2011, Vol.19, No.1

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.57

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

The representation of subsyllablic structure of Korean has been under ongoing dispute. There have been different sets of language behavioral data trying to support left branching, right branching, or non-hierarchial structure. The current paper approaches this issue with a new set of data focusing on rhythm in language. It is assumed that it is possible to examine how language users represent the subsyllabic structure by investigating rhyming patterns used in rap-songs. An experiment was performed in which a rappers' group and a listeners' group marked all the rhymed words they could perceive. A statistical analysis of the distributional characteristics of perceived rhyme parts is provided to determine which subsyllabic structure is more frequently used in rap-song rhyming. The result indicated that rappers considered both body (i.e., onset plus nucleus) and rime (i.e., nucleus plus coda) equally as rhyme constituents, while listeners who are less accustomed to detecting rap-song rhymes perceived rimes better than bodies. The findings will be discussed in terms of their implications for the substructure of Korean syllables.

The purpose of this study is to investigate current status of Korean teenagers' language use regarding expletives, teenage slangs, and buzz-words, by employing a questionnaire survey. We have obtained a sample of 2418 teenage students from elementary, middle, and high schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. For data analysis, we performed frequency, mean, chi-square test, and Spearman's correlation analysis. Our results indicate that expletives, teenage slangs, and buzz-words tend to be widely used in daily life with almost no sense of guilt or shame and that frequency of expletives highly increase from middle school age. Negative result of expletives is an increase in physical and verbal aggression as well as in passive aggression. Some of the questioned replied that they feel estrangement and inconvenience about teenage slangs and buzz-words. Additionally, we found that elements of family conversation, parental propensity to control, school education, leisure activity, self-control, and empathy ability correlate closely with frequency of expletives in teenage students.

The purpose of this study is to examine the change type and patterns in which a verb acquires a new meaning to indicate the action related to the computer upon the influx of computer media. When new concept arises upon the social and cultural exchanges with other countries, a new word representing the new concept is needed. However, a new word made from borrowing from foreign languages or synthesis or derivation is limited to a noun. But, since a verb is more limited in synthesis or derivation of new word compared to a noun, we usually use the existing verbs to represent the action or the behavior associated to a noun of new media. As it comes to the 21st century, the whole world experienced the rapid change caused by IT (Information Technology) revolution as much as Industrial revolution. As a result, huge amounts of IT-related words from influx of foreign languages have come or lots of new words have been created, respectively. In this process, there are many words different from the existing actions that we have done when using the hardware or software of IT-related equipments. The results brought considerable changes to the existing verbs. Therefore, this study focused on the meaning change patterns of verbs according to the behavior or action associated to the usage of computers representing the IT media. In this study, the patterns of meaning change were largely categorized into three as follows. (1) No meaning change, (2) Keep the selectional restrictions, (3) Break selectional restrictions. (1) This case is that a verb combines with a new noun upon the influx of computers and a situation can be inferred based on the primary meaning of a verb. (2) The action to use the computer is not existed, but a noun associated with it is used metaphorically. So, it seems to keep the selectional restrictions. (3)Since a verb acquires a totally different meaning, it seems to violate the selectional restrictions with noun argument.