• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.25-38
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• 2017

This study investigates non-native speakers(NNS) of English use of backchannels with beginner-intermediate learners' use of 'uh', 'um(uhm)', 'and' and 'hm' suggesting a view as a possible pedagogical implication. The initial aim of this study was to learn this phenomenon and observe their conversation patterns to compare with previous studies. Based on the previous findings, the analyzed data using conventional Conversation Analysis (CA) methods indicate the possible presence of L1 topic markers, '-un' and '-nun' in the form of L2 backchannel tokens when uttered by beginning and intermediate level speakers of English and the presences of L2 backchannel tokens appear only in front of noun phrases. Additionally, these same words with these tokens and when translated back to Korean also require topic markers of '-un' and '-nun.' Finally, This study discusses possible pedagogical implications with the initial analysis of backchannel tokens for Korean EFL learners. In addition, the ultimate goal of this study is to refine this analysis with follow up experiments to validate this investigation into a working hypothesis generating discussions of this backchannel phenomenon from being viewed as a hindrance to as an positive influence that needs to be understood.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.9-21
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• 2021

This study investigated whether Korean learners improve acoustic cue weights to identify Korean lenis and aspirated stops in the direction of native values through perception training that focused on contrasting the stops in various phonetic contexts. Nineteen native Chinese learners of Korean and two native Korean instructors for the perception training participated in the experiment. A training group and a non-training group were divided according to pretest results, and only the training group participated in the training for 5 days. To estimate the perceptual weights of the stop cues, a pretest and a posttest were conducted with stimuli whose stop cues (F0 and VOT) were systematically manipulated. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed on each learner's test results to calculate perceptual β coefficients, which estimate the perceptual weights of the acoustic cues used in identifying the stop contrast. The training group showed a statistically significant increase of 0.451 on average in the posttest for the coefficient values of the F0, which is the primary cue for the stop contrast, whereas the non-training group showed an insignificant increase of 0.246. The patterns of change in the F0 use after training varied considerably among individual learners.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.493-503
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• 2018

The present study is a conceptual replication of O'Grady, Lee, and Choo's (2003) earlier study designed to investigate two hypotheses (linear distance hypothesis vs. structural distance hypothesis) in relation to L2 Korean learners' processing of Korean subject and object relative clauses (RCs) in a scholarly attempt to explicate Keenan and Comrie's (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH). In addition, the current study is intended to explore any potential role of working memory capacity (WMC) in the processing of Korean subject and/or object RCs. Chinese-speaking learners of Korean taking a language course offered at a local university in Korea participated in this experimental study. Among those recruited, only 23 learners completed the experimental tasks appropriately according to the specific instructions provided on each task, and thus, subsequent statistical analyses were conducted on their data. Fifteen Korean NSs were also recruited for the control group. Two experimental tasks were administerd to the participants: one picture selection task containing the same test items used in O'Grady et al.'s study to measure their processing of subject-object RCs and an operation span (OSPAN) task to measure their WMC. Somewhat differently from O'Grady et al.'s findings, the participating Chinese learners of Korean performed significantly better on object RCs than on subject RCs, seemingly lending support to the linear distance hypothesis. Further analyses, however, suggested that the results in favor of, or relative ease of processing, object relative clauses were due, most likely, to the learners' excessive use of the canonical sentence strategy, which also led to nonsignificant correlations between WMC and learner performance on the picture selection task.