• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to present evidence for a particular processing approach based on the language-specific characteristics of Korean. To compare individuals' sentence-comprehension abilities, this study measured the accuracy and reaction times (RT) of 12 aphasic patients (AP) and 12 normal controls (NC) during a sentence-picture matching task. Four versions of a sentence were constructed with the two types of voice (active/passive) and two types of word order (agent-first/patient-first). To examine the effects of increased processing demand, picture stimuli were manipulated in such a way that they appeared immediately after the sentence was presented. As expected, the AP group showed higher error rates and longer RT for all conditions than the NC group. Furthermore, Korean speakers with aphasia performed above a chance level in sentence comprehension, even with passive sentences. Aphasics understood sentences more quickly and accurately when they were given in the active voice and with agent-first order. The patterns of the NC group were similar. These results confirm that Korean adults with aphasia do not completely lose their knowledge of sentence comprehension. When the processing demand was increased by delaying the picture stimulus onset, the effect of increased processing demands on RT was more pronounced in the AP than in the NC group. These findings fit well with the idea that the computational system for interpreting sentences is intact in aphasics, but its ability is compromised when processing demands increase.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.362-371
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate difficulties in using prosodic information to identify the meaning of ambiguous sentences in children with high functioning autism (HFA). Fifteen high functioning autistic children and fifteen children who matched their chronological age (CA) participated in this study. We compared the performance of the two groups by conducting syntactically and affectively ambiguous sentence comprehension (SASC and AASC) tasks. The results of this study show that in both tasks, the difference between the two groups was statistically significant at each condition and the performance of high functioning autistic children was significantly lower. In a correlation analysis of major variables, children who matched CA showed a correlation between prosody-only (PO) and AASC, while children with HFA showed a correlation between PO and MO (morpheme-only). Children with HFA used grammatical morpheme information to understand general sentences. We found that the ability to use prosodic information in children with HFA is significantly lower than that of normally developed children. Considering the relevance of prosody to linguistic, non-linguistic and emotional aspects of communication, improving prosodic perception is thought to be a way to mediate deficits in the comprehension of ambiguous sentences in children with HFA.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.241-254
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• 2003

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the sentence comprehension strategies used by Korean/English bilingual children when they listened to sentences of their first language, i.e., Korean. The framework of competition model was employed to analyze the influence of the second language, i.e., English, during comprehension of Korean sentences. The participants included 10 bilingual children (ages 7;4-13;0) and 20 Korean-speaking monolingual children(ages 5;7-6;10) with similar levels of development in Korean language as bilingual children. In an act-out procedure, the children were asked to determine the agent in sentences composed of two nouns and a verb with varying conditions of three cues (case-marker, animacy, and word-order). The results revealed that both groups of children used the case marker cues as the strongest cue among the three. The bilingual children relied on case-marker cues even more than the monolingual children. However, the bilingual children used animacy cues significantly less than the monolingual children. There were no significant differences between the groups in the use of word-order cues. The bilingual children appeared less effective in utilizing animacy cues in Korean sentence comprehension due to the backward transfer from English where the cue strength of animacy is very weak. The influence of the second language on the development of the first language in bilingual children was discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.37-49
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• 2011

The present study investigated the semantic and syntactic processes in Korean children's sentence comprehension by measuring event-related brain potentials(ERPs). The subjects were 18 right-handed, healthy native Korean children(1st graders), who were free from any hearing problems. While the children listened to the auditory sentence stimuli, ERPs were recorded with the electrodes mounted in a 'Quik-Cap' on the subject's head. The ERP data were recorded and analyzed using the NeuroScan 4.3 and EEGLABv6.03b programs. For statistical analyses, descriptive statistics, three-way repeated measures ANOVA, and t-tests were performed using a SPSS 15.0 PC program. The results indicated that semantic violations elicited a negativity (N400) ranging from 300 to 500 msec. For syntactic violations, children displayed a positivity (P600) ranging from 900 to 1,100 msec. The discovery of N400 and P600 in semantic and syntactic processes respectively, confirmed the suggestion that Indo-European and Korean languages share a common mechanism for sentence comprehension.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.39-53
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• 2007

This study investigated the relationship between young children's comprehension and story making(narrative) by age and gender. Subjects were 109 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds at two child care centers in K Province. Data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA and simple regression analysis. Results showed differences in comprehension between 3-, 4- and 5-year old children and differences in story making ability between 3- and 5-year-old children. Children's comprehension and story making had positive relationships. Specifically, there were significant relationships with children's comprehension and story construct concept, sentence structure level, language(vocabulary and sentence structure). In sum, the results of this study reveal that young children's comprehension ability is partially related to story making ability by age.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.185-200
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• 1998

This research examined the development in Korean children of the comprehension of complex sentences. The relative difficulty in comprehension of the temporal conjunctions "before" and "after" was investigated. The order of mention, contextual support, and syntactic appearance was controlled. The role of cognitive strategies and developmental changes in the comprehension of these conjunction was included in this study. Subjects were 90 preschool children between 3 and 5 years of age. The task was a sentence-picture matching problem having 3 types of sentences combining temporally with "before" or "after". The results were that developmental changes in comprehension of the temporal conjunctions "before' and "after" in Korean children depended on the order of mention, contextual support, and such syntactic factors as the position of the subject of the sentence. The importance of the consistency in the occurrence of events and the order of mention in the acquisition of complex sentences among Korean children is similar to the acquisition of complex sentences in other languages.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.1365-1377
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to find out by comparing the ability of comprehension and production of causative and passive sentences and grammatical morphemes between multicultural family children and normal children. Fifteen multicultural family children and fifteen normal children aged 7-9 years participated in this study. The results of this study are as follows; First, the children of multicultural family showed significantly a lower ability to comprehension and production of causative and passive sentences compared to normal children. Second, the children of multicultural family showed the difference about the acquisition of grammatical morpheme of causative and passive compared to normal children. Third, multicultural family children and normal children were not statistically significant differences in comprehension and production abilities of causative and passive in accordance with the increase of age.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.23-43
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• 2012

This study investigates the effects of three different types of instruction, namely form-based, comprehension-based, and production-based on the development of Korean university students' (n=137) comprehension and production of English relative clauses (RCs). The extent of improvements was analyzed by administering pre-and post-tests consisting of two comprehension tests (selecting the right form of RCs and the right picture descriptions) and one production test (combining two sentences). Findings of this study suggest that all three types of instruction increased participants' comprehension and productions of RCs. However, there appeared differential effects by the instruction type. It was found production-based instruction was most effective in promoting comprehension, followed by comprehension-based instruction. Comprehension-based instruction worked best with the development of production, suggesting that the effects of comprehension training did not only work for increasing comprehension skills, but also transfer to production skills. The type or level of tasks employed for each instruction appeared to play an important role in causing such results. Form-based instruction displayed the lowest improvements in both comprehension and production of RCs. A sentence-combination task employed for form-based instruction appear to result in mere explicit rule explanations without chances to notice rules in context or use their knowledge in practice.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.1
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• pp.69-108
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• 1995

Listening comprehension can be defined as a process of an integrative, positive and creative activity through which listeners get the message of speakers' production using linguistic or non-linguistic redundancy as well as linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge. Compared with reading comprehension, it has many difficulties especially for foreigners. while it can be transferred to the other skills: speaking, reading, writing. With this said, listening comprehension can be taught effectively using the following teaching strategies. First. systematic and intensive instruction of segmental phonemes, suprasegmental phonemes and sound changes must be given to remove the difficulties of listening comprehension concerned with the identification of sounds. Second, vocabulary drill through various games and other activities is absolutely needed until words can be unconsciously recognized. Without this, comprehension is almost impossible. Third, instruction of sentence structures is thought to be essential considering grammar is supplementary to listening comprehension and reading comprehension for academic purpose. So grammar translation drills, mechanical drills, meaningful drills and communicative drills should be performed in succession with common or frequently used structures. Fourth, listening activities for overall comprehension should teach how to receive overall meaning of intended messages intact. Linguists and literatures have listed some specific activities as follows: Total Physical Response, dictation, role playing, singing songs, selective listening, picture recognition, list activities, completion, prediction, true or false choice, multiple choice, seeking of specific information, summarizing, problem-solving and decision-making, recognization of relationships between speakers, recognition of mood, attitude and behavior of speakers.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.59-71
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• 1985

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of both social-status and mode of stimulus-presentation on children's empathic behavior, where empathy is defined as either the comprehension and recognition of an affective state in stimulus persons (others) or the empathic response to that perception. Middle-and lower-class kindergarten children were presented with a series of either short-sentence stories or short-pictorial stories. The subjects were asked to indicate how the child in each situation felt by selecting a "happy", "sad", or "angry" face to complete the picture accompanying each story. Immediately following the first question, children were asked to state verbally how the child in the picture might feel. The main results were (1) The mean empathy scores for the comprehension and recognition of an affective state in others and the empathic response to that perception was higher in middle-class children than in lower-class children. (2) There were differences in empathy scores to the three affective situations, i.e. the mean score for both happiness and sadness was significantly greater than for aggression, and (3) The empathy scores in the pictorial-stories were greater than in the sentence-stories.