Of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, heritage learners have the greatest difficulty in the area of writing. They are more excellent in the ability to use Korean than non-heritage learners, but tend to produce informal sentences not suitable f...
Of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, heritage learners have the greatest difficulty in the area of writing. They are more excellent in the ability to use Korean than non-heritage learners, but tend to produce informal sentences not suitable for a formal genre because of high frequency of exposure to informal spoken situations. By taking interest in such linguistic properties of heritage learners, this study aimed to see if properties of informal genres were reflected in formal ones. It intended to see if children as a heritage learner were producing writing suitable for formality of a genre.
To do this, children as a heritage learner were asked to write a newspaper article for formal writing and a letter for informal one. To set a standard for analyzing writings of children as a heritage learner, mother tongue speakers at the same age group were also asked to write a newspaper article and a letter.
Collected data were analyzed by using a qualitative method based on knowledge of structures, contents, and styles that forms that of genres.
First, properties of structures, contents, and styles found in letters written by mother tongue speakers and children as a heritage learner were examined. Second, genre-related properties of structures, contents, and styles found in newspaper articles written by mother tongue speakers and children as a heritage learner were examined. Properties of structures, contents, and styles for each genre could be examined by analyzing mother tongue speakers' letters and newspaper articles; on this ground, those written by children as a heritage learner could be analyzed.
Lastly, characteristics found in two genres with different formalities were examined, with the focus placed on letters and newspaper articles written by children as a heritage learners. It was to see if heritage children showed characteristics suitable for formality of a genre. As a result, mother tongue speakers were found to produce characteristics suitable for formality of a genre according to age. To this contrary, children as a heritage learner were shown to be more affected by mastery of Korean than by age. While the variable of age closely associated with cognitive maturity plays an important role in foreign language education, mastery exerts greater effects on production of a genre suitable for formality in a foreign language, or the second language.
This has important significance in education for children as a heritage learner. This is because it suggests validity of assigning students into classes by mastery rather than by age in overseas Korean schools. It also implies that Korean learners, who already learned various genres, such as letters and newspaper articles, in their mother tongue, should learn properties of genres used in their discourse community in order to produce them in Korean as a foreign language, or the second language.