한국인과 외국인간의 반의어에 대한 연상 차이 연구

A Study of Different Aspects in Associating Antonyms between Koreans and Foreigners

The purpose of this study is two folds: one is to present different perspectives between Koreans and foreigners in connecting a specific word in terms of associating antonyms; the other is to suggest some effective adoptions of these findings in teaching Korean vocabularies to foreign learners of Korean. It is often the case that people tend to think of a specific word together with its related antonym. The relationship between a word and its antonym is closely associated with the vocabulary network in the human brain. Therefore using this association in teaching Korean helps learners to remember the vocabularies easier. However the semantic field of each word is inevitably different depending on the cultural background of the learners. This research reveals that Koreans and foreigners often think of a different antonym of the same word. Although the association process seems to be similar between Koreans and foreigners, there seems to be a discrepancy in the extent of abstraction of antonyms. In other words, the difference arises not in the type of antonyms, but in the extent of the abstraction of each word. Based on this, Korean teachers have to be especially cautious in teaching antonyms by dealing with gradable antonyms and directional antonyms in a different manner. It should be also noted that teaching Korean vocabularies can be accomplished more effectively by recognizing and respecting different cultural backgrounds of the learners.