KJCKorea
Journal Central

This article analyzes the cultural items of reading part in 『조선어교제문전(朝鮮語交際文典) Koreanische Konversations-Grammatik mit Lesestücken und Gesprächen』, which is a Korean language study book authored by German missionary Andreas Eckardt(1884-1974, Korean name: Ok Nak-an). Eckhart introduced to the Germans the Korean cultural items such as Korean beliefs, rituals, and daily life that he gained through his exploration and observation. The cultural items he contained in the book are consistent with the detailed items of folklore today, which can be said to be a culture of behavior representing the everyday lives of ordinary Koreans in the early 20th century. The cultural items selected by Eckart correspond to Brooks' little c category, which is a category of cultural education in communication -oriented Korean language education. Brooks called the culture of conduct as Hearthstone, which we call folk today, and which is the everyday culture of ordinary people of the day. Eckhart observed the everyday life of ordinary Korean people through the eyes of an outsider and treated the results in cultural items. His willingness to write for intercultural encounters through Korean cultural education was reflected in his book. The <Reading> cultural item in his book provides a meaningful perspective on the selection of cultural items that enables people to reach an intercultural understanding while reflecting the daily life of Koreans.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the pronunciation of the Korean was presented and learned through Korean textbooks published in Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For this purpose, this study attempted to confirm the pattern in which Japanese learners learned phonological rules of the Korean by dividing into three types of notation related to phonological phenomena, centering on the Korean textbooks with both Korean alphabet notation and Kana notation. First, with regard to consonants, it was investigated how the Korean lenis, fortis, and aspirated consonants pronunciation patterns, which is not found in the Japanese consonant system, is presented in the Korean textbooks. For example, in 『Haneohoehwa』(1904), separate symbols (˚, ˋ) were used to mark the three Korean sounds - the lenis, fortis, and aspirated consonants - in Kana notation, which are not in the Japanese consonant system. Second, with the phonological changes of consonants, it was considered that learners were able to inductively learn the phonological rules of Korean through the type (ii), in which the phonological changes were not reflected in the Korean alphabet notation but the phonological changes were reflected in the Kana notation. Finally, with regard to vowels, this study examined the contents of how to present short vowels in Korean, which are not found in the Japanese vowel system, in the Korean textbooks. There are only 5 single vowels in Japanese, but there are up to 10 single vowels in Korean, so it was difficult for Japanese learners to learn the Korean vowel system. Therefore, in this study, we carefully reviewed how individual vowels of Korean are presented to learners in the Korean textbooks. Korean vowels that do not exist in Japanese were matched to Kana notation, which represents a Japanese vowel near the articulation position with the Korean vowels. In this case, additionally a phonetic and phonological explanation was presented because there are several Korean vowels corresponding to one Kana notation.

The purpose of this study is to examine Korean vocabulary education as a part of the history of early Korean education through analysis of Korean language study books for English-speaking learners published in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The contents of vocabulary education in the Korean language study books published during this period were reviewed in terms of vocabulary presentation and vocabulary practice. As a result, there were three types of vocabulary presentation methods that appeared in Korean study books during this period: a method of presenting meaning through a range of sentences or vocabulary, a method of presenting information on the origin and form of a vocabulary, and a method of presenting vocabulary lists by subject and purpose. Vocabulary practice methods rarely appear in Korean language study books during this period, so it could be seen that in Korean language education during this period, ‘vocabulary’ was perceived as an object that the learners themselves had to learn rather than as an object of explicit education. However, through a list of vocabulary by subject in Underwood’s Everyday Korean (1921) or specific instructions for vocabulary learning in Sauer’s Korean for Beginners (1925), Korean language education from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century is systematic and institutional in personal learning. As education changes, vocabulary can be confirmed as an example of a shift in perception from an object to be learned individually to an object of education that requires systematic management and learning.