• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.201-223
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to observe the effects of text modification by comparing differences in Korean reading comprehension levels that arise from differences in vocabulary levels in texts. This study intends to use simplified texts with the vocabulary difficulty adjusted differently from the original text to measure reading comprehension levels of Korean learners and analyze the result. To measure reading comprehension, the researcher divided 55 Korean learners of intermediate to advanced level of fluency into two groups; the control group read the original text and the treatment group read a simplified text in which complex vocabulary were substituted with easier words of medium difficulty. Then the two groups were tested with the same questionnaire to measure comprehension levels of each group. The result showed that the groups that read simplified texts scored higher than the control group; this suggests that the reading comprehension level was increased in the treatment group. The experiment confirmed that unknown vocabulary density has direct impact on Korean reading comprehension. The result shows that the proportion of unknown vocabulary should be reduced for meaning-focused reading. It also demonstrates that comprehension of the learner was enhanced with lexical simplification rather than structural simplification i.e. simplification of grammar or sentences. Thus, diverse reading materials adjusted to the learners' level of fluency should be developed to enable reading for learning Korean. By reducing the burden of understanding the meaning of each vocabulary, learners will be able to achieve the initial goal of reading.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.123-159
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• 2012

This study investigates relationships between TOPIK ratings and measures of grammaticality judgement competence in the acquisition of Korean as a second language. Data were collected on the linguistic abilities of learners' at 3 to 6 on the TOPIK scale, focusing on perception in grammar-mostly morphology and syntax, some lexis, and a few of collocation. The results show that (i) proficiency and grammaticality judgement competence show high correlation, (ii) individual accuracy scores correlate strongly with levels on the TOPIK proficiency scale on most linguistic features in the test, and (iii) Japanese speakers outperform Chinese speakers at the same levels of proficiency on most linguistic features. The findings indicate that global proficiency scales like the TOPIK can be deconstructed using grammaticality judgement test that provides detailed measures of learners' control of linguistic features.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.241-249
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• 2001

This study examined the effect of story dictation and dramatization on children's story construction and decontextualized language. For 12 weeks, the 22 five-year-old children in the experimental group participated in story dictation and dramatization activities while another 22 same-age children participated only in story dictation. The instruments were the children's Decontextualized Language Test(Foley, 1992) and children's Story Analysis(Knipping, 1987), revised to fit Korean grammar. Story dictation and dramatization facilitated high level story construction by children: it raised levels of story coherence and narrative form. Story dictation and dramatization also enhanced decontextualized language of children, raising their use of decontextualized language on a picture description task.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.234-245
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• 2012

This paper proposes a multi-level product modeling framework for long-term lifecycle products. The framework can help engineers to define product models and relate them to physical instances. The framework is defined in three levels; data, design model, modeling language. The data level represents real-world products, The model level describes design models of real-world products. The modeling language level defines concepts and relationships to describe product design models. The concepts and relationships in the modeling language level enable engineers to express the semantics of product models in an engineering-friendly way. The interactions between these three levels are explained to show how the framework can manage long-term lifecycle product information. A prototype system is provided for further understanding of the framework.

• Language and Information
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.67-91
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• 2013

This paper describes Korean Nominal Bank, a project that provides argument structure for instances of the predicative nouns in the Sejong parsed Corpus. We use the language resources of the Sejong project, so that the same set of data is annotated with more and more levels of annotation, since a new type of a language resource building project could bring new information of separate and isolated processing. We have based on the annotation scheme based on the Sejong electronic dictionary, semantically tagged corpus, and syntactically analyzed corpus. Our work also involves the deep linguistic knowledge of syntaxsemantic interface in general. We consider the semantic theories including the Frame Semantics of Fillmore (1976), argument structure of Grimshaw (1990) and argument alternation of Levin (1993), and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005). Various syntactic theories should be needed in explaining various sentence types, including empty categories, raising, left (or right dislocation). We also need an explanation on the idiosyncratic lexical feature, such as collocation and etc.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.293-305
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• 2016

Objective: This study aims to measure cognitive load levels by analyzing the EEG of Koreans and foreigners, when they read a Korean text with care selected by level from the grammar and vocabulary aspects, and compare the cognitive load levels through quantitative values. The study results can be utilized as basic data for more scientific approach, when Korean texts or books are developed, and an evaluation method is built, when the foreigners encounter them for learning or an assignment. Background: Based on 2014, the number of the foreign students studying in Korea was 84,801, and they increase annually. Most of them are from Asian region, and they come to Korea to enter a university or a graduate school in Korea. Because those foreign students aim to learn within Universities in Korea, they receive Korean education from their preparation for study in Korea. To enter a university in Korea, they must acquire grade 4 or higher level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), or they need to complete a certain educational program at each university's affiliated language institution. In such a program, the learners of the Korean language receive Korean education based on texts, except speaking domain, and the comprehension of texts can determine their academic achievements in studying after they enter their desired schools (Jeon, 2004). However, many foreigners, who finish a language course for the short-term, and need to start university study, cannot properly catch up with university classes requiring expertise with the vocabulary and grammar levels learned during the language course. Therefore, reading education, centered on a strategy to understand university textbooks regarded as top level reading texts to the foreigners, is necessary (Kim and Shin, 2015). This study carried out an experiment from a perspective that quantitative data on the readers of the main player of reading education and teaching materials need to be secured to back up the need for reading education for university study learners, and scientifically approach educational design. Namely, this study grasped the difficulty level of reading through the measurement of cognitive loads indicated in the reading activity of each text by dividing the difficulty of a teaching material (book) into eight levels, and the main player of reading into Koreans and foreigners. Method: To identify cognitive loads indicated upon reading Korean texts with care by Koreans and foreigners, this study recruited 16 participants (eight Koreans and eight foreigners). The foreigners were limited to the language course students studying the intermediate level Korean course at university-affiliated language institutions within Seoul Metropolitan Area. To identify cognitive load, as they read a text by level selected from the Korean books (difficulty: eight levels) published by King Sejong Institute (Sejonghakdang.org), the EEG sensor was attached to the frontal love (Fz) and occipital lobe (Oz). After the experiment, this study carried out a questionnaire survey to measure subjective evaluation, and identified the comprehension and difficulty on grammar and words. To find out the effects on schema that may affect text comprehension, this study controlled the Korean texts, and measured EEG and subjective satisfaction. Results: To identify brain's cognitive load, beta band was extracted. As a result, interactions (Fz: p =0.48; Oz: p =0.00) were revealed according to Koreans and foreigners, and difficulty of the text. The cognitive loads of Koreans, the readers whose mother tongue is Korean, were lower in reading Korean texts than those of the foreigners, and the foreigners' cognitive loads became higher gradually according to the difficulty of the texts. From the text four, which is intermediate level in difficulty, remarkable differences started to appear in comparison of the Koreans and foreigners in the beginner's level text. In the subjective evaluation, interactions were revealed according to the Koreans and foreigners and text difficulty (p =0.00), and satisfaction was lower, as the difficulty of the text became higher. Conclusion: When there was background knowledge in reading, namely schema was formed, the comprehension and satisfaction of the texts were higher, although higher levels of vocabulary and grammar were included in the texts than those of the readers. In the case of a text in which the difficulty of grammar was felt high in the subjective evaluation, foreigners' cognitive loads were also high, which shows the result of the loads' going up higher in proportion to the increase of difficulty. This means that the grammar factor functions as a stress factor to the foreigners' reading comprehension. Application: This study quantitatively evaluated the cognitive loads of Koreans and foreigners through EEG, based on readers and the text difficulty, when they read Korean texts. The results of this study can be used for making Korean teaching materials or Korean education content and topic selection for foreigners. If research scope is expanded to reading process using an eye-tracker, the reading education program and evaluation method for foreigners can be developed on the basis of quantitative values.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.113-139
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• 2017

Since the enactment of the "Framework Act on the Korean Language (herein after "Act ), researchers have focused their studies on measuring whether the Act played a huge role in providing Korean education. This can be confirmed by many, that the Act has indeed played a huge part in providing Korean language education. However, little attention was given to the validity of the education curriculum for prospective Korean language teachers as provided by the Act. Therefore, this survey has been conducted to provide an insight to teachers' perception of the Korean language curriculum for prospective teachers and will test whether such perception meets the standards in which the Act has been enacted. In this survey, we have received response on the importance of each domain and subject in the areas of Korean language education as viewed by the Korean language teachers. The results revealed the importance in the following order: Teaching Practice, Korean Linguistics, Korean Educational Linguistics, General Linguistics, and Korean Culture. These results strongly suggest that there is a need for the current curriculum, laid out by the Act, to be reconsidered to stress different levels of importance and time assignment for each category. The survey analysis shows the disparity in importance within the curriculum between the Act and the views in which the Korean language teachers perceive Korean language education. While further research is needed to confirm the analysis of this survey, this area of research will be instrumental in determining the suggestive shapes of the curriculum governed by the Act in the years to come.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.43 no.8 s.210
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• pp.37-54
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to provide basic information about the acculturation of Korean immigrants in China. A total of 459 Korean-Chinese from yanbian province, China and 768 Korean-Chinese from the city of Shenyang and Martin, China participated in this study. The subjects were asked about their language use during daily conversations and cultural activities using. The Cultural Life Style Inventory. Result indicated that overall Korean immigrants in China maintain their ethnic identity, ethnic language and culture. However, there were some differences in their levels of acculturation depending on the area they live and their educational levels. The differences were explained in part by the uniqueness of Yanbian province and a new policy for ethnic minorities in China. This study suggests that not only immigrants' demographic variables but also their ecological variables are important in understanding the acculturation of Korean immigrants in China.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.185-197
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• 2016

This study was conducted to examine the factors affecting the life satisfaction of married female immigrants and Korean husbands. Data for this study were obtained from the National Survey of Multicultural Families conducted in 2012. The study sample consisted of 5,232 couples within the first five years of marriage. Data were evaluated using a paired t-test, K-mean cluster analysis, ANOVA, and ordered logistic regression analysis. The results were as follows: 1) life satisfaction was higher for married female immigrants than for Korean husbands. 2) The general characteristics, acceptance attitude, language acceptance, and social network differed significantly depending on life satisfaction levels. 3) The multicultural acceptance attitude of husbands, ability of married female immigrants to speak Korean, and ability of Korean husbands to speak wives' native languages improved life satisfaction levels. The results of this study can be used to improve the life satisfaction of married female immigrants and Korean husbands.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.245-245
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• 1996

When language A borrows words, it borrows them according to its own phonetic rules. In other words, language B, where borrowed words coming from, has to comply with the phonetic requirements of language A. It may be added that language A only borrows the elements, the types of syllables and accentuation that already exist in its own phonetic struture and rejects all the rest that are not compatible. It operates exactly like a sieve. That is why borrowed words offer an excellent observation post to notice how react in phonetic contexts. The Japanese language has borrowed and is borrowing extensively from other languages and cultures, mainly from the English ones in the fields of sports, medicine, industry, commerce, and natural sciences. Relatively very few new words are created using the ancient Chinese or native backgrounds. This presentation will look for the rules of borrowing and try to show that this way of borrowing represents an organized system of its own. Three levels would be particularly studied : - the phonemic level - the syllable level and - the accentual level. This last point would be specially targeted with the question of syllable tension-relaxation. Such a study of languages in phonetics contacts could shed some new light on the phonetic charaCteristics of Japanese language and will confirm or weaken some conclusion already demonstated otherwise. We will be aming specially at the endings of the borrowed words where, it seems, Japanese language manifests itself very strongly.