2003, Vol.11, No.2

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.57

pISSN : 1226-4822
https://journal.kci.go.kr/socioling

Kang, Huisuk. 2003. A Synchronic Study of the Mother Tongue Usage of Korean-Chinese Students Living in Yeonbyeon, China. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 11(2). This study aims to synchronically analyze the mother tongue usage of Korean-Chinese People living in Yeonbyeon, China. The study is based on the writing materials of a literary contest for Korean-Chinese students.Korean-Chinese people living in Yeonbyeon have been maintaining their mother tongue even though they are living in the downward pressure of a bilingual society. The linguistic characteristics of their mother tongue are composed of three aspects: the reflection of regional dialects such as that of Hamgyeng-do, the conservative reflection of diachronic components and the innovative reflection of linguistic change in progress. These heterogeneous linguistic characteristics have formed depending on their peculiar culture and society. In particular, it is interesting that their language contact with both Chinese and South Korean have caused them to form new words, common expressions and sound changes in progress.

Gross, Nikolaus. 2003. Mensch oder Maschine? (II): Das Suffix -er im Wortschatz des Technikers. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 11(2). We have examined the derivations of the suffix -er found in a specialized dictionary of technology (RR = Routledge/Radde), their frequencies, syntactic-semantic patterns and the range of their uses; specifically we paid attention to the nomina agentis ambigua. Result of the research: In the vocabulary of RR we found 290 nouns, which are true derivations of the suffix -er. They form 1539 compound words. Indeed the nomina acti have been represented by only 10 Kernstichworter resp. Ersatzkernstichworter, but these had 134 compounds. We found only 6 names (KSW/EKSW) which designate acting persons (5 compounds). We found 131 unequivocal names of tools (instruments), of which 441 are compounds. The most extensive group, belonging to the -er-derivations, contains the nomina agentis ambigua, i.e. names which mean both tools and persons. They generate two KSW/EKSW fewer than the unequivocal nomina instrumentalia (129), but they form 858 compounds.For the language of the technician, our research reveals an even higher degree of dehumanization in the development of the NAG than it does in everyday language. Since the diction of everyday life assimilates more and more technological vocabulary, it is reasonable to assume that everyday language, resulting from the excessive use of such NAG, will become increasingly dehumanized. The ambivalence of the suffix -er (human/non-human agent) has negative consequences whenever this suffix is used indiscriminately for all agents within our environment. The increasing use of -er-suffix formations is a symptom of posthuman thinking moving further and further away from the idea of the human.

Kim, Kyung-Sook. 2003. Textual Variability of Newspapers According to Topics. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 11(2). This study analyzes two major newspaper registers, editorials and news reports, to show that the composition of these registers is variable according to topics. Previous studies assume, a priori, that editorials and news reports belong to different text types or treat them as if they had a homogeneous textuality. The current study tries to show that there is a variability even within the same register of editorials or news reports.The database for the study consists of editorial and news articles from English version of the Dong-A Ilbo on the Internet and from the New York Times, published between 1999 and 2002. The articles were chosen on the basis that they attracted wide attention in Korea or in the U.S. The topic of political corruption was chosen in the case of Korea and the topic of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the case of the U.S. The database is comprised of a total of 200 texts and these texts are subdivided into eight different groups. Based on this database, the frequencies of 59 linguistic features which have been found to be discourse-functionally relevant were calculated. Then, distribution of these features was analyzed through Multi-Dimensional Method (Biber, 1988).The findings are as follows. First, the eight text groups show a considerable textual variability on five discourse dimensions as there is a complex interactive effect. Second, a two-way ANOVA reveals a textual variability that arises from the topic difference. Especially in the case of the Times, the terrorism-related news reports were found to be much more 'involved' than normal news texts.