• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.33-60
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• 2004

This study was an attempt to present an appropriate way of interpreting L2 learners' linguistic behavior within Universal Grammar (UG) framework. Based on the Korean EFL adult learners' performance on the Subjacency violation sentences, the study suggested that the EFL learners are able to acquire subtle knowledge of target grammar and their linguistic behavior should be interpreted with the most recent version of UG theory, the Minimalist Program (MP) notion. The MP notion seems more plausible to accommodate incomplete L2 grammar while acknowledging UG-constrained interlanguage which the previous version, Principles and Parameters (P&P) approach, could not explain very well. The study observed no age-effects among the Korean EFL learners in their linguistic competence measured by the performance on the UG-constraint violation sentences. Having suggested that the MP notion can be a more reasonable tool to explain the EFL learners' linguistic behavior, the study introduced comprehensive hypotheses such as Constructionist Model (CM) and the Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM).

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2004

The informative or important entities in utterances are focused and the focused items are usually accompanied by changes in phonetic manifestation. Phonetic realizations triggered by focus include changes of tonal contours as well as segmental strengthening. Focus in Korean is characterized by new phrase initiation, dephrasing, and initial tone contour with an enlarged pitch range in addition to segmentally lengthened initial segment. Focusing on the prosodic cues which play an important role in delivering the speakers' intention, this study aims to find out what intonational characteristics of Korean focus are realized by English learners of Korean. The English learners are divided into two groups according to their fluency in Korean, and the differences in focus realization between each group are discussed. Furthermore, the phonological and phonetic realizations of focus by English learners of Korean are compared to those by Korean native speakers. The results of this study yields two suggestions for Korean intonation education of L2 learners. First, the comparison between the two speaker groups can give better understanding in how and why the Korean intonation of English speakers is different from that of Koreans. Second, each phonological and phonetic characteristic of focus realization can weigh differently and its realization provides a criterion for evaluation of L2 Korean proficiency.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2012

The development of corpus in recent years has attracted increased research on spoken Korean. Nevertheless, these research outcomes are yet to be meaningfully and adequately reflected in Korean language textbooks. The reported speech marker '-dae' is one of these areas that need more attention. This study investigates whether or not in textbooks '-dae' is clearly explained to English-speaking learners to prevent confusion and misuse. Based on a contrastive analysis of Korean and English, this study argues three points: Firstly, '-dae' should be introduced to Korean learners as an independent sentence ender rather than a contracted form of '-dago hae'. Secondly, it is necessary to teach English-speaking learners that '-dae' is not equivalent to the English report speech form. It functions more or less as a third person marker in Korean. Learners should be informed that '-dae' is used for statements in English, if those statements were hearsay but the source of information does not need to be specified. This is a very distinctive difference between Korean and English and should be emphasized in class when 'dae' is taught. Thirdly, '-dae' should be introduced before indirect speech constructions, because it is mainly used in simple statements and the frequency of '-dae' is very high in spoken Korean.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.15-21
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• 2019

Korean and English are both known to show on-focus pitch range expansion and post-focus pitch range compression (PFC). But it is not clear if this prosodic similarity would make it easy for Korean speakers to learn English focus prosody. In the present study, we conducted a production experiment using phone number strings to examine whether Korean learners of English produce a native-like focus prosody. Korean learners of English were classified into three groups (advanced, intermediate and low) according to their English proficiency and were compared to native speakers. Results show that intermediate and low groups of speakers did not increase duration, intensity, and pitch in the focus positions, nor did they compress those cues in the post-focus positions. Advanced speakers noticeably increased the acoustic cues in the focus positions to a similar extent as native speakers. However, their performance in post-focus positions was quite far from that of native speakers in terms of pitch and excursion size. These results thus demonstrate a lack of positive transfer of focus prosody from Korean to English in L2 learning, and learners may have to relearn it from scratch, which is consistent with a previous finding. More importantly, the results provide further support for the view proposed in other works that acoustic properties of PFC were not easily transferred from one language to another.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.7-24
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• 1999

Eleven Korean learners of English took part in an experiment where the production and perception of English /r/ and /l/ in four different word positions was investigated. Overall the subjects made more errors on /l/ in both production and identification tests. The frequency of the subjects' errors was also sensitive to word positions in which the two English liquids occur. Especially the subjects made noticeably fewer errors in intervocalic medial position. It is suggested that the Korean subjects' acquisitional pattern in this particular case of foreign phone learning can be explained more by language particular 'interference' effects rather than 'universal' acoustic arguments such as those given in Dissosway et a1. (1982) and Sheldon and Strange (1982). The results of the experiment also support the minority position among second language educators that in some cases of non-native phone acquisition, learners' production abilities can be developed earlier than their perceptual abilities.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.1
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• pp.159-187
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• 1995

The purpose of this study is to investigate common errors made by Korean learners in English composition and to find out what is an effective and appropriate teaching method of English composition in Korea. For these purposes, 197 students on the third grade in high school were selected as the subjects of this research. The students were tested by way of the immediate translation of 31 simple Korean sentences into English which are supposed to be easy for those students to write without any difficulty. About 2 minutes were given for testing each sentence. The results are as follows : First. the whole sum of errors made by 197 students was 2,972 and these types of errors were classified into 13 categories by Duskova's grammatical method and James'. The errors with comparatively high frequency were prepositional errors(17.2%), verbal errors(15.4%), and the errors with low frequency were article errors(1.9%), to-infinitive errors. Second, when Korean students learn English as a target language, overgeneralization(33.6%) and reduction(17.5) influenced the learners much more greatly than language transfer(22.2) did. But the influence of language transfer including interference & overgeneralization(l5.2%) and interference & reduction(10.7%) was no less than 48.1%. The statistics shows that the learners have a tendency to analyze, systematize and regularize the target language when they start to learn a new language.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-89
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• 2001

This paper is to introduce assorted features of a four-week English Immersion Program managed by Hongik English Language Institute for the first time in summer 2000. The program was aimed to provide English learners with the English simulation environment where everything was supposed to be English only. Thus being exposed exclusively to the English surroundings the clock around, the learners who had not had enough opportunities to use the language were able to attain a high motivation for speaking English, which eventually led to the increase of their general English language proficiency. Presenting merits and demerits of the curriculum and the overall management of the program, this paper plays a role in directing the program in a more improved way for the future and giving guidelines to other institutes where similar programs are under consideration.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.109-115
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• 2020

We aimed to understand how English textbooks in Korea reflect English education policies for improving the English language learners' cultural ability. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, we used the method of analyzing English textbooks because English textbooks are an important tool that most specifically reflects the English policy of a country. This study analyzed middle school English textbooks currently used in Korea. We analyzed nouns/pronouns related to cultures presented in the reading section included in each unit, and compared cultural diversity and cultural identity included in English textbooks in Korea. As a result, it was found that Korea tried to introduce the diverse cultures from the world and promote Korean traditional cultures into the world. So the cultural policy of English education in Korea can be evaluated to be appropriate for cultivating Korea young learners with the cultural capabilities which are essential to be successful leaders in the globalized world.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.213-235
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to present preliminary results from an ongoing large-scale study of English-language future goal orientations held by Japanese university students. The work here involves an investigation of learners in multiple disciplines, from five universities, both public and private, in the Kanto-region of Japan, and their perspective on their future use of English. The results summarize written essays on L2-goal orientations. Preliminary results indicate Japanese learners (n = 629) as a whole have disparate L2-learning goals; however, these can be summarized into four broad categories: career, personal life, study, and general; and early findings indicate that most learners (63.56%) are oriented to career or personal goal orientations, while others are oriented to study and general. These early results help us to gain a better understanding of the future goals of Japanese university learners and their views of English usage in the future.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.4
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• pp.207-228
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• 1998

This study investigated how Korean learners of English acquired the English reflexives. There is emphasis on the effects of the GCP and PAP(Wexler and Manzini, 1987). The purpose is to examine the major hypothesis that L2 learners are still constrained by Universal Grammar (UG), despite the influence of the parameter setting of their native language as well as the non-operation of the Subset Principle. The experimental group consisted of 30 middle school students (age 14-15), 30 high school students (age 16-17), and 30 university students (age 18-19) as well as 20 ESL students (age 16) studying English in the USA. Twenty native speakers of English served as a control group. The subjects responded to a test on reflexives that used a multiple-choice grammaticality judgement task. Findings show that L2 learners transfer their L1 parameter setting and, as a result, make errors in the choice of antecedents for reflexives. Therefore, I argue that the L2 learner is still constrained by UG.