This study aims at inspecting semantic characteristics of Korean speculative expressions and examining acquisition modality of Chinese Korean learners and Japanese Korean learners according to meaning of Korean speculative expressions. Modality exists...
This study aims at inspecting semantic characteristics of Korean speculative expressions and examining acquisition modality of Chinese Korean learners and Japanese Korean learners according to meaning of Korean speculative expressions. Modality exists cross-linguistically but it's not the same with every language. Especially, Korean speculative expressions are diversified and those having the similar meaning hold delicate semantic differences so it's not easy to distinguish them. In addition, such a semantic difference causes varied pragmatic functions in the discourse so it's very important for Korean learners to acquire semantic differences of speculative expressions. However, in teaching Korean as a foreign language, there are few studies on how Korean learners understand and use speculative expressions.
In order to inspect Korean learners' acquisition of speculative expressions, this study organized a test which uses speculative expressions according to their meaning and compared Korean learners' and Korean native speakers' use of speculative expressions through questionnaires. And it examined whether there's difference in learners' speculative expressions use according to native language and proficiency.
The composition of this study is like followings below. In ChapterⅠ, this study identifies necessity and aim of the study, reviews studies on speculative expressions in teaching Korean as a foreign language and presents research topics.
In Chapter Ⅱ, it examined speculative expressions as the sub-category of epistemic modality and selected expressions for discussion. And it inspected semantic differences of the selected speculative expressions. The meaning of speculative expressions may be divided into 'the basis of judgement' and 'the degree of certainty' so it examined characteristics of each speculative expression under the criteria of the basis of judgement and the degree of certainty.
In Chapter Ⅲ, it explains participants for research, study procedures, test items for inspecting use of speculative expressions in the study, and the analytic methods of the collected data.
In Chapter Ⅳ, it describes research results. As the result of comparing Korean native speakers with Korean learners according to their native language and proficiency, it identified that Korean learners especially can't distinguish causal characteristics of ‘-겠-’ and ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ 모양이다’, ‘-(으)ㄴ가/는가/나 보다’, also difference of ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ 듯하다’ to show subjective judgment and ‘-(으)ㄴ가/는가/나 보다’ to show objective judgment regardless of their native language and proficiency. If inspected difference among Korean learner groups, generally there was no difference according to their native language. However, as the result of inspecting speculative expressions by semantic characteristics, there was significant difference in Chinese and Japanese Korean learners as for ‘-(으)ㄹ 것이다’ to judge logically based on speaker's internal basis. Generally there was significant difference according to proficiency of Korean learners. In other words, difference in '-(으)ㄹ 것이다‘, ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ지 모르다’ to guess based on speaker's internal basis, ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ 것 같다’ to guess through speaker's intuition, ‘-(으)ㄴ가/는가/나 보다’ to guess cause based on the perceptive experience in the field and ‘-(으)ㄹ 것이다’ to show strong certainty. As the result of inspecting use modality by proficiency according to native language, generally there was significant difference in the lower ranked learners. Concretely, it identified that Japanese Korean learners are closer to Korean native speakers than Chinese in using ‘-(으)ㄹ 것이다’ to show logical judgment and strong certainty, ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ지 모르다’ to show guess in the assumed situations based on speaker's internal basis, ‘-(으)ㄴ가/나/보다’ to guess cause based on the perceptive experience in the field and ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ 것 같다’ to guess by speaker's feeling. In the higher ranked learners, there was no significant result but identified that Chinese Korean learners use more properly ‘-(으)ㄴ/는/(으)ㄹ 모양이다’ to guess cause based on the perceptive experience in the utterance situation than Japanese Korean learners.
Finally, in Chapter Ⅴ, it identifies research results and presents its significance and limitation. This study has significance as the foundation for the future speculative expressions instruction in the educational fields in that it examined firstly speculative expressions centered on learners, and secondly their acquisition modality of expressions. However, this study has limitations in that it can't explain whether there's difference in speculative expressions use according to native language owing to lack of research on Chinese and Japanese speculative expressions, and whether learners acquired difference of pragmatic function according to the meaning of speculative expressions. Therefore, complementary studies are required hereafter.