• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.219-239
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• 2000

There has been a growing enthusiasm in Korea for the early education of English as a foreign language (EFL). The present study examined the validity of the Critical Period Hypothesis in terms of the Universal Grammar (UG), in three different types of learning contexts - first language (L1), second language (SL), and foreign language (FL) learning contexts. While previous research findings in L1 and SL learning contexts suggest that UG principles and parameters are accessible to language learners only for the early years of lifetime, this article argues that their results - and even the methods - cannot be applied to EFL settings and that independent studies on the EFL context are, required. It also proposes the recent UG notion of functional categories as the most appropriate subject in the discussion of Korean EFL learners' access to UG. Findings on foreign language contexts, including the author's own, strongly indicate that UG is not sensitive to learners' starting ages in FL settings. If young children in FL contexts cannot develop their interlanguage grammar based on UG, the existing teaching methods for young children should be revised.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.29-33
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• 2005

This study aims to establish a speech corpus for Korean as a foreign language (L2 Korean Speech Corpus, L2KSC) and to examine the aspects of the foreign learners acquisition of the phonetic and phonological systems in the Korean Language. In the first year of this project, L2KSC will be established through the process of reading list organizing, recording, and slicing, and the second year includes an in-depth study of the aspects of foreign learners Korean acquisition and a contrastive analysis of phonetic and phonological systems. The expectation is that this project will provide significant bases for a variety of fields such as Korean education, academic research, and technological development of phonetic information.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.282-291
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• 2022

This research applies a pre-trained bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) handwriting recognition model to predict foreign Korean-language learners' writing scores. A corpus of 586 answers to midterm and final exams written by foreign learners at the Intermediate 1 level was acquired and used for pre-training, resulting in consistent performance, even with small datasets. The test data were pre-processed and fine-tuned, and the results were calculated in the form of a score prediction. The difference between the prediction and actual score was then calculated. An accuracy of 95.8% was demonstrated, indicating that the prediction results were strong overall; hence, the tool is suitable for the automatic scoring of Korean written test answers, including grammatical errors, written by foreigners. These results are particularly meaningful in that the data included written language text produced by foreign learners, not native speakers.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.325-330
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• 2022

This paper conducts the collection and experiment of datasets for deep learning research on sign language such as sign language recognition, sign language translation, and sign language segmentation for Korean sign language. There exist difficulties for deep learning research of sign language. First, it is difficult to recognize sign languages since they contain multiple modalities including hand movements, hand directions, and facial expressions. Second, it is the absence of training data to conduct deep learning research. Currently, KETI dataset is the only known dataset for Korean sign language for deep learning. Sign language datasets for deep learning research are classified into two categories: Isolated sign language and Continuous sign language. Although several foreign sign language datasets have been collected over time. they are also insufficient for deep learning research of sign language. Therefore, we attempted to collect a large-scale Korean sign language dataset and evaluate it using a baseline model named TSPNet which has the performance of SOTA in the field of sign language translation. The collected dataset consists of a total of 11,402 image and text. Our experimental result with the baseline model using the dataset shows BLEU-4 score 3.63, which would be used as a basic performance of a baseline model for Korean sign language dataset. We hope that our experience of collecting Korean sign language dataset helps facilitate further research directions on Korean sign language.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.99-118
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• 2011

Research on strategic Code-Switching (CS) of second language learners in teaching English in English (TEE) program provides an elaborate framework for analyzing how learners manage to express themselves in spite of their limited knowledge of the target language. This research presupposes that L2 learners' CS presents innovative solutions for communicative strategy, and that CS used as communicative strategy can promote L2 learners' language acquisition. The major questions of current research involve examining the significant patterns of different functions of CS in L2 learners' interaction and investigating L2 learners' CS styles according to the different functions of CS. The implication of CS utility is regarded as a teaching technique in the TEE program. Recorded transcript is analyzed to trace the same pattern and the categorization of CS as well as to recognize the functions of CS and their ratio. Hence, this leads to the conclusion that learners' negotiation between code selection and communication intention occurs in patterns. The learners' CS tends to be predictable, reproductive, and systematic, as one of the language acquisition phases. Therefore, the attention to the CS in the TEE program should be redirected in communication substantiality toward the principles of pragmatics. As an additional advantage of the CS analysis, this research elaborates on a conceptual acceptance of CS as a set of learners' strategies in the TEE program.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.95-102
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of the phonological discrimination ability and phonological working memory of 10 typically developing children aged 4, and 10 other children with Specific Language Impairments whose language age is similar. In orders to compare their phonological discrimination ability among phonological awareness, discrimination tasks were conducted at the syllable and phoneme levels. Also, in order to compare their phonological working memory, the subjects repeated nonsense syllables. The research results may be summarized as follows: First, the children with Specific Language Impairments demonstrated a lower performance than the typically developing children in phonological discrimination ability at both syllable and phoneme levels, and the difference between the groups was statistically significant. Second, the children with Specific Language Impairments exhibited a lower phonological working memory performance in all syllables compared with normal children. Although there was no significant difference in 2 and 3 syllables, a significant difference appeared as the length of the syllables became longer from 4 to 6 syllables. It is deemed necessary to conduct research into qualitative and quantitative differences through an formal assessment of the phonological awareness and phonological working memory of children with Specific Language Impairments.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.96-107
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to determine how to visualize classic makeup through Korean visual language in old literature. It provides consumers with creativity to understand and communicate and proposes a new conceptual visualization model. The research method was carried out by drawing from old literature studies, previous reproduction records, examples, and international standard diagram text language expression. First, the visualization work expressed in visual language in old literature was an objective and efficient method of information delivery as a characteristic of information design. Second, visual language expressed in old documents could be divided into makeup materials and actions. Also, the diagrams were appropriate for visualizing materials and materials for storytelling. Third, in the visualization of Korean classic makeup in old literature, images were more appropriate than diagrams in the case of action. The researcher proposed a method of visualizing historical knowledge that went one step beyond the existing simple event timing method. Timeline, correlation diagram, image, and text were combined in various ways to find the most effective historical knowledge visualization method. The representation of Korean classic makeup goes beyond the meaning of language or text and is the cultural content of re-creation, which requires systematic globalization.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.93-120
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• 2012

This paper aims to address the gains and losses of the CMC environment in Language learning. Data were attained from twelve middle school ESL students who took English as a second language class and twelve pre-service teachers taking ESL foundation course. This exploration describes the role of CMC focusing on its' advantages and disadvantages which language teachers need to consider. The findings revealed that the teachers, tasks, and other elements involved in the CMC environment provided several gains and losses for many areas of learning. This implies that CMC alone does not provide an optimal learning environment, but rather it is used as an essential tool in providing opportunities to enhance language learning. Several suggestions are made for teachers and pre-service teacher education how CMC instruction might be better designed. The paper concludes with some practical considerations for future research in the area of CMC.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.3-18
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• 2009

Do loanword properties emerge in the acquisition of a foreign language and if so, how? Classic studies in adult language learning assumed loanword properties that range from near-ceiling to near-chance level of appearance depending on speech proficiency. The present research argues that such variations reflect different phonological types, rather than speech proficiency. To investigate the difference between learner speech and loanword phonology, the current research analyzes the speech data from five different proficiency levels of 92 Korean speakers who read 19 pairs of English words and sentences that contained loanwords. The experimental method is primarily an acoustical one, by which the phonological cause in the loanwords (e.g., the insertion of [$\Box$] at the end of the word stamp) would be attested to appear in learner speech, in comparison with native speech from 11 English speakers and 11 Korean speakers. The data investigated for the research are of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation in both learner speech and the native speech. The results indicate that learner speech does not present the loanword properties in many cases, but depends on the types of phonological causes. The relatively easy acquisition of target pronunciation is evidenced in the cases of segment deletion, insertion, substitution, and alternation, except when the loanword property involves the successful command of the target phonology such as the de-aspiration of [p] in apple. Such a case of difficult learning draws a sharp distinction from the cases of easy learning in the development of learner speech, particularly beyond the intermediate level of proficiency. Overall, learner speech departs from loanword phonology and develops toward the native speech value, depending on phonological contrasts in the native and foreign languages.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.207-228
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• 2005

When closing an international contract, both contract parties endeavor to convey their intentions from the stage of negotiation to the moment of signing the contract. Of the many problems presently related to contract language, the first one to consider is which contract party will run the risk of the language deficiencies occurring as a result of the misunderstanding and misinterpretation between different languages. The second problem to consider is whether the interpretation and translation of the contract language is needed and, if so, which party is going to bear the expenses and assume responsibility of the misinterpretation in the translation of, the contract language. The third problem is related to the obligation of explaining to both contract parties the contents and details of the international contract written in different languages. The fourth issue is which language of both contract parties becomes the standard contract language in the procedure of arbitration. The fifth, but not the last problem, is how to solve the language defects in interpreting and translating the contract languages. These five problems can be easily solved by the approval of the contract parties in scrutinizing and selecting the contract languages. However, this research mainly focuses on which effects of the contract language and as how to define and select the contract language.