Accuracy order of grammatical morphemes of Korean EFL learners: Disparities among the same L1 groups

석데리아순영 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2015 언어연구 Vol.32 No.S

Studies questioning the proposed invariant natural order of second language (L2) morpheme acquisition have reported evidence of strong first language (L1) effects on the acquisition order of L2 English grammatical morphemes. In view of these findings, the current study investigated disparities in the morpheme acquisition orders of different groups with the same L1 Korean background. First, this study examined 173 writing samples written by Korean elementary school students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) to investigate the acquisition order of eight grammatical morphemes. Afterwards, the revealed order was compared to the findings from previous studies conducted with L1 Korean groups. The results showed that the acquisition order of the Korean EFL learners of this study did not support the natural order. Furthermore, comparison of findings to previous studies revealed disparities among the L1 Korean groups learning English indicating the need for investigation into methodology as well as other external determinants in addition to L1 transfer.

A Corpus-based Study of the Use of English Articles by Korean EFL Learners

석데리아순영 대한언어학회 2018 언어학 Vol.26 No.1

The current paper reports on the investigation of Korean college EFL learners’ use of the English articles: the, a(n), and Ø (the zero or null article). A comparison analysis was conducted on the researcher compiled learner corpus, the Kyungpook National University Student English Learner Corpus-Writing (KSELC-W), and a native speaker (NS) corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). For this study, the learner corpus, KSELC-W, consisted of 145 writing samples from 74 university students which were collected over three semesters. Log-likelihood calculations showed that the Korean learners in this study significantly overused the and significantly underused a(n) and Ø compared to the NSs of English. According to Huebner (1983a), the students in this study are in Stage 2 of the six stages in the definite article acquisition process where the-flooding is marked and overgeneralization occurs. Furthermore, the students in this study exhibit L2 article production behavior consistent with Stage 5, the > a(n) > Ø, of the five-stage developmental sequence in L2 frequency of article production proposed by Wolfe-Quintero (2000). The current study sheds some light on conducting corpora comparison analyses to supplement existing research on the L2 English article acquisition process.

Interlanguage development of young Korean EFL learners’ modal usage: A learner corpus study

석데리아순영,최인철 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2018 언어연구 Vol.35 No.S

The current paper reports on a comparison study conducted between a learner corpus, the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and a native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to investigate in what ways and to what extent the young Korean learners of KELC use English modal verbs. The results reveal that the young Korean learners underused modals could, would, should, may, might and must in general. However, will and can were used frequently with a statistically significant overuse of will occurring after the intermediate level. Furthermore, interlanguage development is observed with nativelike usage frequency of can from the earlier stages while occurrences of should and would emerging at later stages. A closer examination of the observed under and over usages also discloses that the difficulty of combining tense with the modal verbs impedes the learners’ preterit form use of the modal verbs. Additionally, the use of epistemic modality is observed much later than the root modality such as possibility, permission, and ability. These findings coincide with the first language modal acquisition order reported in literature (Coates 1983).

Modal Usage of Advanced Korean EFL Learners, Young Korean EFL Learners, and Native English Speakers: A Corpora Comparison Study

석데리아순영,최인철,이예식 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2019 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.85

Building on Seog and Choi’s (2018) documentation of the early to intermediate interlanguage development of Korean learners’ English modal use, the current paper focuses on the highly advanced Korean learners and sheds light on the spectrum of interlanguage of Korean EFL learners in acquisition of the English modal verbs. For investigation and analyses, two learner corpora, the KNU Student English Learner Corpus-Written (KSELC-W) and the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and a native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), are utilized. Corpora comparisons and log-likelihood tests are conducted to reveal differences in the modal verb usage. The results show that in contrast with the early or intermediate young learners of KELC, the advanced learners of KSELC-W overuse the preterite forms of modal verbs such as could, would, and should. In addition, the learners productively and accurately used would to deliver the hypothetical sense while rarely using the modal verbs to express the epistemic sense. This study can represent the overall process of the Korean learners’ acquisition of English modal verbs.

Use of English Futures, Will vs. Be Going to: A Corpus-Based Comparison Study

Daria Soon-Young Seog(석데리아순영),Yae-Sheik Lee(이예식),Incheol Choi(최인철) 현대문법학회 2019 현대문법연구 Vol.102 No.-

The present study investigates usage of English futures, will and be going to, by Korean EFL learners and American native English speakers. The examined usage data are extracted from the native speaker corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and two learner corpora, the Kyungpook National University (KNU) Student English Learner Corpus-Written (KSELC-W) and the KNU English Learner Corpus (KELC), and compared to determine interlanguage developmental patterns and usage similarities or differences between native speakers and nonnative speakers. In support of existing literature, the findings from the current study reveal that the American native English speakers of COCA significantly overuse both will and be going to in the spoken register compared to the combined written registers. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that although the writing samples of the learner corpora were written during formal EFL education settings, will and be going to usage by the Korean EFL learners closely resemble the usage data of the combined written-all registers of COCA. Finally, semantic analyses show that the advanced learners of KSELC-W use be going to quite correctly with the semantic senses in the present form. In contrast to the learners in Coates (1983), they use be going to to deliver the sense of epistemicity rather than the root intention senses.

Effects of Focus on Forms and Focus on Form InstructiononMiddle-AgedandElderlyLearners’EnglishGrammarAcquisition

최경미,석데리아순영,최인철 현대문법학회 2022 현대문법연구 Vol.115 No.-

This study, to find an effective way for older adult learners to acquire English, aims to investigate the extent instruction needs to be intentional or explicit. Traditionally, the issue was dealt with in terms of the effect of two instructional approaches—focus on forms (FonFs) and focus on form (FonF). The results of the grammaticality judgment test with audio stimuli show that FonFs instruction is a more appropriate method for middle-aged and elderly groups’ acquisition of grammatical knowledge than FonF instruction. In addition, it suggests that even among older adult learners, age still matters. That is, “the younger, the better” applies to adult learners of age 40 and above.

Young Korean EFL Learners’ Spelling Errors: An Exploratory Study

왕신애,최인철,석데리아순영 현대문법학회 2020 현대문법연구 Vol.107 No.-

The knowledge of spelling cannot be earned by learning the relations between the sounds and graphemes. However, this study shows that the learners' knowledge is not a mere result of simple memorization. The current study found that the learners’ spelling knowledge is interwoven with their established phonemic inventory and their imperfect knowledge of the target language spelling. Using a learner corpus (KNU English Learner Corpus) constructed from young learners, primary school grades from 4 to 6, enrolled in a gifted English program, we extracted and examined 125 erroneously spelled words each from the basic level and the advanced level subcorpus. Building on Justicia et al. (1999), the error data were classified into six categories and an additional category of morpheme error (MOR) with substitution and omission errors accounting for 76.3% of the total errors. Conducting further analysis, we were able to identify typical cases of the errors and the underlying causes inducing the errors. Generally speaking, the substitution error is found to be due to the variability between grapheme and sound whereas the omission error is often caused by the learners’ tendency to prefer simpler grapheme- phoneme relations. There also exists considerable intervention of the learners' Korean phonemic inventory, particularly in lower level learners. The findings from this study can be used to provide various specific guides for effective spelling instruction and help learners become more confident about their writing.