KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study aims to present educational directions of Korean pronunciation based on sociolinguistic analysis of the realization of tensification, Chinese learners have experienced in learning Korean. For this purpose, this study classified the types of tensification of sounds presented in Section 23 through 28 in the <Standard Pronunciation> included in Part 2 of the 『Regulations on Standard Language』 into seven and examined the aspects of actual pronunciation by Chinese learners in reference to factors of fluency levels of Korean language, gender, and speech styles. And the results are summarized as follows: First, it was found that all the seven types of tensification had low realization rate of 25.1% at a maximum and 8.9% at a minimum. Second, the types with low realization of tensification in ways of talking words or reading sentences were the following three: free nouns of two syllables are attached after ‘-ㄹ’ , a determinant-type ending; interposition of ‘ㅅ’ ; and tensification of endings of /ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅅ, ㅈ/ following after /ㄴ, ㅁ/, conjugated verbal stems of inflected words. Third, in respect to learners’ fluency in Korean language, there was little correlation between beginning, intermediate and advanced levels and the realization rate, which indicates an absence of pronunciation education or fossilization of pronunciation errors. Fourth, in respect to the gender of the learners, female students showed a higher rate of tensification realization than male counterparts, which means that there is a difference in tensification rate according to gender.

tensification, pronunciation errors, chinese students learning Korean Language, speech styles