Editor's Remarks

Abstract

This issue contains two important scholarly articles, an insightful and informative Forum article, and one discerning book review.The article by Eun Young Bae, entitled “Affirmative Response Design to Polar Questions in Korean Political Campaign Debates,” is a conversation analytic study of a specific type of interactional practice within the institutional genre of political campaign debates: stand-alone instances of yey ‘yes’ (YTRs) and kuhlehsupnita ‘be so’ (KTRs) response types to polar questions. The study draws from 10.4 hours of nationally televised primary debates involving the conservative New Frontier Party and the centrist liberal Democratic United Party in 2012. The results reveal a number of factors that account for candidates' use of one form over the other, for example, degree of adversarial nature of the contexts, markedness, type-conformity, and strength of affirmation. The study reveals much about the micro-level intricacies of institutional talk-in-interaction and as such provides insights for pedagogical application, as it involves the analysis of actual discourse and the nuanced descriptions that underlie each response type.Kyoungwon Oh and Sang Yee Cheon's article, “Motivational Orientations and Variables of Korean Learners,” adds to the current literature on L2 learner motivation, with a particular focus on Korean. The research presents results of a quantitative study conducted at the University of Hawai'i in which 123 language students responded to a 22-item survey questionnaire. As a follow up, 16 of the original participants were later interviewed and excerpts from that phase of the research are also presented. The study queried integrative and instrumental motivational orientations (MOs) based on such variables as heritage versus non-heritage status, Korean Major versus non-Korean Major, and language proficiency. The article presents a robust description of the Korean language program at the University of Hawai'i and its relationship to the various motivational factors discussed in the study.Angela Lee-Smith shares her contribution in the Voices from the Field Forum section entitled “Exploring Korean Heritage Learners' Perceptions of Heritage Language and Learning.” This contribution, which is part research and part discussion, synthesizes the qualitative responses from an online survey administered to 22 heritage language students who had enrolled in a course at the intermediate level in the heritage language track of a private U.S. university between 2014 and 2016. The survey items queried the students' perceptions of themselves as heritage language learners as well as their goals for learning Korean, their learning strategies, and their individual difficulties or frustrations as they improve their language learning abilities. This piece not only serves as a voice box for intermediate heritage language learners, but also provides insights for how heritage language instructors can utilize the findings within their own teaching contexts, as well as building a solid foundation for a larger-scale study on these and related issues.Jieun Ahn reviews Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers's third edition of their well-cited and highly successful Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Ahn provides an expert summary of the book as well as a clear explication of how this edition has been modified from the two earlier versions. Since the focus of the book is on the theory/methodology interface, Ahn also points out a few areas of practical application that could be developed in greater detail, both in relation to L2 pedagogy in general as well as to Korean language pedagogy specifically.Heartfelt thanks go to all of the authors and reviewers that participated in the production of this issue. The reviewers, as always, provided insightful commentary and constructive advice for elaboration and revision. We are grateful to the staff at The Penn State University Press for working so closely with us in making this issue come to fruition.I am grateful to aatk President Sahie Kang for her continued support, trust, and confidence. The KLA expresses its deepest gratitude to our long-time sponsor, The Korea Foundation, for its constant and unbending support and dedication to The Korean Language in America. We thank the aatk officers, board members, editorial board members, authors, and readers, without whom this journal would not continue to grow and thrive.