The Processing Unit in Korean Words

한글 낱말의 처리 단위

The purpose of this study was to explore the processing unit in Korean word.Three experiments were conducted to examine this question.Preliminary experiment and Enperiment I were executed to delineate the processing unit in singles syllable word and Experiment 2,for words two or more syllables.The major finding of the preliminary experiment showed that the effect of the consonant type was not significant but that of the letter position was.Reaction time increased as the position of letter increased.The difference in reaction time between the first and the second position was not significant.However,the difference between the second and third was.In the Experiment 1, the effect of the number of letter was significant: reaction time increased as the number of letters increased.The size of the position effect both in the preliminary experiment and Experiment 1was comparable.Result of Experiment 2 was such that regardless of the presence of the final consonant(s),the reaction time incresased linearly as the number of svllables increased from two to four. The findings of the present study suggest that:(1)processing unit in single syllable Korean words is a syllable without the final consonant(s):(2) but in words of two or more syllables,the unit is likely to be a syllable with the final consonant(s).

한글 낱말의 처리단의를 검증하기 위해 3개의 실험을 실시 하였다.예비 실험과 실험1은 한음절 글자, 실험 2는 2음절 이상 글자에서의 처리단위를 밝혀보고자 하였다.예비실험에서,자음유형효과는 통계적으로 유의미하지 않았으나 낱말 위치 효과는 유의미했다.Newman-Keuls 검증결과 초성조건과 중성조건간 차이는 유의미하지 않았으나 중성조건과 중성조건간의 차이는 유의미했다.실험 1에서는 낱자수가 증가함에 따라 반응시간도 증가했다.낱말 위치 효과는 예비실험과 동일했다.실험 2에서는 종성유무와는 관계없이 음절이 증가함에 따라 반응시간이 증가했다.본 연구의 시사점은 다음과 같다:(1)한 음절의 글자에서는 초성과 종성으로만 구성된 음절을 단위로 정보처리가 이루어지나 (2) 두 음절이상의 글자에서는 종성이 포함된 음절을 단위로 정보처리가 이루어진다.