Earticle

Language is more than just a tool for communication; it embodies humanity’s cultural diversity, with over 7,000 globally recognized languages, each containing profound historical and cultural knowledge that is crucial for preserving human history and knowledge. However, many languages are under severe threat of extinction, and with them, entire cultures and traditions are at risk of disappearing. This paper examines the causes of language extinction, including natural disasters, wars, globalization, industrialization, urbanization, and the influence of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which have created a new linguistic landscape in the 21st century. The importance of linguistic diversity is discussed in relation to biological diversity, cultural heritage preservation, academic research, and global business. Recommendations for preserving endangered languages include documentation, revitalization efforts, the use of digital technology, and collaboration with organizations such as UNESCO, emphasizing the importance of sustaining cultural and historical legacies.

When extraction occurs from islands, such as complex NPs or adjunct clauses, a sentence becomes unacceptable. Plain fragments are acceptable because ellipsis can repair the island violation, but NPI(negative polarity item) fragments can not, as ellipsis do not resolve the island issue for NPIs. NPI fragments show a more pronounced island constraint effect compared to scrambled NPI constructions, as opposed to the plain fragment repair effect. The adverbial NPI ‘NP-pakkey’ in an adjunct clause is not licensed by higher clause negation so scrambling it to the sentence-initial position and forming a fragment violates the adjunct island constraint. Unlike the argument NPI ‘amw(N)to,’ ‘NP-pakkey’ functions as an adverbial in long-distance contexts, exhibiting full island constraint effects. Multiple NPIs, including those in the subject position, cannot be licensed from islands at long distances. Finally, the paper argues that the NPI ‘amw(N)to’ can be licensed with the adverbial conjunction '-ceney,' while the NPI ‘NP-pakkey’ cannot.

This study aims to investigate how Korean learners process anaphors(reflexives or pronouns) in picture noun phrases through two experiments: an offline acceptability judgment task and an online self-paced reading task. The results of the two experiments show that Korean learners’ processing of anaphors in picture noun phrases with and without possessors(e.g. Peter’s picture of him/himself, a picture of him/himself) was not strongly influenced by binding constraints. Especially, the processing of reflexives and pronouns in picture noun phrases with possessors did not follow complementary distribution. This indicates a discrepancy between linguistic theory and actual human usage. Therefore, these findings suggest that reflexives in picture noun phrases, regardless of the presence of a possessor, are exempt reflexives rather than structural reflexives. Additionally, not only the syntactic aspect but also the semantic and pragmatic aspects should be considered to reveal the hidden referential properties of anaphors in picture noun phrases.

This article aims to examine the realization patterns and characteristics of the conjunctive endings '-을갑세', '-으나따나' and '-구마는' in the Gyeongsang dialect. First, the expression of 'concession' can be classified into 'concessions in hypothetical situations' and 'concessions in non-hypothetical situations' based on the preceding clause. Upon reviewing the realization patterns of '-을갑세', '-으나따나', and '-구마 는' in the Gyeongsang dialect, it was found that '-을갑세' and '-으나따나' can be used in both hypothetical and non-hypothetical situations, whereas '-구마는' is used only in non-conditional situations. Based on this criterion, the study also examined the syntactic and semantic characteristics of '-을갑세', '-으나따나', and '-구마는', focusing on various constraints.

This study aims to analyze the constructional properties of the structure “be being AP/NP” through collostructional analysis. In addition to its distinctive semantic properties—namely, salient boundedness and a behavioral sense, which set it apart from the general progressive construction—the collocational preferences of this structure indicate that it qualifies as a construction. Collostructional analysis reveals that this construction involves a restricted set of adjecitve and noun collexemes which are predominantly evaluative in nature. Based on these findings, the structure can be characterized as a construction used for attributing evaluative descriptions to the subject’s actions. Furthermore, this construction can be classified as a subtype of the stative verb progressive construction, which itself is a specific instance within the broader category of the progressive aspect.

This study investigates the effects of varying the duration of pre-task planning (30 seconds, 3 minutes, 5 minutes) and English language anxiety on speaking performance in a Computer-Based Test(CBT). The study involved 57 participants from a university in Korea, who completed speaking tasks under different planning conditions and completed an anxiety survey. The findings indicated that extended planning time notably enhances discourse quality, with significant improvements in accuracy observed after 5 minutes of planning. Additionally, a decrease in vocabulary usage was correlated with higher anxiety levels, particularly under the shortest planning time condition(30 seconds), suggesting that anxiety can harmfully impact performance, an effect reduced by longer planning duration. Lastly, it was also found that there was a significant trade-off relationship between accuracy and complexity during the 3-minute planning condition. The results suggest that providing extended planning time and incorporating anxiety-reducing strategies, especially for shorter planning durations, can enhance speaking performance. Additionally, adjusting planning time in test design can help balance accuracy and complexity in evaluating speaking skills.

This study breaks away from existing theoretical studies to analyze the predicates of English imperatives in usage. This study included adjective imperatives as well as verb predicates in English imperatives and attempted to represent a comprehensive usage of the English imperative predicates used by English native speakers. Data for the study were collected from the British National Corpus web and analyzed using the collocation function within the BNCweb and web-based semantic analysis program, Wmatrix 5. The results are as follows: although the meanings of both verb and adjective predicates fail to demonstrate in semantic consistency, adjective predicates in negative imperatives are often related to Emotion. Syntactically, verb predicates are often used with personal pronouns and prepositions, while adjective predicates are often used with to-infinitives or independently.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the acoustic properties of the Korean monophthongs in Jeju Korean according to speaking style and speaker gender. For the acoustic parameters, duration and the first three formant frequencies(F1, F2, F3) were measured, using the ‘PRAAT’. The study results showed that F1 and F3 were influenced by both gender and speaking style, but F2 was only influenced by gender. With regard to speaking style, it was found that word reading produced a longer duration, lower tongue position, and higher F3 than did passage reading and news article reading. Tongue advancement for F2, however, did not differ across speaking style. Concerning speaker gender, male speakers produced a longer duration, higher and more backed tongue position, and higher F3 than female speakers. As for the vowel quality, the high vowels /ㅣ, ㅡ, ㅜ/ had a longer vowel duration than non-high vowels /ㅔ, ㅓ, ㅏ, ㅗ/. In regard to vowel space, differences in speaking style and speaker gender were found as well.

The current study aims to explicate the relationship of the focus value of the Korean restrictive focus particle -na and its alternative(s), by examining diverse discourse examples from movies. The study critically reviews previous studies which required the focus value to be placed at the lower bound of a pragmatic scale or assumed its propositional alternative(s) to be false. These conditions on restrictive -na are found to be too strong, and the approaches that have these conditions as part of the particle’s meaning are shown to be inadequate in accounting for certain data. It is claimed that the particle requires the presence of an alternative to its focus value and that it ranks its focus value below the alternative on a pragmatic scale. Given the standard classification of focus particles into additive and exclusive ones, these findings suggest that the Korean particle does not belong to either group and is better characterized as a contrastive particle.

This study aimed to examine the challenges students face in English writing, investigate their self-perception and motivation, evaluate their use of technology and learning resources, and identify their learning strategies. A total of 24 students majoring in English education participated, including 14 females and 10 males aged 19 to 22 years. Participants were selected based on their voluntary willingness to participate and were all enrolled in the researcher’s classes during the spring semester of 2024. Data were collected in the classroom using Google Forms. Out of the 40 survey questions, most employed a 4-point Likert scale(1 to 4), while the remainder were open-ended. Responses were recorded in Excel, where Likert scale items were analyzed for mean scores and standard deviations, and open-ended responses were subjected to content analysis. The study results showed that the most significant issue was differences in grammar structure, followed by differences in sentence order and cultural differences in writing style. Despite facing challenges, students reported enjoying writing and felt that their skills had improved. They also found technology to be useful in the writing process. However, most students reported that they only engage in writing practice when it is required for class assignments. Among the various methods for improving English writing skills, regular practice was identified as the most effective approach. Implications are also discussed.

This study examines the development of digital literacy competencies among Korean university students through presentation activities in ESP-based Tourism English education. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research employs Importance-Performance Analysis(IPA) to evaluate changes in students’ digital literacy skills before and after engaging in tourism-related presentation tasks. Pre and post surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 students. The findings reveal significant improvements in several digital literacy domains, particularly in AI and multimodal competencies. However, persistent gaps were identified in areas such as self-regulation and information processing. The IPA results highlight critical areas needing improvement, especially in self-regulation where performance consistently lagged behind perceived importance. These insights contribute to the ongoing discourse on enhancing digital competencies in higher education and provide practical implications for curriculum development in ESP-based tourism English programs.

This study explores the impact of online and offline writing instruction on Uzbek EFL learners’ writing performance. A total of 80 students participated in an eight-week intensive IELTS writing program, with 40 students in each mode (online and offline) of writing instruction. A background survey, students’ pre-and post-essays, and individual interviews were collected as data. The analysis of essays showed that students in both instructional modes improved significantly after eight weeks of instruction, but the students in the offline class outperformed on the post-test. During the interview, students in the offline class mentioned immediate feedback, face-to-face interaction, and collaboration with peers as among the benefits. Although students appreciated the diverse learning formats and real-time interaction of online instruction, they wished they had more immediate support and feedback from their instructor. Pedagogical implications and practical suggestions are provided based on the findings of the study.