Earticle

The purpose of this paper is to discover why some sounds in the English language are relatively more difficult for Korean learners of English. The theoretical background of this paper is based on two hypotheses: the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) and the Similarity Differential Rate Hypothesis (SDRH). This paper analyzes the data of obstruents of Korean and English and shows that the voiced stops are most difficult to learn in obstruents. In this process, it is more difficult for the advanced learners to acquire the similar sounds, such as the voiced and the voiceless fricative ones.

This paper is concerned with the study of languages of names on business signs in Cheju. The research involves a classification of businesses, a data collection, an analysis of the data, and a quantitative treatment of the data. The result shows some morphological, lexical, and sociolinguistic characteristics in the pattern of languages used on business signs, depending on kinds of businesses.

This paper examines the history of the use of Japanese vocabulary in Cheju focusing on the vocabulary related to Mandarin agriculture in the Cheju region. The Japanese vocabulary used for Mandarin agriculture in Cheju is not loanwords widely used for the public, but only jargon of Mandarin agriculture in Cheju. Due to the history of Japan's occupation of Korea, the Korean language has a number of loanwords copied after the Japanese vocal sounds. The Japanese loanwords used in the Mandarin agriculture in Cheju are mostly indirect loanwords which come from HANJA reading. The Japanese vocal sound is used in the loanwords only in the absence of Chinese characters. The semantics expansion, reduction, change and deviation are hardly found because the loanwords have been directly derived with the objects. There are also a few examples that the loanwords influenced syntactic phenomena or expanded word formation.

This paper aims to study how to teach the rhythm of English effectively in the classroom where English is taught as a foreign language. In English there is a rhythm pattern which is made up of the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. In order to keep a good English speech rhythm, it is important to teach students to pronounce the stressed syllables more distinctly and clearly than the unstressed ones. The unstressed syllables or words can be weakened, obscured, reduced or sandwiched together to allow the stressed syllables to recur at regular intervals. To ensure the characteristic rhythm of English, teachers can make their students tap on a desk or table with a pencil, or with the tips of the fingers. It is advisable for teachers to have their students substitute the stressed syllable as Da, the unstressed one as da and train the patterns of English rhythm. It is also useful to provide students with good examples of the rhythm of English, such as authentic dialogs, English poetry, nursery rhymes and limericks, and tap out the strong syllables or strong beats in those lines.

This is a study of how some Korean words, such as “halda(할다)", “siul(시울)", “hayeodida(여디다)", “heomeul(허믈)", “hyeoda(혀다)", and “heolda(헐다)", changed in their word-forms during the period from the 15 century to the 20 century. The study is based on the aspects of changes in word-forms during this period: ① a death of word-forms, ② a split of word-forms, ③ a change of word-forms, and ④ a retention of word-forms. The study also shows how some words of the 15 century changed in terms of a phoneme and meaning. Word materials in the old Korean books were used for analysis.

This paper is a research of auxiliary declinable words used in the Cheju dialect, in kind and grammar. This paper mainly focuses on the following words; ‘duda, bulda(beorida), nada, malda, nada, isda, gada, oda, boda, zuda, zida, and -gojong hɐda/gopuda(-go sipda).' ‘-go,' the ending of the centering word is used with the auxiliary verbs, that is, ‘isda' and ‘nada.' However, this syntax cannot be found in Cheju dialect. The auxiliary declinable words mentioned above have the function of the main declinable words, but we cannot identify the main declinable word of ‘-gopuda.' Auxiliary declinable words of Cheju dialect are similar to those of the standard Korean language in form and function, but we can find some differences between them, especially in the case of ‘duda malda, itda, boda, -gopuda, -gojon hɐda etc.'

This paper reviews the brief history of language policies of the Korean government on the romanization of Korean and discusses the controversial areas of both the old system (i.e., the 1984 version of the MOE system, based on the McCune-Reischauer system) and the new system, which was adopted in July, 2000. Either of the two different systems is inherently fallible for the romanization of Korean. They both have merits and drawbacks. In light of this, what should be regarded as most crucial in determining which system is preferable is not the linguistic perfection of the system, but rather the attitude of the users to the system in real life.

This paper points out that the current methodology of Optimality Theory may date back to Pāṇini's rule of optionality by examining Kiparsky's work on Pāṇini's grammar. It is well known that the approach to phonology taken in Optimality Theory lies in its claim that constraints are minimally violable. This is contrasted with the implicit view of traditional generative grammar that an active constraint is inviolable. In this paper, two attempts are made to demonstrate that this theory may also extend to non-phonological areas of linguistics. The first one is an attempt to apply this theory to syntax and the second one is an attempt to explore any possibility of this theory to give an account of dialectal differences on equal terms.

This is a comparative study of Korean and Japanese vocabulary which appeared in captions, copy materials, and commercials. The research involved a collection of vocabulary in TV commercials, newspapers, magazines, and vehicles. The usage of collected data were analyzed and discussed in terms of parts of speech and kinds of businesses.

The aim of this study is to explore the appropriate structures of English cleft constructions based on their semantic and pragmatic function as well as their syntactic distribution, which is closely investigated as compared to the syntactic distribution of the other operator-variable constructions such as appositive relative clauses, topicalized clauses, extraposed clauses, etc. in the light of the notion of presupposition.