다중언어 학습자의 한국어 어종 인지 능력과 어휘 의미 파악 능력의 연관성 연구

A Study on the Correlation between Korean Word Type Recognition Ability and Word Recognition Ability for Multilingual Korean Language Beginners in Hong Kong

The Korean lexicon can be divided into three different types which are native Korean vocabulary, Sino-Korean vocabulary and loanword. This research is the first attempt to focus on the correlation between word type recognition ability and word recognition ability for multilingual Korean learners. During the vocabulary test, 22 beginner level students were required to distinguish the word types and to identify their knowledge of 30 essential Korean vocabularies. The test results showed that Hong Kong Korean language beginners’ ability to identify and understand English originated loanword was the highest, then followed by Sino-Korean vocabulary and native Korean vocabulary. Moreover, a strong positive correlation is found between the students’ word type recognition and word recognition abilities in English originated loanword rather than their mother-tongue (Cantonese). This research also revealed that positive results were found for Sino-Korean vocabulary with hanja that were identical with the learners’ Cantonese Chinese vocabulary, but negative results were found for those with hanja that were different. The study not only signified the positive language transfer of English knowledge for Hong Kong learners, but also suggested that their Chinese background knowledge helped them in learning Sino-Korean vocabulary, but the extent was less than loanword due to the interference from hanja of Sino-Korean vocabularies that were different from their mother-tongue.