English Connective so in Korean EFL Students' Writing

류미림 새한영어영문학회 2007 새한영어영문학 Vol.49 No.1

So is a frequently used word in English with multiple functions and meanings. The purpose of the current study is to examine the use of English connective so in Korean EFL students' essay writing from the perspective of pragmatics. This study is particularly interested in investigating the way Korean students develop the discoursal use of so, which has become an issue in studies of second language acquisition (Trillo 2002). The central research questions are in what sentence structures and context students employ so and what semantic and pragmatic meanings and functions it manifests when it occurred in a text. In tackling these matters, the study analyzes the data collected from the essay writings of first-year English students in a Korean university. The assumptions based on the previous corpus-based studies are that Korean students may not be used to encoding so with its pragmatic use, and that the overuse and inappropriate use of so in Korean students' essay writings may be due to their unawareness of the stylistic differences between spoken and written English and the influence of EFL teaching materials.

A Corpus-based Study of the Use of Phrasal Verbs in Korean EFL Students’ Writing

Mi-Lim Ryoo 아시아영어교육학회 2013 The Journal of Asia TEFL Vol.10 No.2

Lexico-semantic Associations in Maritime English as ESP: A Corpus-based Study

Mi-Lim Ryoo 팬코리아영어교육학회(구 영남영어교육학회) 2013 영어교육연구 Vol.25 No.4

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the semantic association of maritime-specific lexis in a Maritime English corpus. Maritime-specific lexemes for analysis are chosen via keyword analysis, using the BNC Sampler as a reference corpus of general English. The paper focuses primarily on lexical collocates within a span of four words to the left and right of selected terms. An extensive review of each term in context is implemented to find the semantic relationship between the term and co-occurring words in the proximity. It was found that lexical collocates of selected terms fell into recurring semantic sets, though a large proportion of language with which the terms co-occurred did not fall into any of these groups. These recurring semantic sets of Maritime lexis, however, did not always appear in general English, demonstrating discrepant uses of land-born words and sea-born words. That is, lexical items in Maritime English appeared to be more collocationally fixed than their counterparts in general English, although individual terms revealed more or less unique relationships with a particular semantic set.

Lexico-grammatical Association Patterns of Little vs. Small and Big vs. Large in EFL Students’ Writing: A corpus-based study

Mi- Lim Ryoo 팬코리아영어교육학회(구 영남영어교육학회) 2012 영어교육연구 Vol.24 No.4

Due to their pervasiveness in a language, the importance of multi-word expressions such as collocations and idioms for second language (L2) learners has been well-documented in the second language acquisition literature (e.g., Wray, 2000, 2002), and at the same time, due to their arbitrary combinations and sometimes undetectable meanings, they have been recognized as a formidable task for L2 learners to master (Nesselhauf, 2003; Walker, 2011). When it comes down to the collocations of synonyms or near synonyms, the task becomes more troublesome for L2 learners because of different collocates and structures of synonymous words (Lee & Liu, 2009; Martin, 1984). The present study aims to examine the use of synonymous adjectives, little vs. small and big vs. large, by Korean EFL students, investigating their lexical associations with the noun, as well as grammatical structures in terms of the attributive and predicative. A corpus (86,121 running words) of Korean EFL students’ written texts from English writing contests was complied. In analyzing the data, the approach to selected lexical items in the present study was influenced by both the lexical (Nesselhauf, 2003, 2005) and frequency-based statistical (Sinclair, 1991) approaches. It was found that Korean EFL students’ use of lexico-grammatical association patterns of little vs. small and big vs. large were not aligned with, even partially opposed to those of the previous studies implemented with native English speakers. The implications of the findings for English language teaching and learning are also discussed.

Examining the Semantic Prosody of Lexical Items as Used in Korean Contexts

Mi Lim Ryoo 팬코리아영어교육학회(구 영남영어교육학회) 2014 영어교육연구 Vol.26 No.3

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the semantic prosody of English lexical items in English newspapers, English learning materials, and EFL students' writing, produced in Korean contexts, in comparison to that of native speakers. HAPPEN, CAUSE, and PROVIDE that have been expansively scrutinized in the literature are chosen for analysis. The paper focuses primarily on collocates within a span of four words to the left and right of selected items. Furthermore, an extensive review of each item in context is implemented to find the semantic relationship between the item and co-occurring words in the proximity. It was found that the overall use of semantic prosody of chosen English lexical items in Korean contexts was similar to that of native speakers. It, however, attested that individual items had more or less unique semantic prosodies in relation particularly with the source of each item. The findings suggest that there should be explicit expressions and instructions in the semantic prosody of lexical items in EFL materials and classrooms.

The Relationship between Written English Proficiency and Toeic Score Revealed by Korean EFL Students' Written Error Correction

Mi-Lim Ryoo 팬코리아영어교육학회(구 영남영어교육학회) 2009 영어교육연구 Vol.21 No.4

The present study examines the relationship between EFL students' English proficiency and their TOEIC scores by analyzing their productive skills in error correction in written text Ninety-one EFL students in a Korean university participated in the study They were divided into the four levels of English proficiency according to their TOEIC scores advanced, high-intermediate, low-intermediate, and beginning They corrected a sample essay in which 48 errors were implanted Any salient features and patterns of their corrections were scrutinized and then compared among different levels The results have showed that even though the participants detected most problematic areas in the sample essay, their ability to correct errors accurately appeared to be limited, manifesting 55 08% average accuracy Furthermore, the findings suggest that TOEIC scores can be used to place test-takers in different levels, but certainly not to assess their productive skills

Code Glosses in L1 and L2 research articles : A contrastive analysis of Korean (L1)and English (L2) written texts

Mi-Lim Ryoo(류미림) 새한영어영문학회 2008 새한영어영문학회 학술발표회 논문집 Vol.2008 No.5

Metadiscourse in Computer-mediated Communication in a Culturally Diverse Group

Mi-Lim Ryoo(류미림) 담화·인지언어학회 2005 담화와 인지 Vol.12 No.1

The present study attempts to shed light on meta discourse (textual context) in computer-mediated communication (CMC). The purpose of the study is to explore how one constructs metadiscourse in CMC, what roles metadiscourse plays in a text, and whether people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds construct metadiscourse in CMC differently. In tackling these matters, the study analyzes the data from a Usenet discussion group in which the members of the group were ethnically diverse. The descriptive framework adopted for this study is Halliday's metafunction analysis of language in relation to metadiscourse. In order to observe participants' ethnic differences in formulating texts in CMC, a comparative analysis of each participant's messages is implemented with type/token ratios and the use of pronouns, modalities, frame markers, sentence length, and paralinguistic devices, namely metadiscourse markers. The findings include: NSs use more function words in a sentence than NNSs do; NSs employ modals more diversely and frequently than do NNSs; NSs construct the text to be more "reader-friendly" and informal using alternatives like emotions, than do NNSs; finally, NSs' CMC discourse style is similar to spoken discourse rather than written, whereas NNSs' shows a typical written discourse.

Constraints in the Use of the Connective and in Korean EFL Students' Writing

Ryoo Mi-Lim(류미림) 새한영어영문학회 2007 새한영어영문학 Vol. No.

The connective and is the most frequently used mode of connection at a local level of idea construction in text. The purpose of the present study is to examine how Korean EFL students use the connective and at the local as well as the global level in their written texts. More precisely, the study focuses attention on functional meanings of and in order to explore cognitive constraints in using it. The study further attempts to contribute to theorizing cognitive constraints in the use of and by Korean speakers of English. The study analyzes the corpus collected from two intermediate English composition classes in a Korean university. The framework adopted for this study is Schiffrin's (1986, 1987) descriptive analysis. The findings include: the students used and at the local level to simply add a coordinating conjunction and also to implicate the temporal or causal relation between clauses. At the global level, and was used to connect a list of events as a collective unit, to separate a conclusion from related ideas, and to signal a new topic.

Skill Level Based Cooperative Peer Feedback in EFL Writing Students

Mi-Lim Ryoo,Mark L. Wing 아시아영어교육학회 2012 The Journal of Asia TEFL Vol.9 No.1