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This study aims to investigate the differences in phonetic realization of segments, especially consonants including consonant clusters, in English verb-noun conversion pairs between native speakers of English and Korean English learners. This study found that native speakers of English had a tendency to produce segments in the stressed syllable considerably longer than the ones in the unstressed syllable. In contrast,Korean English learners did not make segments in the stressed syllable as long as native speakers of English in a consistent way. These results provide useful information for English learners in terms of the relation between English stress pattern and segmental duration. Furthermore, it turned out that in utterances of Korean English learners, vowel epenthesis occurred between /k/ and liquids but not between /s/ and stops.

The purpose of this study was to validate Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System (IdealL2 self, Ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience) in Korean college contexts as a follow-up study of Kang(2014). This study examined the effects of L2 motivations on motivated behavior of Korean university studentsthrough stepwise regression analyses using questionnaires. The results showed that the L2 Motivational SelfSystem explained motivated behavior better than Gardner’s (1985) integrativeness. However, the two components,L2 learning experience, and Ought-to L2 self, played more important roles than ideal L2 self in L2motivation. In addition, this study revealed some differences between high and low proficiency levels. Eventhough L2 learning experience strongly and equally explained the motivated behavior of both levels, the lowlevels were influenced by more affective sides such as integrative orientation and interests in foreign languages,while the high levels were influenced by pragmatic values of L2 learning. However, gender differences in L2motivations did not appear in Korean contexts. The theoretic discussions will be made at the conclusion.

In literature, there are mainly two rival approaches for the FNQ-constructions in Korean andJapanese, the ‘Locality’ and the ‘Cyclic Linearization.’ And the former approach again has two distinct versions,a traditional ‘strong’ view (Haig, 1980; Kuroda, 1980; Miyagawa, 1989, 2001; Saito, 1985, etc.) and a ‘weaker’view proposed by Miyagawa and Arigawa (2007) and Miyagawa (2010), This paper examines all these approachesin a wide variety of scrambling contexts, and shows that the revised Locality (i.e., a weak Locality) isthe best; it explains many recalcitrant examples that pose significant problems under the other approaches. Inthis paper, I maintain that the revised locality still has some shortcomings. Crucially, it is a stipulation; it doesnot give an account as to why the subject-object asymmetry occurs in the distribution patterns of FNQs andwhy only subjects, but not objects, leave a licensing trace optionally. This paper claims that the real heart of theinvestigation to this area of research is; how we could explain the bewildering variety of trace patterns in a simpleand principled way.

The island effect of a dative fragment results from an extraction out of an island when multiple fragmentanswers (hereafter, MFAs) occur. Kang (2014) suggests that the dative argument is attached to the embeddedditransitive verb, by reporting the results from a sentence completion experiment investigating the attachmentpreference of the dative argument in the sequence NP-NOM NP-DAT NP-ACC V-RELNP-ACC with the V-REL being a ditransitive verb in Korean. This analysis induces the dative fragment to beextracted from an island when MFAs occur. Although processing cost is not necessarily consistent with acceptability,the more costly processing tends to induce the sentence to be more marginal or unacceptable (cf. Han2015). In this vein, the less processing is preferred. The alternative way to derive the available dative fragmentin the MFAs analysis is to extract the dative argument only from the matrix clause. The dative argument in thesequence of NP-NOM NP-DAT NP-ACC V-REL may occupy either the embedded or matrix clause. At thispoint, what is at stake is that the processing cost of the ambiguous dative arguments is the same. Under thestandard assumption that island effects result from a movement operation, the island sensitivity shown in theMFAs is also involved in the adjunct island.

According to research on Chinese consumption and market environment of mineral water in 2013,the value of China’s bottled water market in 2000 was approximately $1 billion, $9 billion in 2012, and is projectedto be $16 billion by 2017. China is the largest potential export market for Korean mineral waterproducers. Given these circumstances, this study examined mineral water brand names and the marketingstrategies focusing specifically on Korea’s Jeju SamDaSoo, France’s Evian, and Chinese product Tibet Spring5100. This analysis provides brand naming and marketing recommendations to Korean businesses endeavoringto be successful in the lucrative Chinese mineral water market.

The purpose of this study was to propose Confucius notion of transformative learning by examiningConfucius’ own endeavor to learn, illustrated in Book II in the Analects. The theory of transformative learning,which was introduced and conceptualized by Mezirow, embraces a cognitive-rationalistic perspective. Thisview of learning is one view of human learning, rooted on a certain socio-cultural, historical background. Thisstudy is an exploration of the different perspective about transformative learning by examining Confucius’ notionof transformative learning. Confucius’ notion of transformation is directed toward harmony of self and theworld. What can be evoked from the Confucius’ own effort to learn, illustrated in Book II, Analects is thatthere are phases that learners must learn and transform to attain harmony in life: the first phase is related to rectifyingone’s mind and making the will sincere to learn to take a stance in life; the second one is learning with reflectionto attain insightful understandings about life; the final phase pertains to attaining and enjoying harmonyof self and others, nature, society, and the world.

The purpose of this study is to suggest a new approach to the investigation of negative polarity itemsin Korean. We have proposed that post-nominal particles such as -to, -pakkey, and -cocha(to) may need to betreated as NPIs rather than as concession markers or as mere particles. The study categorizes NPIs in Koreanlargely into two different groups, namely NPIs occurring as post-nominal particles and those appearing in lexicalforms. For NPIs in the form of post-nominal particles, it argues that some function in two different ways. For example, there are two different uses of the particle -to in Korean, i.e. an NPI and a mere additive marker. Therefore, only the one that is used as an NPI in a negative construction should be treated as an instance ofNPI, and the one that does not appear in a negative sentence needs to be regarded as a mere additive marker. This study also discusses when and how some expressions in a positive construction can function as NPIs insteadof PPIs.

The purpose of this study was to test the nature of the representational similarity effect by examiningsimple sentences containing different levels of relational information. More specifically, participants’ readingtimes and accuracy of understanding of the transitive inferences with different types of noun phrases are testedin order to investigate whether the representational similarity affects the integration processes. The results ofthe two experiments showed clearly the effect of the complexity of the relational information as well as the effectof the representational similarity. More importantly, relational complexity pattern and the similarity factorare interacting only when integrations are needed. Such results support the idea that the locus of the representationalsimilarity is the integration stage of the cognitive processes.