisited the errors found in Korean English textbooks by Suk and Lee (2001), analyzed nine more textbooks newly introduced since 2009 by the Korean government, and discovered that many errors were robustly ascribable to conceptual differences between lexemes of English and Korean. Not only does this finding support the Mixed Representational System of de Groot (1993) or but also the Selective Fossilization Hypothesis of Han (2009). Based on these findings, the present study proposes Conceptual Incongruity Misusage Hypothesis to predict which English lexemes Korean learners are likely to misuse.