Korean L2 Research Articles

Savings in the Relearning of Second Language Vocabulary: The Effects of Time and Proficiency

This article extends the line of research that has recently applied the savings paradigm from cognitive psychology to vocabulary relearning. Second language (L2) data from 304 returnees from Japan and Korea provide evidence of the strongest savings effect yet reported in studies of lexical reactivation. The extent of the savings advantage appears to decline over time (with age a confounding factor) and relates significantly to current vocabulary size. No significant gender effects in savings are evident, but unexpected differences between the L2 Japanese and L2 Korean subgroups are reported in both lexical maintenance and savings accessibility. Substantial Matthew effects in both data sets help elucidate sources of individual differences in vocabulary learning and relearning.

MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC TRANSFER IN CHILD L2 ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH DATIVE ALTERNATION

This experimental study compares the acquisition of the English to- and for-dative alternation by L1 English, L1 Japanese, and L1 Korean children. It is well known that there are restrictions on the verbs that can enter into the dative alternation—for example, you can show the results to someone and show someone the results; and you can demonstrate the results to someone but you cannot *demonstrate someone the results. L1 children sometimes overextend the double-object variant to verbs that disallow it. One question we investigate is whether L2 children, like L1 children, overextend the double-object variant. A second question we probe is whether L2 children, like L2 adults, transfer properties of the L1 grammar. Japanese disallows all double-accusative constructions. Korean disallows them with analogues of to-dative verbs; but with analogues of for-dative verbs, Korean productively allows them—more broadly, in fact, than English—if the benefactive verbal morpheme cwu- is added. Results from an oral grammaticality judgment task show (a) that all groups allow illicit to-dative double-object forms and (b) that the Japanese—but not the Koreans—allow illicit for-dative double-object forms. This bifurcation, we argue, stems from the fact that Korean (but not Japanese) has an overt morphological licensor for double objects. We thus find evidence of both (a) overgeneralization, like in L1 acquisition, and (b) L1 influence, like in adult L2 acquisition, in this case from the (syntactic) argument-changing properties of overt morphology.

Molecular genetic analysis of reovirus isolated in Korea.

Reovirus isolates from human, striped-field mouse (Apodemus agrarius) and Korean field mouse (A. peninsulae) in Korea showed extensive variability in the patterns of electrophoretic migration of the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) genome segments. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test was performed for serotype determination of 12 reovirus isolates. To clarify genetic diversity and molecular phylogeny of Korean reoviruses, L1, S3 and S4 genomic segments of reoviruses were amplified by RT-PCR and directly sequenced. Among 12 reovirus strains, 9 strains were type 3 and 3 strains were type 2. The L1 was highly conserved showing 91.5-100%, 94.7-100% similarities among Korean isolates, and 77.5-97.9%, 92.6-96.8% similarities compared to other reference strains of each genotypes at nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively. In S3 and S4 segments, 84.4-99.3%, 72.3-99% nucleotide sequence similarities and 92-99.3%, 89.1-98.4% amino acid sequence similarities among Korean isolates were observed, and 70.8-93.9%, 72.3-98.7% nucleotide sequence similarities and 81.8-100%, 88.3-97.7% amino acid sequence similarities compared with other reference strains of each genotype were observed, respectively. Phylogenetic analyses based on the S3 and S4 nucleotide sequences indicate that genotypes of reovirus are more related with geographic differences rather than host species or date of isolation.