KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study examined the linguistic backgrounds and dialectal characteristics of Changnyeong and Dalseong regions, which are located in the transitional area between Gyeongsangnam-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do. It was confirmed that the language of each region was not severed but share many commonness based on various characteristics found in the transitional area existing discussions and field surveys, As a result, 19 (18) consonants were realized by elderly people and 19 by young people in Changnyeong and Dalseong regions. In the case of vowels, six by elderly people and Seven vowels by young people. Also, it was investigated that language variations, such as Word-initial Glottalization, palatalization, and umlaut, were more active in the Changnyeong region than Dalseong region. The difference between these three variations can be attributed to the perceptions and attitudes of older speakers.

From a conversation analytic perspective, this paper undertakes the sequential analysis of students' oral reading initiated by teachers during teacher-student interaction. Extracted from 14 Korean elementary school EFL lessons collected on video, the sequences that contain teachers' initiation and students' reading and the surrounding talk were closely examined. The major finding is that students' oral reading serves a range of instructional purposes: practicing through repetition, marking closure, preparing for what is about to unfold, collaborating in knowledge presentation, rendering key linguistic information, and presenting and checking students' written work. Based on this observation, this paper argues that students' oral reading predominantly occurs as part of or in conjunction with a larger instructional activity, rather than with an exclusive instructional focus.

The Hallyu (Korean Wave) boom that started with TV dramas in the 2000s expanded to various cultural areas, including food and music. As Korean culture gained popularity, Hallyu fans in Japan began to adopt Korean vocabulary like loan words. To study this phenomenon, the author collected vocabulary used by K-pop fans of native Japanese speakers and classified them by type. It was found that most of these words were currently being borrowed and used in their original Korean form; however, there were also words created by combining Korean words with Japanese words or newly coined by combining Korean words. Once Korean K-pop vocabulary becomes more established in Japan, it is expected that more words will emerge that originate from Korean but are independently created and used exclusively by Japanese speakers.

The aim of this study is to analyze the research trend of speech acts in Korean language. This study targets 371 master's and doctoral dissertations published from 1985 to 2020. These papers are analyzed according to the year of publication, type of paper, type of speech act, research topic, subject of research, and data collection method. As a result of the analysis, research related to speech acts in Korean have been diversified in terms of topics, subjects of research, and data collection methods along with a quantitative increase. However, three directions are proposed for the development of the study of speech acts in Korean language. First, subjects of research need to be diversified in terms of their learning environment and proficiency. Second, in order to analyze the actual use of language, it is required to collect data close to actual conversation. Lastly, longitudinal studies are needed to research Korean language learners' development or acquisition of Korean language.

The purpose of this study is to reveal through discourse analysis the processes and patterns in which discrimination and hate in Korean society is produced. The social aspect of discrimination and hatred is practiced and reproduced through discourse. Discourses related to dogs were selected for this inquiry, because discrimination and hatred against dogs, especially large dogs today, are confirmed through various discourse(language sources) of the media. For this critical discourse study, van Dijk's approach, emphasizing the cognitive component when exploring the relationship between discourse and society, was applied. As a result of the analysis, it was identified that the polarized distinction between ‘we’ group and ‘they’ groups according to categorization, discrimination based on prejudice and stereotypes, and hatred due to contemptuous attitudes were sequentially developed. And it was found that the division and discrimination were represented and reproduced through the discourse at the macro-level of society, and the hate was represented through the discourse at the micro-level.

To check the linguistic features of the interviews from the humidifier disinfectant victims, the research compared the interviews with the modern spoken corpus and analyzed them in respect of vocabulary and grammar. The results are as follows. First, a common point was deduced by the lexical metaphor that the relationship between the informants and their companion animals, the victims of the case, is as close as a family member. The result is very meaningful, in that it is very rare that the materials of the lexical metaphor provide and predict the relationship between humans and companion animals. Second, the actuality of the semi-formal talk was well revealed by the grammatical feature, in terms of many fragmentary sentences and frequent uses of the ‘-haeyo’ style. However, certain types of conclusive endings such as ‘-keodeunyo’, ‘-jyo’, or ‘-jahnayo’, which are used by the speaker's assumption on the state of hearer's knowledge, were frequently used compared to the modern spoken corpus. The features of these conclusive endings assuming hearer's knowledge and ignorance show that the linguistic materials of informants implicate their intent to inform the society of the case and to get recognition from the society.

This study probes how cultural contents are represented in middle school English textbooks based on the 2015 revised national curriculum. To this end, culture-related sections of 15 textbooks were analyzed in terms of five aspects: cultural subject matters, cultural types, backgrounds, activities for cultural learning, and language integration. The results reveal that the middle school textbooks deal with everyday life of various cultures, including tasks for introducing Korean culture. The three culture types are provided at a relatively balanced ratio, but as the grade goes up, the portion of spiritual culture increases whereas that of material culture decreases. As for cultural background, non-English cultures in the outer and expanding circle are the most frequently presented. In the analysis of cultural learning activities, searching and communication activities connected to speaking and writing have a large portion, but experiential activities are rare. 45.5% of cultural activities are presented in a single communication skill and 54.5% of them are integrated into two or more skills. Finally, based on the study results, some suggestions for effective culture education to attract students' spontaneous participation in middle school English classes are presented.