The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 14(1). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is any relationship between dialect use and ethnolinguistic identity among Korean dialect speakers. It is hypothesized that those who have a strong perception of group identity and consider their dialect as more valuable than those of other groups are more likely to accentuate their language with cognitive efforts. This hypothesis was tested through questionnaires administered to 85 adults from five different provinces who were speaking their own dialect though they resided in Seoul. As a consequence of the analysis, it was found that dialect users in Seoul did not greatly require cognitive efforts when conversing with other dialect speakers. However, the results indicate that those who speak their dialect in a multi-dialectal situation can have a stronger perception of their local identity than those who do not. Thus, this study confirms that language is related to identity. Further, when various factors were examined, birthplace and residence period showed a weak relationship with strength of ethnolinguistic identity. However, results concerning age were meaningful in that the older participants were found to have a stronger identification with their dialect than the younger participants.

I. Introduction
 II. Korean dialects
 III. Ethnolinguistic identity theory
 IV. Method
  1. Participants
  2. Materials
  3. Procedure
 V. Results and discussion
 VI. Conclusion
 References

• Jin-sook Choi(Youngsan University)