KJCKorea
Journal Central

This paper is a quantitative follow-up study of Lee’s (2017) qualitative examination on the usage of Korean human nouns for inanimate/non-human referents. It investigated the usage of “demonstrative + human noun” construct (e.g., yay ‘this child,’ i-chinkwu ‘this friend’) referring to inanimate referents by examining various factors that were chosen based on findings and discussions from Lee (2017) and Kim (2018, 2021). Statistical results conformed to the findings of these earlier studies, showing that human nouns referring to inanimate referents were favored when referents were compared to other things or had concrete concept. In addition, it was also revealed that formality conditioned the realization of human noun usage as human nouns for inanimate/non-human referents were favored in less formal contexts. These results provided a quantitative verification of Lee’s (2017) findings and additional insights to Kim (2018, 2021) along with the usefulness of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding sociolinguistic variables.

This study analyzes the language identity of a 1.5 generation Korean woman in her 30s through a qualitative research method, focusing on her journey of seeking a stable sense of belonging, and reveals its sociocultural implications. The research participant is a woman in her 30s who moved to Germany, with her family in her early teens. She chose, maintained, and strengthened her sense of belonging between Korean and German in the following ways. First, the participant held German citizenship but did not consider herself to have citizenship rights. Second, she perceived people who spoke Korean well as attractive and wanted to connect with Korea. Third, the participant utilized her Korean language skills to position herself as marked German. This study is significant in that it explores the process by which a 1.5 generation Korean woman constructs her language identities, builds a sense of belonging, and shapes her meaning of existence, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of the various aspects of Korean diaspora.

This study investigated the effects of congruence between gender-related words and the speaker's gender. Specifically, we aimed to examine whether lexical access would be facilitated when the gender associated with words match the gender of the speaker uttering the words. To this end, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, subjective usage frequency and stereotypes of 242 potential gender-biased words (113 female words, 129 male words) were measured by a total of 15 participants (8 females, 7 males). The results revealed gender stereotypes, indicating that both male and female participants believed certain words would be used more frequently by a particular gender. Based on the stereotypes identified in Study 1, gender-stereotyped words (36 male stereotype words, 36 female stereotype words) and 36 neutral words were selected as experimental stimuli for Study 2, where a lexical decision task was conducted with 20 participants. The results showed no word-speaker congruence effects in reaction times and accuracy. These findings, particularly the absence of congruence effects are discussed in detail in the main text, along with suggestions for further research.