The Use of Korean and English by Bilinguals

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Schumann(1978) explains differential success in acquiring L2 in terms of ability, social and psychological distance, and age. Larsen-Freeman (1991), on the other hand, observing that an indivdual's normal facilities do not have equal success at L2 acquisition like L1 say age as the predominant factor with aptitude, social-psychological variables, personality, cognitive style and learning strategies following in importance. This study seeks to discover how acquisition factors work in American-born Koreans, learning Korean as L2.
The method was ethnographlc observation of twelve individuals from three different families in different contexis, specifically in the home and at church. In addition, In conducted ethnographic interviews with members of some Korean-American familities, which concerned with the length of residence in the U.S., age, sex, place of birth, occupation and place and degree of education. Subjects were asked directly about their use of primary and secondary language but information about their proficiency in both Korean and English was gathered indirectly.
This study shows that of these factors, social and psychological factors are shown to be the most important, especially in terms of motivation from parents. Since older Koreans living in the U.S. tend to have less control of English, they ask their children to learn Korean as L2. Furthermore, the domains in which older Koreans use English as opposed to Korean differ from those of their children's use. American-born children use English in every domain, but their parents use much less English, in certain places like the workplace.