KJC Korea
Journal Central

On the basis of KakaoTalk conversation data, this paper investigates the variations found in the use of honorific final endings, expecially haeyo and hapsyo styles. For this study we collected 3,087 tokens of honorific final endings from the dialogue of 8 KakaoTalk group chat rooms. Through multivariate analyses using Goldvarb and LVS, we examined whether the linguistic and external constraints, which were claimed by Kang (2011) to constrain the usage of haeyo and hapsyo styles in spoken language, also operate in the KakaoTalk dialogues. The results of the analyses revealed not only far more variants in the KakaoTalk data (12 variants of haeyo and 6 variants of hapsyo) than in spoken language but also various additional variants realized with pronunciation spelling and partial omission of final endings. As in the spoken language, ‘sentence type’, ‘speaker's gender’, ‘rituality of utterance’, and ‘formality of situation’ were analyzed as constraints which had a strong effect on the variation. In the data examined, besides haeyo and hapsyo styles, new honorific styles of hao, hasoseo, seupjyo, handayo, hasem/hasam were also found. Two new types of variants which was not yet discussed in previous studies, were also observed in the data: variants of ‘syam’ and ‘syeom’ of hasem/hasam styles and two variants of ‘yo’ realized with consonant addition to the onset position.

This study explores the Theme types and the thematic progression in the formal email writings of Korean EFL college learners, based on the Theme-Rheme analytical framework of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). Data was collected from 99 college students, enrolled in an English Writing Composition course during the second semester of 2017 via a cyber university in Korea. Their main writing activity involved email writings in the form of requesting primarily based on the Genre Approach. Text analysis was conducted with the comparison of the high- scoring group (15), the medium-scoring group (15) and the low-scoring group (15), based on assessment of the course assignment. Employing the coding step of identifying the Theme and Rheme of each T-unit, the text analysis sought to figure out which Theme types were used for each T-unit and which thematic progression patterns were used for overall text flow and cohesion. The key finding was that there were certain discourse-specific thematic patterns of formal email writing. Among the range of thematic features, this study will highlight marked Themes, interpersonal Themes and thematic choices of nominalization for the purpose of formal email writing texts.

The purposes of this study are to investigate how TOPIK students perceive the writing area and analyze it from the point of critical assessment, and to suggest improvement directions of TOPIK writing assessment and Korean writing education. For this, 80 test-takers were conducted a questionnaire survey, and 20 of them were interviewed to elicit their thoughts, attitudes, perceptions about the TOPIK writing. As a result of analysis, the power of high - stakes testings such as TOPIK has a great influence on learners. TOPIK test-takers had difficulty and great anxiety about writing. They thought that to study for TOPIK writing is only for the sake of examination and that extra study was needed to improve their actual writing ability. Although the test-takers showed a willingness to write well in Korean, they had a negative attitude about studying writing. To solve this problem, it is necessary to solve problems of difficulty level in writing assessment such as ambiguous assessment criteria. In addition, it is also need to pay attention to the phenomenon of ‘test-oriented learning’ in Korean writing education, and to study the motivation of interest which attracts Korean learners' attention and let them have a positive attitude about writing.

The literal meaning of I don't know (hereafter IDN) references the speaker's insufficient knowledge about the topic at hand. However, in social interaction, speakers strategically use IDN in non-literal way to accomplish specific interactional goals. Preceding studies have mainly focused on analyzing the ‘avoiding functions’ of IDN in terms of how interactants use it to avoid disagreement or downgrade face-threatening acts. Little attention has been given to addressing the question of how IDN, as a discourse marker, is used in institutional contexts, particularly in news interviews where it is frequently used in responding turns. To address this lacuna, this study, from a conversation-analytic perspective, aims to analyze the interactional functions of IDN in political news interviews. The findings suggest that the confrontational functions of IDN are recurrently observed in the way the interviewee challenges the adversarial nature of questions or confronts the interviewer. In this respect, I propose four functional categories of IDN in regard to the interactional imports it has as a responsive uptake of the interviewer's questions: to confront the interviewer, to resist the terms and agendas of the questions, to disconfirm presuppositions, and to avoid aligning with preference favored by the design of the questions. Implications of the findings are noted with reference to their relevance to future research that approaches IDN as a discourse marker.

In the midst of intense global economic competition, institutions of higher education in many non-English-speaking societies have rigorously expanded internationalization and seen a dramatic increase of international students. This study investigated a case of nonnative English-speaking international students' adjustment to a Korean university devoted to internationalization. A mixed method was adopted to examine the relationships between adjustment and factors including perception of English as a lingua franca (ELF), perception of English-medium instruction, cultural knowledge, and perceived language proficiency. The analysis of the questionnaire responses of 132 international students and qualitative interviews with seven of the respondents revealed their negative view of EMI, which was frequently associated with the local language used in class. Their adjustment correlated significantly with the amount of the knowledge of the Korean culture and with the extent to which they would perceive English as a means of intercultural communication. Although the relationship between their view of EMI and adjustment was not significant, it was found still valid and indirect through the factor of the Korean language proficiency. Notably, in the qualitative interviews, the participants revealed limited understanding of the way interaction is framed in different local communities. These findings are discussed to propose improved support for international students of non-English-speaking higher education.

The purpose of this article is to study the language attitudes toward Yanbian, Korean, and Chinese through the use of head - copy language in the Yanbian area. The Yanbian bilingual speaker mixes the dialects of North Hamgyong, Korean, and Chinese. In order to analyze the use of language in the Yanbian area, it is necessary to accurately understand the language attitudes of Yanbian, Korean, and Chinese. ‘Language attitude’ is not only the evaluation and response of a speaker to a specific language, but a concrete action. The research on the language use patterns of the bilingual speakers in the Yanbian area can analyze the language attitudes for each language. Advertising language includes not only the function of information transmission but also cultural awareness of society. The attitude of language, which is one of the human consciousness forms, is also included in the advertising language and the attitude of language can be analyzed through the use of advertising language. In this paper, I will proceed with the SPSS chi-square test based on the usage of the head copy in the Yanbian area. If there is statistical significance, I will describe what kind of language attitude is displayed for each language.

This paper explores interactional practices observed in advice receiving by the tutees in college EFL writing tutorials within the framework of conversation analysis. The data for the study include 24 audio-recorded writing tutorial sessions at a university in Korea. The findings indicate three types of advice receiving: 1) advice receiving with marked acknowledgments using a:: (‘oh’) to mark the advice to be informative and newsworthy; 2) advice receiving with unmarked acknowledgments; and 3) advice resisting. Advice resisting can be further divided into three types, that is, (1) making excuses, (2) complaining, and (3) disagreeing. In the first two types of advice resisting, the tutors' advice deals with various problematic areas in the tutee's writing, and the tutees resist advice by pointing out their inability to do what is advised or complaining about the complexity of the task. The third type, disagreeing, takes place when the tutees resist the tutors' advice on vocabulary choices. These resisting patterns seem to differ from those observed elsewhere (cf, Heritage and Sefi 1992) and reflect the nature of the tutorials and the particular tutees in this study. Finally, the study suggests some pedagogical implications on EFL learning and tutor training.

The present study investigates the representations of social struggles depicted in middle school English textbooks published in Korea and the Philippines. The data consists of 200 reading selections from 18 volumes of Korean textbooks and 108 reading selections from 3 volumes of Philippine textbooks. A total of 39 instances of social struggles were identified from the data analysis, and the following categories emerged from careful reviews of those instances: (1) social struggles involving social groups, which are further divided into subcategories such as gender, generation, socioeconomic class, social rank, race, and the colonizer/colonized; and (2) social struggles involving resources, which are subdivided into education, basic necessity, and technology. Findings show that social struggles associated with gender, colonization, education, and technology are common among Philippine and Korean ELT textbooks. The data analysis also reveals that Philippine textbooks present a wider array and more in-depth contextualization of social struggles while representational issues on stereotyping, desensitization, and juxtaposition of elements are found in Korean textbooks. Related to the research findings, some educational implications are provided particularly from the perspective of critical pedagogy.

The aim of this study is to identify the new usages and functions of the personal honorific ‘bun’ in internet communication languages (ICL). To do this, we retrieved all the comments containing the word ‘bun’ that were posted on Twitter throughout the year 2017. The findings of this study are as follows. First, in ICL, ‘bun’ is used not only to represent its original meaning and function; it is also combined with a new form of address that does not carry any personal or honorific connotations. Second, Twitter users use ‘bun’ to refer to any person they are addressing, regardless of social status. Third, ‘bun’ is used in connection with the “fun-seeking”function of ICL. Finally, it is evident that the use of ‘bun’ in ICL has begun to influence everyday language. Wide-ranging studies on changing everyday use of ‘bun’ are needed.

This study aims to analyze university students' English-learning motivation through making a learning portfolio. I conducted an experiment to know whether motivation could be changed by different assessment systems, a result-oriented assessment and a process-oriented assessment. First, there were no statistically significant differences in English-learning motivation between the two groups subject to a result-oriented assessment and a process-oriented assessment by independent T-test. Second, the variable “attitudes toward learning English” significantly changed when students created a learning portfolio by paired T-test. Students showed their preferences for studying English through an authentic learning portfolio method. Therefore, even though the new assessment system such as a portfolio assessment brings us innovation, the assessment system had a partial impact on students' English-learning motivation.

This paper investigates the use of address terms and reference terms within a family. This study was conducted based on the questionnaire result targeting 4,000 people in 17 administrative areas across the country. Our research focused on investigating whether the use of terms that has been recommended in <The Standard Manners of Language Use>(2011) corresponded to the actual use in Korean contemporary language life and determining how to resolve potential problems caused by inappropriate use of the terms. The result of current study revealed that there were a number of differences between the suggested terms in <The Standard Manners of Language Use>(2011) and the actual use of the terms in contemporary Korean. The difficulty in the use of address terms and reference terms within a family was largely due to its complicate system of kinship terms and the social change from patriarchal society. This study also reveals that sexually discriminated titles for husband's and wife's family need to be reformed to avoid potential problems.