Ph.D. - East Asian Languages and Literatures (Korean)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/2040

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Embedded clause and syntactic complexity in L2 Korean writing: Differences in embedded clause types and learners’ L1
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) You, Eunsun; Park, Mee-Jeong; East Asian Language & Literature
Syntactic complexity has long been recognized as a fundamental measure in second language (L2) proficiency assessment, particularly in writing (Foster, 1996; Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1998; Ortega, 2003). However, traditional measures such as T-unit analysis have shown limited sensitivity to Korean’s agglutinative morphology and embedded clause constructions (Kim, 2007; Park & Seo, 2009). Moreover, research on cross-linguistic transfer effects in Korean syntactic complexity remains scarce.This dissertation investigates syntactic complexity development through embedded clause usage in L2 Korean writing, comparing English and Japanese L1 learners across three proficiency levels. The dataset comprises 180 essays from the Korean as a Second Language Corpus. Using statistical analyses, the study examines nominal, adnominal, adverbial, and quotative embedded clauses, focusing on frequency patterns and L1 transfer effects. It also evaluates how reframing embedded clauses through chunk expressions affects developmental interpretations. Under traditional classification, the findings reveal significant proficiency-related increases in embedded clause frequency, particularly in adnominal and adverbial clauses. Japanese learners produced higher frequencies at initial stages than English learners. However, chunk-based reframing revealed systematic deviations from these patterns. For nominal clauses, this approach yielded more gradual and continuous developmental trajectories for both L1 groups, with reduced effect sizes yet sustained statistical significance. Adnominal clauses exhibited the most pronounced change: for English learners, all previously significant differences across proficiency levels disappeared, whereas Japanese learners retained significance only between intermediate and advanced levels. Adverbial clauses remained largely consistent across analytical frameworks, although the chunk-based analysis identified later-stage gains among English learners not detected by the traditional classification. These findings suggest learners’ embedded clause usage aligns with instructional sequencing in Korean L2 curricula. By validating embedded clause types as indicators of proficiency while revealing the methodological sensitivity of outcomes to analytical frameworks, this dissertation advances the understanding of syntactic complexity in Korean L2 writing. The findings further demonstrate that typological relationships can influence embedded clause usage patterns, and that chunk-based analysis can reveal developmental patterns not captured by traditional classifications. Together, these results can offer insights for refining assessment frameworks of syntactic complexity in Korean and underscore the critical role of pedagogical sequencing in its development.
The role of receptive vocabulary knowledge in spoken and written production of second language Korean
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Park, Leeseul; Cheon, Sang Yee; East Asian Language & Literature
This study examines the extent to which receptive vocabulary size supports productive language performance among second language (L2) Korean learners. While vocabulary knowledge has been established as a key component of language proficiency, its specific contribution to speaking and writing remains understudied in the context of Korean as a second language (KSL). Drawing on the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF) framework, this study investigates how learners’ receptive vocabulary knowledge relates to productive performance.A total of 119 L2 Korean learners completed the Korean Vocabulary Levels Test (KVLT) and performed three speaking and three writing tasks. Quantitative analyses revealed that vocabulary size was most strongly correlated with fluency in both modalities, while association with accuracy was weaker. Task effects were also observed: The Opinion-Based task elicited more fluent and lexically rich output in the speaking modality, whereas the Descriptive task elicited more fluent and syntactically complex output in the writing modality. These findings suggest that receptive vocabulary knowledge enhances language production across both modalities, with some variation. This study highlights the role of lexical knowledge in supporting L2 Korean production and emphasizes the importance of incorporating vocabulary instruction into curriculum design, alongside careful consideration of task type and modality. The findings underscore the need to reconsider the role of vocabulary teaching in enhancing L2 Korean learners’ productive language skills (speaking and writing), offering key pedagogical implications for fostering balanced development in Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF).
Dynamic Digital Persona Construction through Korean Speech Style Shifts and Translanguaging Practices in Multilayered Online Interactions
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Kim, HwanHee; Park, Mee-Jeong; East Asian Language & Literature
This qualitative study examines multilayered interactions among participants in online game streaming, including Korean streamers, co-players, (a)synchronous viewers, and editors, through a discourse analytic framework. Drawing on Goffman’s concepts of footing and frame, as well as the participatory framework (1974, 1981), the analysis focuses particularly on speech style shifts between honorifics and non-honorifics and translanguaging practices. It demonstrates how online interlocutors dynamically switch their orientation toward addressees, referents, and an ongoing situation, simultaneously changing the definition of the situation by strategically utilizing the honorific system and their unstrained, expanded “linguistic repertoire” (Garcia & Wei, 2014; Wei, 2017). Through the strategic use of code-switching and translanguaging practices, online interlocutors are able to adopt diverse digital personae and achieve various communicative goals. Numerous researchers have extensively explored the Korean honorific system and multilingual practices and their practical applications, providing insightful explanations of how speakers use them in various discourses. However, relatively less attention has been given to how online interlocutors employ them in their discourse, despite online interaction being part of our daily lives. Analyzing data from gaming streaming videos uploaded on online video-sharing platforms by game streamers reveals that interlocutors actively and creatively utilize the honorific system. They switch between honorific and non-honorific styles, enabling them to create and display multiple personae and assign various counter roles to other interlocutors, ultimately fostering greater engagement among the participants in the interaction. Furthermore, online interlocutors frequently utilize translanguaging practices, combining various linguistic and non-linguistic resources from different languages and cultures. This enables speakers to construct two distinct personae: socially dispreferred on the one hand, and amicable and preferred on the other. The findings of this research are expected to contribute to further research focusing on the dynamic and unique usage of the Korean honorific system and the redefinition of multilingual competence in online interaction.
Evaluative Devices in Performed Conversational Narratives of Personal Experience in Korean Talk Shows
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Miyashiro, Tyler Brooks; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Language & Literature
This dissertation examines the most common evaluative devices used in conversational narratives of personal experience featured on Korean talk shows. As a television genre particularly known for featuring the intimate stories of individuals, talk shows serve as an easily accessible site for viewing how narrators contextualize life events while performing a type of self-presentation that indexes certain protagonist prototypes and story arcs. Participants extemporaneously discuss their lived experiences while utilizing multiple tools at the prosodic, lexical, lexicogrammatical, phraseological, discursive, and rhetoric levels to communicate personal stances toward narrated events (i.e. the local “there-and-then” of the storyworld) and beyond (i.e. the global “here-and-now” of the ongoing conversation and the world in general). This involves an intricate interaction between different speaker roles (Koven, 2002, 2012) at three main levels (the character, narrator, and interlocutor) that reflect various perspectives and points in time from which the current storyteller evaluates their own experience. The aforementioned three speaking roles offer different insights while contributing to the overall positioning of the current speaker and the type of story arc they present for appreciation by the audience. While the raw emotions of the moment felt by characters living in the there-and-then context of the storyworld provide a sense of contemporaneous drama and suspense, the slightly removed hindsight offered by the narrator presents the storytelling audience with a more informed perspective based off of retrospection and rumination over past events. Lastly, the interlocutor role promotes dynamic interaction between the main storyteller and their audience as they engage in discursive moves aimed at obtaining greater mutual understanding. These can include emphatic emphasis on the veracity of their accounts, aggressive seeking of agreement, or even hyperbolic language.
THE EFFICACY OF WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON KFL LEARNERS’ WRITING
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2020) An, Hyunjung; Park, Mee-Jeong; Korean
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of written corrective feedback (WCF) in a Korean as a foreign language (KFL) context. The assumption that indirect feedback (IF) is more effective for L2 learners with higher-proficiency levels has yet to be fully corroborated, which necessitates substantial research-based evidence to validate it. In a KFL context where direct feedback (DF) is the most dominant type of WCF, this study implemented dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF) that provided two types of feedback (DF and IF) depending on error types and explored its effect when compared to DF. Also, this study examined the impact of different types of WCF on students’ progress in acquiring three targeted grammatical structures (particles, clausal connectives, and final endings). Students (N = 77) enrolled in intermediate, high-intermediate, and advanced Korean classes were asked to write nine short texts during classes. DF (n = 28) and DWCF (n = 38) were provided for the two treatment groups respectively while only encouraging comments were provided for the control group (n = 11). To examine the relative effectiveness of WCF, accuracy, complexity, and fluency scores measured in the pretest writing were compared to those in the posttest writing at the end of the semester (RQ1). After the accuracy scores of the three targeted grammatical features were obtained in week 4, 7, 11, and 14, statistical analysis was performed to examine whether certain categories of errors were amenable to WCF (RQ2). Although the differences among the three groups did not reach levels of statistical significance (p > .05), the results of a two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the two treatment groups outperformed the control group in terms of mean accuracy scores over time. No significant difference in either complexity or fluency scores among the three groups was observed (RQ1). The ANOVA and the generalized estimating equations (GEE) results indicated that there was no differential effect for WCF on the three targeted grammatical errors (particles, clausal connectives, final endings) (RQ2). The findings of this study suggest that the results of WCF studies conducted within an English as a second language (ESL) context should not be blindly applied to determine more effective instructional methods for KFL learners’ writing development. Empirical evidence from well-designed studies on the longitudinal effects of WCF on KFL learners’ writing can provide significant implications for how to best use WCF in a KFL context. Keywords: direct and indirect feedback, dynamic written corrective feedback
Interactional uses of self-talk in Korean
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Smith, Hye Young; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This study explores the interactional uses of self-talk in Korean. “Self-talk” generally refers to speech directed to oneself. In a conventional sense, self-talk in public may be seen as violating social norms; however, in many interactional contexts, self-talk is not only acceptable, but contributes to mutual understanding between participants in the social encounter. Any competent member of a language community understands the underlying rules of how self-talk works, but little has been written about self-talk from interactional perspectives. In the Korean language, self-talk cannot be understood without considering linguistic features of self-talk utterances. While previous studies have identified and analyzed discourse functions of sentence enders that occur in Korean self-talk, the interactional uses of self-talk in Korean are underexplored. In order to gain a clearer picture of where, when, and how self-talk is used, this study investigates occurrences of self-talk in both private and interactional settings in data collected from reality TV shows, using conversation analytic and interactional linguistic methods. In this dataset, twenty-one different sentence enders used in self-talk (e.g., -ney, -(n)untey, -ta, -(u)nka/-na, -ci, -e/ayakeyssta, -kwuna, -e/ayaci) are observed. The analysis identifies several distinct actions carried out through self-talk, including dealing with new information, displaying stances or attitudes, talking through troubles, co-constructing future actions, managing knowledge or information, and constructing reported thought. The interactional uses of self-talk are explicated from two main theoretical perspectives, centering on participation frameworks and politeness. First, the use of self-talk can loosen up a participation framework: Self-talk places less imposition on hearers to take or respond to a turn, and less burden on speakers to choose or retain addressees while managing the complicated task of carrying on a multiparty conversation. Second, the use of self-talk helps Korean speakers negotiate politeness, which, in Korean, is intertwined with honorification and speech levels. The study considers how speakers manage the particular audienceship of self-talk within processes of politeness negotiation, and what drives the manipulation of speech styles and honorifics. Much remains to be explored regarding the social life of self-talk. This study highlights the pervasiveness of self-talk in our language life and calls for further exploration and discussion of self-talk from a variety of approaches.
The Roles of Prosodic Boundary Tones in Korean Morphosyntax and Their Pragmatic Meanings
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Woo, Boeui; Park, Mee-Jeong; East Asian Languages and Literatures
With the evolution of the Korean language and the increasing popularity of its study worldwide, its grammatical and lexical features have received increasing attention. However, one of the prosodic features, which is boundary tones, has been largely overlooked in the previous literature. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the roles of boundary tones in the relationships between Korean morphosyntax and pragmatic meanings, focusing on Korean interrogatives and their differences across gender. Correspondingly, Korean interrogatives were collected from large-scale speech corpus (naturally occurring conversation) and broadcast media data (media talk). Thereafter, mixed methods combining acoustic, statistical, and qualitative analyses were conducted on them. The results of multigroup path analysis showed the following: 1) statistically significant direct effects of sentence-ending suffixes, boundary tones, interrogative types, and speakers’ communicative intentions; 2) a statistically significant mediation effect of boundary tones; 3) a statistically significant serial mediation effect of boundary tones and interrogative types; 4) a statistically significant difference in the direct effects of boundary tones on interrogative types across gender; 5) no statistically significant difference in the mediation effect of boundary tones across gender; and 6) no statistically significant difference in the serial mediation effect across gender. Additionally, qualitative corpus analysis was conducted, and the linguistic patterns that were revealed showed that Korean speakers frequently use certain sentence-ending suffixes in general interrogatives to deliver direct communicative intention with H-final boundary tones while often applying specific sentence-ending suffixes in confirmation interrogatives to deliver indirect communicative intentions with L-final boundary tones. In addition, the gender-based linguistic patterns indicated that the frequently used interrogative types with -e/a(yo) and -lkka(yo) differ across gender, and -ci(yo) with H- or L-final boundary tones are often deployed for requesting confirmation among males and requesting agreement among females, respectively. Furthermore, subtle differences in the nuances of sub-boundary tones were also found. Overall, this study fills the research gap by demonstrating the roles of boundary tones and their gender-based linguistic variation, and yield methodological implications for linguistic research. However, additional work is needed for a better understanding of boundary tones in combination with other variables and from a diachronic perspective.
The Interactional Uses of Response Tokens in Korean Conversation: As Resources for Managing Turns, Sequences, and Stances
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Yoon, Sue Y.; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This dissertation examines a wide range of the interactional functions that response tokens serve in Korean talk-in-interaction. Prior research studies have demonstrated that response tokens serve various roles and functions in social interaction, however, not many studies on Korean response tokens have identified and analyzed their uses from an interactional perspective. This dissertation fills this gap by using interactional linguistic methodologies to identify how recipients of a turn deploy particular response tokens to manage a turn-at-talk or sequence, or to express stances. Among the various response tokens in the Korean language, this study provides a qualitative analysis of the following eight verbal response tokens: ung, e, ney, yey, kulay, kulehci, kulenikka, and maca, produced in naturally occurring conversation. The first four ‘yes’-type response tokens (i.e., ung, e, ney, and yey) are translated as ‘yes, yeah,’ while the others (i.e., kulay, kulehci, kulenikka, and maca) can be translated roughly as ‘(that’s/you’re) right’ in English. In this study’s data, the four ‘yes’-type tokens and kulay recurrently occur within an already initiated sequence, serving as devices for encouraging the primary speaker to continue talking, yielding a turn, repairing a trouble source turn, and closing the sequence. In addition, in a responsive turn to an informing or assertion, e, kulehci, and maca, are regularly deployed not only to acknowledge the just-provided information or opinion but also to convey the producer’s state of knowledge to varying degrees. Lastly, kulehci and kulenikka serve in a responsive turn to an assessment, and each token expresses its producer’s affiliation toward the prior turn’s assessment in a distinctive way. This study aspires to contribute to further research in Korean response tokens and to provide pedagogical implications for its findings.
Grammaticalization of kes construction in Korean: Grammaticalization path and emergence of (inter)subjective meanings
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2023) Lee, Joungmok; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This study deals with the kes constructions in Korean with a focus on their grammaticalization path, as well as their (inter)subjective meanings in natural discourse. This study investigates how kes construction has changed from a perspective of grammaticalization based on Present Day Korean corpus data.kes construction has shown evidence of grammaticalization as it evolves to a more grammaticalized item. For example, phonological reduction, semantic change, functional divergence, and increased bondedness changed its structure. As kes construction is grammaticalized, it developed new meanings that are more subjective/intersubjective. These meanings are derived from its core meanings(emphasis/highlight), but these meanings have gained more specific functions as speakers use kes construction in various situations to show the speaker’s perspective or attitude toward the proposition or the hearer, such as describing a past event as an On-the-spot event, confirmation, strong assertion/seeking agreement or compliance. As kes construction is frequently used in various situations, it has expanded (or changed) its boundary to the (inter)subjective side like other linguistic elements do from a grammaticalization perspective. Although kes construction is still context-dependent, it has distinctive features that can differentiate it from other linguistic elements.
From an adverb to a discourse marker: A study of tto in Korean
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Lee, Jee Hyun; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This dissertation explores the evolution of the Korean adverb tto as a discourse marker from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. Under the classification systems of Korean adverbs, tto has been traditionally viewed as (a) a component adverb that modifies a single element of a sentence or (b) a sentence adverb that modifies an entire sentence. Semantically, tto carries the meaning of ‘again’ as a component adverb and the meaning of ‘also’ as a sentence adverb. From the diachronic perspective, this study examines the evolutionary pathways of tto based on the principles of grammaticalization using Old and early Late Middle Korean data. The analysis focuses on the historical traces of tto in earlier periods, its relationship with the delimiter to, and its etymology and grammaticalization process. From the synchronic perspective, the study investigates the interactional uses of tto using naturally occurring spontaneous data from telephone conversation and media talk. The analysis centers on tto’s semantic bleaching and discourse-pragmatic functions in talk-in-interaction, adopting an interactional linguistic (IL) analytic framework. The results show that tto is used as a linguistic device to strengthen a speaker’s claim and highlight his/her attitude toward the utterance. In sum, the study demonstrates the diachronic development and synchronic functions of tto and discusses the evolution of tto from an adverb to a discourse marker.
Questions and Answers in Korean Political Talk Based on Big Data Analytics
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) kang, sujin; Kim, Mary S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This dissertation aims to identify the varying linguistic designs of question and response sequences observed in Korean political talk in order to broaden understanding about the institutional uses of questions and answers. Based on big data drawn from 34 televised Korean political debates (approximately 280 hours and 18 minutes in total) from 2016 to 2021, this study obtained 19,533 questions and answers for its analysis. The distinct features of question formulations and response designs with the highest frequency numbers within specific sequential environments are explored through the analytic framework of Interactional Linguistics. Types of questions with lexico-grammatical options are examined to elucidate the relationship between grammatical forms and their associated interactional functions. Findings indicate that participants adhered to certain action types based on their epistemic status and stances toward shared issues. They also designed questions to achieve their institutional identities and roles. Four types of question formulations were found: Polar questions, Wh questions, Rhetorical questions and Alternative questions. Among them, Polar questions including (75.73%) and Wh questions (Wh-Qs) (15.2%) were the most frequent forms. The incongruence of participants’ epistemic statuses prompted diverse compositional forms of question types and their sequences. When questions were posed from a [K-] position, they carried a basic function of information seeking. However, questions delivered from a [K+] status delivered other social actions such as a speaker’s criticisms or challenges that could be construed as face-threatening acts. Response designs were also studied in terms of various turn designs and action properties. Analysis of response designs to questions was concerned with features used by respondents to deal with multifaceted constraints imposed by question formats and their social actions. Recipients displayed a wide range of strategies that signified other interactional elements such as epistemic rights and authority over shared issues. Ultimately, the current study elucidates the relative contributions of question and answers as well as what participants accomplish moment-by-moment in institutional forms of talk-in-interaction, thereby contributing to the fields of Interactional Linguistics, Korean Political Communication, and Korean Linguistics.
Verb Use For The Locative Functions Of Three Adverbial Postpositions (-ey, -eyse, And -(u)lo) In Korean: Analysis Of L1-Korean Corpora And L2-Korean Textbooks
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Jung, Boo Kyung; Park, Mee-Jeong; East Asian Languages and Literatures
Due to the multiple form-function relations of adverbial postpositions such as -ey, -eyse, and -(u)lo in Korean, the ways in which learners of Korean acquire these postpositions have been a long-standing research question. This dissertation investigates two main points: 1) the types of linguistic environments that elicit the locative functions of adverbial postpositions such as -ey, -eyse, and -(u)lo in L1 corpora and textbooks for L2 learning, and 2) the ways in which textbooks reflect verb use associated with such adverbial postpositions discovered in L1 corpora. More specifically, I examine the types and frequency of verbs occurring with each postposition and key verbs in relation to the types of corpora (e.g., L1 written-L1 spoken, L1 written-L2 textbook, L2 textbook-L2 textbook). I also analyzed association strengths between each postposition and co-occurring verbs by utilizing written and spoken data from the Sejong corpora as well as two types of textbooks for learners of Korean. The four main implications and findings of this study are: 1) In the Sejong corpora, some verbs were overwhelmingly used more frequently with a specific postposition (iss- ‘to be/exist’ with -ey, ha- ‘to do’ with -eyse, and ka- ‘to go’ with -(u)lo) while their token frequencies decreased exponentially, thus following a Zipfian distribution for both written and spoken corpora. Those verbs manifested the highest association strengths with that particular postposition. 2) Verb distributions in the two types of textbooks exhibited dominant usage of a few verbs, also following a Zipfian distribution. However, the most frequent verbs with each postposition in the textbooks differed from those in the L1 corpora: ka- ‘to go’ with -ey, ha- ‘to do’ and sal- ‘to live’ with -eyse, and ka- ‘to go’ with -(u)lo. The verbs that exhibited greater association strengths over other verbs with -ey, -eyse, and -(u)lo in the textbooks were ka- ‘to go’, ha- ‘to do’ and manna- ‘to meet’, and tolaka- ‘to detour’ respectively. 3) In the textbooks, a limited number of verbs was introduced at the beginner level, but this number progressively grew for each postposition as target proficiency levels increased. While there were some dominant verbs for each postposition across all the levels in both textbooks, individual instances of these verbs differed according to level and textbook type. 4) Keyness analysis for each corpus yielded a number of distinctive verbs that occur with -ey, -eyse, and -(u)lo respectively, thus revealing unique characteristics for each corpus. Findings from this dissertation lead to considerations about setting and building instructional goals and directions in two ways. First, frequency lists extracted from L1 corpora are useful not only in designing textbooks but also for class materials. Second, combinatorial use of these postpositions and verbs (which follow Zipfian distribution) suggests the need for a pattern-based instruction of postpositions. Considering that one important aim of second/foreign language learning is to expand repertoires of language use attested in the target language, learning frequent patterns of each postposition and verbs in the L1 corpus as a first step followed by purposefully expanded uses of each postposition with other linguistic items will ensure efficiency in learning.
A Cross-linguistic And Cross-cultural Study Of Stance Markers In Research Articles In English And Korean
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) Yu, Lee Seunghye; Sohn, Ho-min; East Asian Languages and Literatures
The purpose of this dissertation is to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze ways in which writers construct an authorial stance toward a proposition, drawing on corpora of published research articles on applied linguistics written in English and Korean. The research in this study is based on two sets of corpora in two languages: a corpus of English applied linguistics of 50 research articles, and a corpus of Korean applied linguistics of 50 research articles. From a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspective, this study examines the differences and similarities in the use of stance markers between the English and Korean research articles in the field of applied linguistics. By utilizing a quantitative method, the statistical differences and similarities between the English and Korean data are presented. In addition, this study qualitatively explores the linguistic features of stance markers and the cultural rationale behind them in the English and Korean applied linguistics communities. This study focuses on relationships between the linguistic realization and cultural values shared by members of the two academic discourse communities. Adopting Hyland’s (2005b) interactional model of academic discourse as a framework, this study examines (1) quantitative and qualitative differences and similarities in the use of stance markers between English and Korean academic discourse in the field of applied linguistics, (2) linguistic devices and discoursal functions of four stance markers (hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self-mention), (3) grammatical and structural features of stance markers, and (4) cultural motivations and rationales behind the similarities and differences between stance markers employed by members of the English and Korean applied linguistics communities. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of English and Korean metadiscourse in terms of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspective between the academic communities of the two languages. This study also provides insight into pedagogical practice for new members of the Korean applied linguistics community and into future research on cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study of the use of metadiscourse in academic writing.
State Ideology And Language Policy In North Korea: An Analysis Of North Korea’s Public Discourse
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-12) Lee, Jae Sun; Sohn, Ho-min; East Asian Languages and Literatures
This study examines how ideology has affected North Korea’s language policy since the beginning of its nation-state-building project in 1945, as well as North Korea’s public discourse as a result of this language policy. This dissertation aims to contribute to the language planning and policy field by shedding light on the ideology and language norms produced by the North Korean authority regarding its language policy and language use. Using discourse analysis and corpus linguistics as methodological approaches in a socio-historical context, this study investigates what ideological/political motivations have driven North Korea’s language planning policies, and the consequential characteristics of the North Korean public discourse, which have rarely been addressed in previous studies. North Korea’s language policy has developed and thrived in conjunction with its state ideology, Juche (self-reliance), which is bound up with a popular ethno-nationalism. Political authority in North Korea has viewed language as an ideological weapon against the enemies of the Korean nation and socialism and as a tool to remold people into patriotic socialists. This ideology has driven language policies in North Korea: the hankul (vernacular Korean script)-only use policy that banned the use of Chinese characters in writing, linguistic purification, linguistic etiquette, and stylistic planning. By examining various data from North Korea’s state-controlled public discourse, including mass media, school textbooks, literature, and magazines, this study suggests that North Korea’s language policies have been generally successful, at least in the public discourse. This study also touches on the critical role of political power in the design and implementation of North Korea’s language policy, mass media, and pedagogy in terms of appropriating and educating the people in the language policy. Finally, this study examines linguistic etiquette and stylistic planning as part of corpus planning in North Korea. Discourse analyses on the data in this study demonstrate that one of the major language norms in North Korea is modeling the state leaders’ language styles: using special terms that are predefined by political authorities, quoting the leader(s), using political slogans of the leaders and the Party, using expressions of reverence for the state leaders, and practicing linguistic dichotomy.
Grammaticalized Sentence Ender -Key
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-08) Kim, Na Young; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Korean)
The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate the path of the development of the Korean sentence ender -key from a conjunctive ender based on the theory of grammaticalization. It provides a synchronic and diachronic analysis of the sentence ender -key. In contemporary colloquial Korean, connective enders, which were originally used as non sentence enders to connect words, clauses, and sentences, are frequently used as sentence enders. The sentence ender -key was once the adverbializer -key and used as a conjunctive ender. The sentence ender -key has two basic functions: intentional and conjectural. In its development as an intentional sentence ender, conjunctive -key began to take the place of the adverbializer -i, expanding its range of use, and becoming a conjunctive ender. It then became a sentence ender through inversion or omission. The meaning and function changed as well. The conjunctive ender -key’s meaning is related to purpose or result; as a sentence ender it retains the purpose/result meaning and it has gained a meaning of intention. Pragmatically, -key functions to indicate worry, criticism, or teasing. In other words, in its grammaticalization, it has gained subjective meaning. The development of the sentence ender -key with the conjectural meaning followed a different path. It comes from the conjunctive ender -kiey. In colloquial Modern Korean, the conjunctive ender - killay took the place of -kiey in interrogative sentences. The conjunctive ender -kiey, losing its place as an interrogative form, was abbreviated to -key. Thus, the uses of -key and -kiey layered, and the form -key gained the conjectural function.
Interactional Functions of Demonstratives in Korean and Japanese Conversation
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018-05) Kim, Ok S.; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Korean)
This study explores the use of Korean and Japanese demonstratives in casual speech, focusing on their interactional functions. Based on Strauss’s (2002) concept of focus, which suggests that the primary functions of demonstratives are related to the addressee’s attention to the referent, this study explores how Korean and Japanese speakers employ demonstratives to draw the addressee’s attention more or less emphatically. The study also investigates factors that affect the choice of demonstrative and emphasizes the intertwined nature of grammar and human interaction. For comparative analysis, all demonstrative forms found in my data were divided into four reference types, exophoric, anaphoric, cataphoric, and nonphoric, and these reference types are further divided according to morphosyntactic category when necessary. The study’s findings suggest that the choice of demonstrative in Korean and Japanese is not determined solely by the degree of attention the speaker wishes to elicit, but influenced by other factors that emerge in the course of interaction. It also illustrates that each demonstrative form signals meaning differently according to its reference types. The interactional meaning of each demonstrative has various sources, including the form’s anaphoric function, the speaker’s emotional stance, the speaker’s reliance on the addressee while searching for a referent (i.e., interpersonal involvement), and socially motivated factors, as well as the morphosyntactic categories of the demonstrative forms, which vary by language.
Grammaticalization and Pragmatic Functions of –KES KATH–
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-12) Choi, Yoon Hwa; East Asian Languages and Literatures (Korean)
The purpose of this study is to examine the Korean construction -nun/un/ul kes kath from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives based on the frameworks of grammaticalization and discourse analysis. Three pragmatic functions of -nun/un/ul kes kath in contemporary Korean are analyzed from the synchronic perspective. The first function is to denote similarity, and is derived from the meaning of the adjective kath- (‘sameness, identicalness’). The second function is to indicate conjecture, representing the speaker’s uncertainty about the message being conveyed. The third function is to make utterances ambiguous as a politeness strategy, by softening the force of speech acts and reducing their potential threat to the interlocutors’ face. The grammaticalization path of -nun/un/ul kes kath is also explored. First, the dissertation describes the semantic changes of -nun/un/ul kes kath. Its objective meaning of similarity has shifted to the subjective meaning of conjecture. When it became a way to express politeness, it gained an intersubjective, interactional function. Second, the dissertation presents the syntactic development of -nun/un/ul kes kath. A construction consisting of the nominalizer kes + wa/kwa + main adjective kath- was reanalyzed as the complementizer kes + [omission of comitative wa/kwa] + auxiliary adjective kath-, and then as the defunct complementizer kes + suffix kath-. Phonological reduction also occurred, as -keskwa kath- came to be realized as -kes kath-, and then as -ke kath- / -kke kath-. The study also demonstrates how -nun/un/ul kes kath as an inferential evidential modal marker not only displays politeness but also indicates the evidential quality of the information source. The study shows that -nun/un/ul kes kath serves additional functions as well, such as helping the speaker successfully disclaim responsibility, strengthen his/her claim, enhance solidarity, and accomplish self-politeness. In addition, the dissertation presents a brief analysis of the semantic, syntactic, and phonological changes of three other Korean conjectural expressions, -na po/-nun-ka-po, -nun/un/ul moyang-i, and -nun/un/ul tus ha, which show similar shifts from conjectural to politeness functions, as well as having gained similar evidential qualities. The dissertation discusses whether they can also be considered inferential evidential modal markers.
Ethnographic Discourse Analysis of the Representations of Marriage Immigrant Women in Transnational Spaces of South Korea
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2016-12) Yoon, Jae Rim
Recent sociolinguistic research on multilingualism and identities in the context of globalization has recognized the transnational nature of discourses and semiotic resources that flow beyond national and cultural boundaries. In the context of South Korea, significant amount of interests across different disciplines has explored a specific category of multilingualism: multicultural families with Korean men and immigrant women. Despite the extensive societal attention to the phenomenon, no sociolinguistic research has explored the role language plays in discourses that suppresses, regulates, or promotes multilingualism and the gendered discourses about marriage immigrant women’s second language socialization. Given the crucial role of language in creating pubic image of immigrants, it is important to understand what types of ideologies are reinforced regarding marriage immigrant women in different levels of discourses. Uncovering the underlying ideologies in discourses will foreground struggles immigrant women undergo and eventually help bring social changes. To this aim, this dissertation investigates the language ideologies in representations of marriage immigrant women in policy, media, and women’s self-representations through an ethnographic approach. Drawing upon the perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and post- structuralist approach to the analysis of representation, this dissertation primarily examines discourses in the Multicultural Families Support Act, the known television program on marriage immigrants ‘Love in Asia,’ and interactions among marriage immigrant women at a Korean as a Second Language class. The analyses in this dissertation illustrate how policy and media discourses reproduce integrationist ideologies on immigrants and patriarchal gender ideologies on immigrant women. Self-representations of the women in this study, on the other hand, show the complex, dynamic, diverse, and even contradictory nature of their identities that interact with different elements of their identities and contexts. The women of this study create discursive spaces to exercise agency in performing, negotiating, resisting, and even challenging imposed ideologies by reconstructing themselves as transnationals. Thus, this dissertation demonstrates how a better understanding of transnational women’s identities and second language socialization can be achieved through examining the multifaceted nature of their identities and illuminating their voices in response to surrounding discourses.
Ellipsis of the Nominative and the Accusative Case Particles in Korean
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2016-08) Sung, Jason
This dissertation aims to empirically describe the ellipsis of the nominative case particle, -i/ka and the accusative case particle, -(l)ul in spoken and written texts by applying the notions of information focus (Lambrecht, 1994). Although numerous previous studies claimed that the case particles, -i/ka and –(l)ul overtly mark focused referents, the notions of focus has never been empirically validated. Mostly, the notion of focus is just described as a main factor without empirical evidence. The research questions of the present study are as follows: 1) Contextually recoverable elements are omitted in Korean language. In this vein, case particles, -i/ka and –(l)ul considered not to be realized most of time since they are easily recoverable. Is the recoverability the main cause of the case particle ellipsis? 2) The ellipsis pattern of the case particles seems arbitrary. How can the ellipsis pattern be predicted most accurately? What are the contributing factors? 3) The case particles are almost always realized in the deferential speech style and written texts. How does different registers of Korean language influence the ellipsis pattern of –i/ka and –(l)ul? What aspects of the deferential speech style and written texts increase realizations of these particles in sentences? The current study investigated these questions using data consist of paired conversations and transcribed data from the Korean National Corpus, TV news broadcasts, TV debate shows and mobile chat discussions. The findings from the research show that the impact of focus on the case particle ellipsis is more complex than previously assumed: effect of focus is only shown to the nominative case particles –(i)/ka. The investigation also revealed that directionality of the information transfer has impact on the ellipsis patterns on –i/ka and –(l)ul.
Sociophonetic Variations in Korean Constituent Final -ko and -to
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2015-08) Yi, So Young
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine (i) linguistic and extralinguistic factors that influence vowel raising of /o/ in constituent-final –ko and –to in Seoul Korean and (ii) listeners’ perceptions of this vowel raising and social meanings of the raised variant. The analyses are based on production data collected from one-on-one sociolinguistic interviews and an elicitation task, and on perception data from a matchedguise test. The production data demonstrate that some phonetic and prosodic environments significantly affect the vowel’s height and/or frontness. In the AP-medial position, /o/ shows higher F1 values when it is in an NP particle or followed by /a/, and it shows lower F1 values when it is preceded by /t/ or followed by /i/, /u/, or alveolar, palatal, or velar consonants. Moreover, preceding /t/, following /i/, /j/-diphthongs, /e/, and alveolar, palatal, and glottal consonants lead to higher F2 values. In addition, in the prosodic final position, following /i/, /j/-diphthongs, and bilabial, velar, and glottal consonants increase the F1 values, a final Low tone decreases the F1 values, and preceding /t/ increases the F2 values. Most of the effects of the following and preceding segments can be explained as the result of coarticulation of the vowel and adjacent sounds. Extralinguistic factors influence the vowel raising as well. The production data show that older speakers use a more raised variant than middle-aged speakers in the APmedial position, which implies that the vowel raising of /o/ in constituent-final –ko and –to shows age-grading. In addition, stylistic variations related to the formality of the speech setting and solidarity between interactants affect the vowel, leading to vowel raising (i) in casual speech situations and (ii) in interaction with an addressee with whom the speaker is intimate; these trends are especially salient for younger speakers. In listeners’ perceptions of the vowel raising, it had distinct social meanings in female and male voices. Listeners indexed the raised variant in female voices to (i) outgoingness, (ii) lower economic class (for younger voices), and (iii) lower economic class (by male listeners). Listeners indexed the raised variant in male voices to (i) being cute (for younger and middle-aged voices) and (ii) being masculine (for younger voices). These meanings form separate indexical fields of the raised and unraised variants for male and female voices. Furthermore, some of these perceptions are reflections of social and cultural values of Korean society, and they can be correlated with the production of the vowel variants. The present study contributes to the understanding of vowel raising in Seoul Korean by investigating language-internal and language-external constraints on its production and how it is perceived. In addition, by explaining the (socio)linguistic background of this vowel variation, the findings of this dissertation should be useful in further studies in second language acquisition of Korean and language teaching.

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