Earticle

In the field of L2 acquisition, the psycholinguistic perspective has been the major approach in understanding language learning. However, the nature of L2 language learning can be re-conceptualized very differently through a sociocultural approach. From this perspective, it can be said that individuals learn language by extended participation in goal-oriented practical communicative social activities with a variety of mediations (Vygotsky, 1978; Vygotsky, 1981; Vygotsky, 1986). This statement on language-learning can mean that the development of language competence may be located in the social context in which various linguistic signs are created, used, borrowed, and/or interpreted by the individual for the purposeful actions in which he or she is engaged (Kramsch, 2000). In this respect, this article examines how sociocultural perspectives have been implicated in research studies by scholars and their reflection on speech, anthropological elements, and phenomenology.

This paper is an attempt to find out a persuasive analytic tool for English partial reduplication processes. One of the most notable characteristics of English partial reduplication structures is that each half of reduplication structures has different features in vowel qualities or onset segments. This dissimilatory aspect of English partial reduplication structures has functional motivation to increase listener’s perception. As a way to find out a persuasive analytic tool for English partial reduplication, this paper compared analyses of English partial reduplication in the Precedence-based Theory, Morphological Doubling Theory and Optimality Theory, and proposes that Optimality Theory should be the most persuasive theoretical tool. Compared to the other theories, Optimality Theory represents characteristics of English partial reduplication well with the constraints employed for analysis. Furthermore, Optimality Theory has a much wider range of analysis so that other reduplication processes could be analyzed within this theory. Therefore, taking into account outstanding explanatory power and breath of analysis range, this paper proposes that Optimality Theory should be the most persuasive tool for the analysis of partial reduplication in English.

The purpose of this research is to gage the effectiveness of native English instructor’s and Korean English instructors’ current university courses. For this purpose, 140 Korean university students were participated for a survey, which enquires about the aspects of the native English instructors’ classes and Korean English instructors’ classes that they previously enrolled. According to the survey results, Korean university students perceived the effectiveness of native English instructors in their classroom in a favorable light. The students responded that their overall English ability and fluency had increased. Students also responded that native English instructors provided the vast amounts of encouragement because the students felt that they were overcoming their fears associated to using English during the native English instructors classes. On the other hand, the students perceived that the Korean English instructors were more valued for in-depth grammar instruction and as vocabulary experts. None-the-less, the students expressed that Korean English instructors used less spoken English than they would otherwise like. One surprising finding was that the Korean university students are, in the majority, interested in content above conversational skills even in native English instructors’ courses. It is expected that the results of this study consistently substantiate that native English instructors seem to have a positive effect and play a valuable role in a well-rounded Korean education system.

Syntactic Case errors which infants and young children produce in learning their first language are considered within some language acquisition theories. In addition, this paper also discusses why Korean primary school students make few syntactic Case errors in subject positions during the process of their learning English. Considering some examples related to Case errors, it has been argued that all such syntactic errors result from the some underspecified features of T. On the other hand, in the case of Korean primary school students, since they are more than 10 years old, they have the complete functional categories containing the all specified features in their first language grammar. T is also included in such functional categories. Thus, such Case errors are rare at subject positions in finite clauses among Korean primary school students.

The purpose of this study is to review, analyze, and categorize articles dealing with language learning strategies used among Korean students. Recent articles were selected for the study which deal with strategies used in both ESL and EFL settings. The chosen articles were reviewed and categorized into Oxford’s classification system according to their main focus: (1) memory strategy, (2) cognitive strategy, (3) compensation strategy, (4) metacognitive strategy, (5) affective strategy, and (6) social strategy. The findings indicated that most studies on Korean students provided various examples of students’ tendency to favor compensation strategies and metacognitive strategies over affective and social strategies. The articles were divided into ESL and EFL settings to see whether Korean students used differing strategies based on a particular setting. Suggestions for teaching strategies and future research directions regarding strategies used by Korean students are also provided.

This study compared the effects of two different types of output-based form- focused tasks (fill-in-the-blanks vs. error correction) on the learning of English articles and prepositions by EFL learners. The participants were 121 Korean university students. They were randomly assigned to two groups based on the different types of output-based tasks: Group A (fill-in-the-blanks) and Group B (error correction). A pretest was administered in Week 1 and the treatment lasted for 12 weeks, followed by a posttest. A questionnaire survey and an interview were also conducted to examine the learners’ perception on the output-based instruction. Both treatment groups showed improvement in learning these target forms. Group A performed significantly better than Group B in learning English articles, which seems to underscore the importance of deeper cognitive processing involved in language learning. This result provides empirical evidence that the fill-in-the-blanks tasks can be particularly effective for teaching English articles in the EFL classroom. However, no significant difference was observed between the groups in learning English prepositions, which suggests that different types of grammar instruction can be effective for different target forms.

This study aims to find out whether British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) have different preferences over prenominal adjective order (AO) in terms of the influential factors. According to the literature, seven factors are reported to be influential in governing English prenominal adjective order (AO). These factors include: syntactic, semantic, phonological and psychological aspects. The purpose of this study is to examine whether British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) have different preferences in regard to prenominal AO in terms of the influential factors. A multifactorial methodology was adopted to investigate native speakers' AO choices via computing a regression model by computer R language. It was found that there were more similarities than differences between BrE and AmE in their preference over AO, and the factor of IndComp is reported to significantly influence only AmE but not BrE. The factors of Length, AffLoad and Freq are positively influencing both BrE and AmE on prenominal AO, which is in accordance with the literature. Howver, the factors of SemClose and SegAlt had negative influences which was inconsistent with the literature. Further, the factor of NomChar is reported to have influence on neither BrE nor AmE.

Chinese is isolated language which characterizes in keeping its constancy of language. However, in observation of the phenomenon in Modern Chinese has shown that it has developed along with affixes, suffixes. To study a chinese adjectives in depth and variety, overraping vocabulary studies need to expand on lexicon and pragmatic studies which has already started. ABB vocabulary is a special form of word formation in Chinese, which refers to a single form of sound plus a form of phonetic form. In ancient literary works, this rhetorical form on the overlapping sound, has long been the people's attention. Since ancient times, this type of study has been carried out continuously, but the superposition of a word before the formation of the ABB vocabulary, but very little systematic study. ABB vocabulary first appeared in the Chu-ci, and this form has been used for future generations of literary works, and even spoken today, there are still. This article is written to provide a new way and index for study of chinese overraping vocabulary.

In examining the usage of access to the Internet in the advent of the new online era, the Internet has become an integral part of the daily lives of many individuals around the world. As such, the language of the Internet has also become essential to people and a new lexicon related to the Internet has been growing on a continuous basis. This language is special in formation as it displays clear characteristics of the IT era. The types of formations of the new Internet terminology are a myriad in which many expressions are direct, innovative, and humorous while remaining easy to understand. This simplicity has allowed this new language to become very popular among young Internet users. This paper attempts to analyze the various creative formations of the new terminology which have appeared on the Internet scene.

This studies aim is to examine the language management towards contact situations of Korean residents in Japan from a diachronic point of view. In this paper, I will first classify the interview data of a Korean woman who lives in Japan into 3 levels (the level of fact, level of subject, level of text; Muraoka 2010), and then describe her language biography. Then, from her language biography, I will show how I interpret the experiences that left marks on her life, and how her policy of Japanese language use has been changed. Moreover, beside of her turning point, I will clarify her general policy of communication and language use. Finally, by recapitulating the points represented before, I epitomize her language management towards contact situations in Japan.

This study examines the misuses of language which are overlooked during the ‘correction-activity’ sessions between learning partners in Tandem Language Learning. Misuses which were not corrected in the learning diary written in the target language by the learners were classified according to their respective situations. Following the classification, reasons for the misuses were analyzed. As a result, the most popular situation in which misuses were not corrected was the case in which misuses were understandable to both members of the learning tandem, regardless of the quality of the misuses. In addition, this study revealed that the language partners were not often aware of a distinction between spoken language and written language. Corrections by partners is very important in order to learn a language accurately. Appropriate guidance, in situations in which corrections of misused language is not taking place, is significant.

As globalization in the society advances, the language environment in Japan has become more and more diverse, reflected by the increasing number of communicative situations in languages other than Japanese. It is obvious that many of the foreign residents in Japan are transnational in nature and this may have affected their linguistic repertoires as well as their awareness on language use. The present paper analyses the findings of a questionnaire conducted in 2014 and 2015 in order to find out how migrants in Japan, particularly international students in this paper, use and evaluate languages in various types of situations, and what kinds of communication problems they face. Altogether, answers from 71 international students in a university in the Tokyo metropolitan area were analyzed. This paper presents the findings related to their language use by looking at how they self-evaluate their Japanese language ability and their linguistic profiles.