재미 동포 미취학 아동의 계승어로서의 한국어 어휘 발달 연구

The Study of Korean Vocabulary Developments as a Heritage Language for Korean-American Preschool Children: 4, 5 Years Old Children in the Northeastern Part of the States

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the level of both receptive and expressive vocabulary developments for 4-5 years old Korean-American children acquiring Korean, and to investigate the factor affecting vocabulary development. The subjects for this study were 53 Korean-American preschool children living in Virginia of the states(30 children for 4 years old, 23 ones for 5 years old, and 59 months an average age of months), who were born in the States under Korean mothers and are residing in Virginia. The Receptive & Expressive Vocabulary Test was used in order to confirm the vocabulary development which is the very crucial element of the early literacy development and knowledge acquisition through an applicable language. Pearson's correlation analysis and oneway analysis of variance were conducted by SPSS/Win 19.0. For the result of these analyses, there was no significant differences between vocabulary score and both children's gender and age. The extent of using Korean for family and children have positive correlation with the vocabulary score, and mother's age and mother's residential period in the States have negative correlation with it. In general, the vocabulary score of Korean-American children shows falling behind more than one year for native Korean children, but it can be no problematic figure, considering their English ability. Regarding the percentage of correct answers, it showed in order of adjectives, verbs and nouns for the accuracy of receptive vocabulary, and in order of verbs, nouns and adjectives for expressive vocabulary.(Kyung Hee University)