This study investigates the types of interactional modifications employed by Japanese and Korean university students during text-based chats. In particular, this study focuses on the role of a network-based medium on the use of interactional modifications, which have been claimed to facilitate interlanguage development. The results show that students use a variety of features of interactional modifications. The most used strategies were the use of paralinguistic features, framing, overt indication of understanding/agreement, and clarification checks, which reveals inconsistent results with findings from research on the negotiation of meaning in face-to-face interaction. Results suggest that the computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment requires the above mentioned strategies and students are able to adapt to this new context by employing alternative strategies. The majority of negotiations were generated by content and lexical items either to resolve communication problems or to better manage interactions, and very few negotiations occurred in terms of grammar. The findings suggest that text-based synchronous chats can be an effective tool for promoting interactive competence, but their effectiveness on grammatical development is uncertain.

This paper deals with a part-specific analysis of grammatical errors in the production of the English passive in writing. The purpose of the study is dual: to explore common error types in forming the passive; and to provide plausible sources of the errors, with special attention to the role of the native language. To this end, this study obtained a large amount of data from Korean EFL university students using an essay writing task. The results show that in forming the passive sentence, errors were made in various ways and that the most common problem was the formation of the be-auxiliary, in particular, the proper use of tense and S-V agreement. Another important finding was that the global errors found in this study were not necessarily those with the greatest frequency. Also corroborated was the general claim that many factors work together to account for errors. In many cases, interlingual and intralingual factors were shown to interact with each other to explain the passive errors made by Korean students. On the basis of the results, suggestions are made for effective and well-formed use of the passive sentence.

As the late partner to science fiction, various experimental languages such as animal language, telepathic language, newly invented language, alien language often appear as "unexpected and frightened situations" in SF. Like generative semanticists, some SF writers daringly delve into the sacred mystery of semantics in language whereas others avoid the dream of a universal language by holding themselves to manageable data. Samuel Delany's description of the ideal telepathic universal language in Babel 17 shows us humans' dream to be like God by showing to us the new process of communication in the factual interplanetary environment. Similar to the mystery of alien language in SF, the baby's babbling reveals how language is both simple and complicated. Children's language shows us the changing process of a soul revealed by language use and it is no wonder that many languages of AIs in SF often borrow their source from children's language acquisition processes. In short, science fiction as the repository of tropes illuminates other literary language studies and other literary genres. Especially in terms of the futuristic study of linguistics, the relationship between science fiction and linguistics is much closer than we thought.

The purpose of the present study is to compare Korean EFL learners' speech corpus (i.e. oral productions) with their composition corpus (i.e. written productions). Four college students participated in the study. The composition corpus was collected through a writing assignment, and the speech corpus was gathered by audio-taping their oral presentations. The results of the data analysis indicate that (i) As for error frequency, young adult low-intermediate Korean EFL learners showed high frequency in determiners (mostly, indefinite articles), vocabulary (mostly, semantic errors), and prepositions. The frequency order did not show much difference between the speech corpus and the composition corpus; and (ii) When comparing the oral productions with the written productions, there were not many differences between them in terms of the contents, a style (i.e., colloquial vs. literary), vocabulary selection, and error types and frequency. Therefore, it is assumed that the proficiency in oral presentation of EFL learners at this learning stage heavily depends on how much/how well they are able to write. In other words, EFL learners' writing and speaking skills are closely co-related. It implies that the teacher does not need to separate teaching how to speak from teaching how to write. The teacher may use the same methods or strategies to help the learners improve their English speaking and writing skills. Furthermore, it will be more effective to teach writing before speaking since they have more opportunities to write than speak in the EFL contexts.

Style is considered a pivotal construct in sociolinguistic variation studies. While previous studies have examined style in traditional forms of language such as speech, very little research has examined new and emerging styles such as computer-mediated discourse. Thus, the present study attempts to investigate style in the online communication mode of chat. In so doing, the study compares text-based online chat with speech and writing. Online chat has been previously described as a hybrid form of language that is close to speech. Here, the exact nature of online chat is elucidated by focusing on contraction use. Differential acquisition of stylistic variation is also examined according to English learning background. The empirical component consists of data from Korean speakers of English. Data is taken from a written summary, an oral interview, and a text-based online chat session. A multivariate analysis was conducted. Results indicate that online chat is indeed a hybrid form that is difficult to delineate from speech and writing. Text-based online chat shows a somewhat similar rate of contraction to speech, which confirms its hybridity.. Lastly, some implications of the study are given in terms of the learning and acquisition of style in general and in online contextual modes.

This article reports some Korean EFL learners' cognitive tendencies drawn up from their responses to logical fallacies in the argument passages, and its pedagogical implications. The findings of experimental study show the meaningful disparities in three sets of judgment tests designed to identify and explicate faulty arguments: based on the three general types of fallacies using language, emotions, and distraction tactics, subjects on average gained the highest scores in the test questions with language-loaded fallacies and the lowest scores in those with emotion-based ones among the three different types; for this reason, the scores that subjects obtained in the test of distraction-loaded fallacious arguments fell in between the two poles. These discrepancies, mainly based on statistical inferences, support the possibility that the Korean EFL learners are most likely to be manipulated by emotions/distraction- loaded argument tactics than by language-based ones in the three types of fallacious arguments; and, they are least likely to be influenced by language-oriented trickeries. As a consequence, such variances in abilities to recognize the intrinsic elements of logical fallacies suggest some basic instructional approaches to critical reading of argumentative texts with due weights on the Korean EFL learners' culture-specific cognitive tendencies.

For the past 20 years the process approach to writing has been popular in second language writing classrooms. However, there have been very few studies conducted in Korea with regard to the composing processes and the effects of proficiency on writers' usage. The present study attempts to begin to fill this gap. Three groups of college students with different writing proficiency participated in the study: the advanced group, the intermediate group, and the beginning group. The verbal protocol of their writing processes revealed that they approached writing tasks differently. While the advanced writers focused on generating texts and ideas and examined their writing at both global and local levels, the other two groups of students tended to focus on evaluating text at the local level and generated fewer ideas and less text. The findings from this study are then compared to those of some major studies of the composing process as conclusions are subsequently drawn about the specific needs of Korean college writers.

This paper examines "Difference in Requests." The study of speech acts is a crucial area in sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics, and has aided in the development of TESOL. It also provides a useful means of relating linguistic form and communicative intent. This paper concentrated on 3 request strategies, which were requests made with an explanation, requests made without an explanation and no requests. The purpose of this study, and of concern in TESOL, was to discover whether Koreans framed their requests differently under different conditions. Based on these differences, I wanted to ascertain whether Koreans who spoke English as a second language, and who have lived in the United States, frame their requests as they would in their native tongues thus creating the potential for sociolinguistic failure, or use American sociolinguistic style. As the results of the study, it was found that in the majority of cases, Americans made an explanation with a request. In many cases the Koreans living in Korea would not give an explanation when making a request. Rather, they were direct in request. In many cases the Korean speaking English and living in the US had adopted the American request strategy of giving an explanation.

Snyder (2001) proposes that complex predicate constructions are interrelated by shared dependence on a single parameter, the Compounding Parameter, and that the global application of the parameter explains the simultaneous acquisition of the complex predicate constructions and N-N compounds in L1 acquisition of English. Slabakova (2002) examined the status of the Compounding Parameter in the acquisition of L2 Spanish by instructed learners. The result of the study, however, was not compatible with the prediction of the Compounding Parameter, possibly due to the availability of negative evidence in the input. Building upon Slabakova's study, this paper examines the status of the Compounding Parameter in naturalistic L2 learning. It is shown that the naturalistic L2 learners do not acquire the complex predicate constructions and N-N compounds concurrently contra to the prediction of the Compounding Parameter. It is suggested that the validity of the Compounding Parameter as a theoretical construct be reconsidered.

This study examines the effects of Internet-based English practice on listening and reading. Out of a total of 16 students who took part in pre- and post-tests, 11 who had frequently practiced listening and reading on the Internet showed greater improvement in these skills than the 5 who had practiced less. The findings also suggest that summarization of listening and reading on the Internet was useful as it made students concentrate specifically on the content. This study suggests that English language teachers use a bulletin board to complement the use of Internet sites for listening and reading practice outside of the classroom in an EFL context.

This paper explores the effects of two different methods of instruction for 106 low-level Korean learners of English at a college in learning request expressions. Both of the methods contained the focus-on-form and function characteristics, while the degree of explicitness for input enhancement was differentiated. Abundant email samples written by English native speakers for the input were provided and email writing practice for the output was proceeded for both groups of the students in the treatment sessions. The numbers of target forms used in pretest and posttest results were compared quantitatively: The tests included email writing and open-ended Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The results indicated that the target pragmatic features were slightly better learned under the condition of relatively high degree of explicit instruction with metapragmatic information, even though the difference was statistically insignificant. In addition, the students' use of request strategies both in email and DCT was affected positively by the treatment with email input and output. That is, the students applied the request strategies they learned through email into their oral production (open-ended DCT) as well as their email writing. Further study on the output effect of target features in advancing pragmatic competence is suggested.