Korean Speakers Research Articles

영한 번역에서 ‘-은/는’과 ‘-이/가’의 선택 문제: 한국어 모국어 화자의 번역 양상 고찰

This study examines the translation problem of choosing the topic marker “eun/neun” or the subject marker “i/ka” in English to Korean Translation. For native speakers of Korean, the markers “eun/neun” and “i/ka” are intuitively distinctive, and the decision which of the two to use is made naturally, without difficulty. However, when translating English into Korean, choosing “eun/neun” or “i/ka” can be challenging. The language difference between English and Korean interferes with the native speaker’s intuition. When translating English―a language without markers such as “eun/neun” and “i/ka”―into Korean, determining which particle to use after the subject-functioning noun phrase can be demanding. This study looks into English-major undergraduate students’ translation samples and analyzes their use of “eun/neun” and “i/ka” when translating the “A is B” type English sentence into Korean. While translating the same sentence, the students made different choices: some used “eun/neun,” others used “i/ka,” and still others used both. The problem lies in that “eun/neun” or “i/ka” is not a direct translation of the English verb “is.” The key to the problem is to know the difference in syntactic structures of the two languages: English is a “subject-prominent” language, whereas Korean is a “topic-prominent” language. Some scholars say Korean is a language that is both “topic- and subject-prominent.” After explaining different meanings and usages of the markers “eun/neun” and “i/ka” in the Korean language, the study suggests possible approaches to translating the “A is B” structure (in English) into Korean.

연행(燕行)현장답사를 활용한 상호문화교육 방안 연구 - 중국인 고급한국어 학습자 대상 중국 내 조선 사신의 연행 유적 현장 답사 교육 사례를 중심으로 -

With the recent escalation of cultural conflicts between Korea and China, Chinese Korean language learners often have difficulty communicating with Koreans interculturally, so various methods of intercultural education need to be devised. This study theoretically confirmed that field trips to historical sites can be a good way to improve intercultural communicative competence by providing learners with an opportunity to re-recognize the relationship between the self and the world through visits to historical sites where community memories are preserved. Subsequently, through the survey conducted, Chinese learners agree with the need for intercultural education, and it was confirmed that the use of auxiliary materials such as video media (dramas, films, entertainment programs, documentaries, etc.) and literary works, as well as discussions, role-plays, field trip activities involving native Korean speakers, etc. are preferred. Based on these theoretical exploration and survey results, the records of Joseon envoys who crossed the West Sea during the Joseon Dynasty and landed in Yantai, Shandong Province, before going to Beijing were used as class materials, and Weifang, Shandong Province, an area they passed through, was designated as a field trip area. An educational plan consisting of pre-learning, introduction, discussion, field trip, role play and re-discussion, achievement evaluation, and assignments was prepared and taught to Chinese Korean language learners attending university in Weifang, and its usefulness was confirmed.

어순 교체에 따른 한국어 피동문 실시간 처리 연구 - 일본인 학습자를 대상으로 -

This study investigated whether L1 Japanese learners of Korean can acquire the word order alternations of the Korean passive. In self-paced reading, Korean native speakers (n = 30) showed greater sensitivity to structural cues than semantic ones, while Japanese L2 Korean speakers (n = 60) showed no difference in reading time, regardless of proficiency, as well as showing no sensitivity to structural or semantic cues. These results indicate that Japanese L2 Korean speakers have difficulty with the on-line processing of sentences despite the morphological congruency between L1 and L2.

한국어 요청 화행의 언어 유형론적 분석 시론(試論)

This study reviews recent contrastive works on speech acts of request between Korean and other languages and analyzes the data collected for the works in order to find commonalities and differences between the languages investigated. The results indicate that speakers in most languages prefer conventionally indirect strategies in requests. The results also demonstrate that people use less imperatives and use more supportive moves when speaking to an interlocutor of higher social position or of significant social distance, or when the imposition of a request is greater. As for differences, Korean speakers tend to use more direct strategies than their German, Spanish, English, and Japanese counterparts although they are less direct in requests than speakers of the Mongolian, Vietnamese, Arabic, and Thai languages. While indirectness is considered closely associated with politeness in language, this study argues that the Korean honorific, a distinctive mechanism of politeness realization, should be taken into consideration in determining how polite an utterance is.

非母语者话语标记“然后”的使用情况考察

This paper takes native English and Korean speakers as the research objects, and examines their use of the discourse marker “Ranhou” in Chinese communication from the aspects of distribution and function by means of statistical and comparative analysis. On this basis, find out the factors that form and affect the above characteristics. After investigation, we found that both native and non-native speakers tend to use “Ranhou” as a discourse marker in long-turn personal declarative Chinese communication. However, non-native speakers' psychological dependence on “Ranhou” is far less strong than that of Chinese native speakers, so the frequency of use is much lower than that of native speakers. Functionally, the discourse marker “Ranhou” works at both the discourse and interpersonal levels. In the corpus of native speakers and non-native speakers, the specific functional performance of “Ranhou” has both common features and individual differences. We believe that the above differences are related to the influence of the communicator's language ability.

제 3 언어로서의 스페인어 발음 학습에 관한 제언: 미국 내 한국어 화자를 중심으로

This study addresses the issue of how native Korean speakers living in the US have learned Spanish as a third language, particularly in terms of their pronunciation. Specifically, it delves into what characterizes their pronunciation, from what perspectives the pronunciation can be understood, and what researchers should take into account to examine their pronunciation. To do so, it first introduces models on L2 perception and production as well as models on L3 morphosyntax. Then, this study attempts to apply the main principles of the models to the learning contexts and characteristics of Korean Spanish learners in the US. Lastly, based on the theoretical underpinnings and their learning characteristics, it provides suggestions for empirical studies that intend to examine L3 Spanish pronunciation. This study can be useful for Korean learners of L3 Spanish and their parents, Spanish teachers, and L3 researchers. In addition, some theoretical and empirical suggestions of this study can be applicable to the Korean learners of L3 Spanish who live in Korea and English-speaking countries other than the US.

”Functional Phase Analysis in the Apology Conversation Comparing Native Korean Speakers and Native Vietnamese Korean Learners“.

”Functional Phase Analysis in the Apology Conversation Comparing Native Korean Speakers and Native Vietnamese Korean Learners“.

Korean Nasalization as L1 Interference on English Production by Korean EFL Learners

The present study aims to analyze how L1 interference of Korean nasalization processes influences English speech by Korean EFL speakers according to their English proficiency. 20 Korean EFL speakers (experimental group) and four native speakers of English (control group) participated in this study. Korean EFL speakers were divided into two groups of ten according to their English proficiency. This study measures the values of three factors: the frequency of nasalization processes, final stop release, and vowel insertion. Through this study, the following results were found. The English proficiency of Korean EFL speakers is found to influence the realization of nasalization processes and vowel insertion in their English speech in that they are realized more frequently by the group with lower English proficiency than the group with higher English proficiency. For final stop release, although no particular difference is found when comparing the frequency of the final stop release of the three speaker groups, it is found that the group with English native speakers has a higher frequency of final stop release than the two Korean speaker groups, and the group with higher English proficiency is likely to have a higher frequency of final stop release compared to the group with lower English proficiency in most cases. The findings suggest that the group with higher English proficiency speaks closer to English native speakers than the group with lower English proficiency.

A Cepstral Analysis of Pathological Voice Quality in the Korean Population using Praat

This study aimed to investigate the reference values for cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and smoothed CPP (CPPS) measured using Praat in Korean speakers with the normal, healthy and pathological voice. A total of 4,524 Korean participants with vocally healthy (n=410) and dysphonic voices (n=4,114) participated in this study. The speech task consisted of a sustained vowel /a/ and a sentence reading the Korean passage "Walk". CPP and CPPS values were quickly and automatically measured in sustained vowel and continuous speech tasks using Praat script. Furthermore, three veteran speech language pathologists (SLPs) scored the severity of dysphonia using the GRBAS scale (grade, roughness, breathiness, asthenia, strain) and Consensus Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V). Three SLPs showed high inter- and intra-rater reliabilities (IRR) in auditory-perceptual (A-P) evaluation. Significant differences were confirmed in CPP and CPPS between the normally healthy and pathological voice groups for both voice tasks (P < 0.01). The measured values of CPP and CPPS varied depending on the laryngeal pathology. In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, the CPP_Vowel (CPP_V), CPPS_V, CPP_Sentence (CPP_S), and CPPS_S cut-off values were <21.5, <12.0, <19.7, and <10.1, respectively. Through ROC curve analysis, it was confirmed that CPP and CPPS had excellent diagnostic accuracy in distinguishing disordered voice (area under the ROC: 0.951-0.966). We investigated the reference values for CPP and CPPS measured with Praat for Korean speakers and confirmed that cepstral analysis is a promising tool for differentiating pathological voice.

The effect of allophonic variability on L2 contrast perception: Evidence from perception of English vowels.

Current frameworks of L2 phonetic acquisition remain largely underspecified with respect to the role of L1 allophonic variability in acquisition. Examining the role of L1 allophonic variability, the current study compared the perceptual discrimination of English /i-ɪ/ and /ɛ-æ/ by L1 Korean and L1 Mandarin speakers. Korean and Mandarin vowel inventories differ in that Mandarin employs significantly greater allophonic variation of the mid-region /E/ vowel. Results demonstrated worse perceptual accuracy by L1 Mandarin speakers for the /ɛ-æ/ contrast than L1 Korean speakers. These results suggest that both L1 phonemic inventories and allophonic variation play a role in L2 phonetic acquisition.

Closure durations of Korean stops at three positions

This study investigates closure durations of Korean stops in terms of laryngeal contrasts, places of articulation, and three positions within words. Twenty-two Korean speakers produced the nonsense words containing Korean stops found in word-initial and word-final positions and between vowels. The statistical results showed that the closure durations differed significantly by laryngeal contrast and place of articulation. In addition, the differences by position within words were marginally significant. The closure durations were in the order of lenis &lt; aspirated &lt; fortis stops by laryngeal contrast, velar &lt; alveolar &lt; bilabial stops by place of articulation, and word-final &lt; word-initial &lt; between vowels by positions within words. The laryngeal contrasts were neutralized in word-final position as per coda neutralization in Korean phonology. This study shows that closure durations should be considered a valuable phonetic cue to identify stops on par with voice onset time and f0.

한국어적 사고로 바라본 중국어의 언어구조 고찰

The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between the semantic function and grammatical structure of the Chinese word “activity verb” in the category above. This is an attempt to explain the Chinese active verb syntax, which was difficult to understand due to the grammatical structure of the Korean language, with the commercial characteristics of the verb. Therefore, words that do not match the Chinese language structure are not searched. This paper shows that the qualities inherently shared by verbs in language structure are at work. In line with this, it is suggested that Korean speakers can solve the questions faced by the Chinese grammar structure by looking at the commercial characteristics of verbs and considering the constraints and semantic changes of Chinese active verbs. Furthermore, it is possible to explain why some grammatical phenomena are always described as having two or more meanings depending on the commercial characteristics of the active verb.

The interactional functions of the Korean response tokens kulehci and maca

This study applies conversation analysis to examine a collection of naturally occurring telephone calls to examine how Korean speakers differentiate their use of kulehci and maca in social interactions in which they exchange information or opinions. When they occur as freestanding tokens or are prefaced by a ‘yes’-type token (e.g., ung and e), kulehci serves to indicate its producer’s lack of ability or rights to fully affiliate with a stance conveyed in a prior turn, whereas maca displays its producer’s ability or rights to fully endorse. In the case of kulehci and maca accompanied by the same speaker’s additional talk, kulehci tokens are routinely followed by a reformulation of the prior speaker’s talk, while maca tokens are followed by the addition of a new piece of information or opinion to an ongoing topic.

The role of L1 in L2 speech production at different stages of L2 development: Evidence from L2 Chinese oral production of verb-phrase ellipsis by English and Korean speakers.

The article reports on an empirical study investigating the role of L1 at the initial and developmental stages of L2 speech production. It examines two types of Chinese verb- phrase-ellipsis, ΣP-ellipsis licensed by the auxiliary shi 'BE' and vP-ellipsis licensed by the other auxiliaries, in 45 English and 45 Korean adult speakers' L2 Chinese speech production. An elicited imitation task was administered to L2 learners at beginner, intermediate and advanced Chinese proficiency levels. L1 influence is not observed at beginner levels, but it appears at intermediate and advanced levels, L1 influence disappears at different time in English and Korean learners' oral production of verb-ellipsis and ΣP-ellipsis. It is proposed that the absence of L1 influence at beginner levels is due to a breakdown of syntax-stylistics interface and beginners' difficulty in implementing checking and deleting operations in their L2 oral production. The different timings of the disappearance of L1 influence in the two language groups at advanced levels is attributed to interactions between the persistence of L1 influence and the computational complexity involved in the target elliptical structures.

South Korean immigrant workers in Germany: L2 German verb placement and sociolinguistic factors

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study explores the asymmetric placement of the finite verb in Korean L2 German speakers and examines the effect of sociolinguistic factors on the produced verb placement patterns. Design/methodology/approach: Fifty-eight participants performed a sentence completion task that elicited the preferred placement of the (finite) verb in matrix and subordinate clauses. In addition, language background interviews were conducted to better understand the sociolinguistic circumstances of the Korean immigrants. Data and analysis: The experimental data are analyzed using implicational scaling to identify patterns of verb placement. The effect of sociolinguistic factors was tested fitting an ordinal logistic regression model. Findings/conclusions: Contrary to the developmental stages of L2 German syntax found in previous research, the experimental results revealed that target-like subordinate clauses are produced more robustly than verb second (V2) constructions. It is argued that this result is better explained with difficulties producing subject-verb inversion, V2, than with facilitative L1 transfer effects from Korean, producing German subordinate clauses with V-final order. Concerning social factors, the type of occupation (coal miner or nurse) was most significant in predicting the preferred L2 verb placement pattern, followed by L2 education and age of immigration. Originality: This article adds to the understanding of L2 German syntax by revisiting previously identified stages of L2 German development with data that target the preferred verb placement in matrix and subordinate clauses from less-researched L1 Korean speakers. The intra-group distinction of Korean immigrants into coal miners and nurses further allows a differentiated look at the role of sociolinguistic factors. Significance/implications: This research is significant as it aims to draw a comprehensive picture of L2 German acquisition and usage in the context of labor migration, highlighting a less-studied group of immigrants.

Second Language knowledge of pragmatic meanings: What do learners of Korean know about the Korean pronouns ce and na?

In this study, we examined two related aspects in pragmatic knowledge: namely, knowledge of the contexts in which certain linguistic forms are prototypically used (i.e. form-context mappings), and the indexical meanings which are produced when a form is used in a particular context. We employed one-to-one metapragmatic interviews with 30 L1 Korean speakers, 28 L2 Korean learners in the UK as well as eight group interviews with 26 of the learners. The interviews focused on the participants’ understanding of the Korean first-person honorific pronoun ce in relation to its non-honorific equivalent na. The findings revealed that, while the learners’ understanding of the contexts in which ce is normally used was fairly similar to L1 speakers, the indexical meanings that they associated with the form-context mappings differed saliently from that of L1 speakers. In addition, the learners struggled to align with the L1 speakers’ meaning interpretations and made unsuccessful attempts to incorporate them into their existing indexical systems. The findings thus demonstrate that form-context mappings represent only one part of L2 learners’ pragmatic competence. Future research and pedagogical efforts are encouraged to take into consideration the indexical meanings that underly language usage and help learners make more informed linguistic choices.

Electrophysiological evidence for a subject-first strategy in visually situated auditory sentence processing in Korean

This study investigated a subject-first strategy in prediction mechanism in visually situated sentence processing in Korean, using event-related potentials (ERPs). According to the subject-first strategy, parsers tend to generate sentences conforming to canonical sentence word order (i.e., SOV in Korean), subject-first sentence, mapping conceptually more prominent referent such as agent of the event on the subject position of the sentence. Therefore, in the predictive mechanism of language comprehension, the subject is pre-activated and anticipated for the first NP of the sentence at the initial phase of bottom-up language processing. This study tested this subject-first strategy in Korean by examining brain responses to object-initial sentences (OV) compared with subject-initial sentences (SV) under the context of clear thematic role relations set by a visual image. The results of an ERP experiment with 30 native Korean speakers identified neural effects for object-initial sentences compared with subject-initial sentences at the NP and Verb, reflecting a conflict between the pre-activated representation in the parser's mind and the encountered bottom-up input. An N400 effect was elicited at the NP, as early as at the noun, not at the following object case marker. Late frontal positivity (LFP) was also found in the sentence-final verb, proving the processing difficulty of non-canonical object-initial sentences compared with canonical subject-initial sentences. These results indicate that Korean native speakers build linguistic representation conforming to a canonical sentence in SOV language in the predictive mechanism supporting subject-first strategy but revise the predicted event structure rapidly upon newly encountering input.

Individual Variability in the Production of /e/ and /ɛ/ in Yanbian Korean

This study investigates the production of two vowels (/e/ and /ɛ/) in Yanbian Korean to determine whether Yanbian Korean speakers produce the two vowels similarly. This was achieved by directly comparing the vowel production of Yanbian Korean to the control data provided by speakers of Seoul Korean, a dialect where an unconditional merger of the two vowels is already complete. We hypothesized that speakers in close contact with Seoul Korean speakers tend to neutralize the distinction between the two vowels. Resutls from the two statistical analyses (Pillai and Bhattacharyya’s affinity) confirmed that Seoul Korean speakers display completely overlapping distribution of the vowels, whereas Yanbian Korean speakers showed greater individual variability when producing the same vowels. Some speakers, who had constant contact with Seoul Korean speakers at work or school, produced the target vowels in a similar fashion; however, others clearly produced them as different phonemes. The results suggest that direct or prolonged contact with or exposure to a dominant language may play a role in initiating the spread of the merger at an individual level.

유학생의 구어 발표 말뭉치에 나타난 학문적 문체 특성 연구

Objectives The purpose of this study is to analyze the colloquial presentation corpus of Korean learners for academic purposes to reveal stylistic characteristics and to find out the correlation between the use of academic styles according to proficiency. Methods 69 academic learners in Korean universities or graduate schools recorded and transcribed presentations to build researcher’s own corpus of learner colloquial presentations, and analyzed high-frequency word segment and high-frequency expression sentences using AntConc corpus analysis programs. Results The purposes of this study were to specify variables related to convergence competency, and to analyze the structural relationships among them. The purposes of this study were to specify variables related to convergence competency, and to analyze the structural relationships among them. Conclusions Through this study, it can be seen that learners for academic purposes are not fully aware of the grammar and expressions strategically used by native Korean speakers in presenting academic purposes and are not effectively used. In addition, it was found that the academic style characteristics were influenced by the genre of presentation rather than the difference according to the degree of mastery. Therefore, in Korean language education for learners for academic purposes, it is necessary to understand the academic nature of the presentation of academic purposes and to appropriately and effectively use a style that reveals academic specificity according to the academic level or purpose.

Effects of Native Translation Frequency and L2 Proficiency on L2 word Recognition: Evidence from Korean Speakers of English as a Foreign Language.

The goal of this study was to examine how the lexical characteristics of L1 translated words affect L2 word recognition by Korean speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL) with different English proficiency levels. To this end, we conducted a lexical decision task, in which participants decided whether English strings were words or nonwords. The experiment had three critical conditions: (1) English words that only had a loanword translation in Korean (e.g., card), (2) English words whose native word translation had a lower frequency than their loanword translation (e.g., coat), and (3) English words whose native word translation had a higher frequency than their loanword translation (e.g., cash). Results showed that English words whose native word translations in Korean were of high frequency were recognized faster than those with low frequency native word translations. More interestingly, the L1 native word frequency effect was stronger for speakers with lower English proficiency than for more proficient EFL speakers. These findings are discussed with respect to L2 lexical processing models.