미국인 학습자의 한국어 습득과 인지ㆍ심리적 제약

American learners’ Korean language acquisition and their cognitive and psychological constraints

This study investigates how learners’ cognitive and psychological factors affect acquisition of Korean language. 24 advanced learners participated in the experiment which measures learner’s individual variables such as grammatical judgement ability, proficiency, language aptitude, working memory, motivation, and anxiety. The variables were analyzed to explain what factors affect individual learners to make variations of grammar acquisition. Grammaticality judgement test reflects general proficiency and also relates to acquisition of individual grammatical items. Working memory and sound discrimination that is a component of language aptitude showed correlation with 84% of the grammatical categories measured. However, the influence of psychological factor, motivation or anxiety, was yielded up to be limited or indirect on acquisition. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to develop predictive model for the scores of grammaticality judgement test over the variables that were working memory, sound discrimination, integrative motivation, language analysis. The predictive model can explain development of acquisition according to learners’ individual characteristics and also predict factors which interfere with learners’ language acquisition.