This study aims to explored changes in vocabulary use in Jeongamchon, which was founded by immigrants from Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea, in China. The data were collected from the first generation of Chungcheongbuk-do and Jeongamchon immigrants as well as the second generation of Jeongamchon immigrants. The data were divided into eight categories. The Jeongamchon community preserved a considerable number of dialects from Chungcheongbuk-do but also showed the transition of words into Chinese Korean. Examples of Chungcheongbuk-do dialect words that are highly conserved in Jeongamchon include words frequently used in daily life such as words about the human body and titles for relatives and family members. In contrast, words from Chungcheongbuk-do dialects indicating entities that do not exist in Jeongamchon, which can be attributed to differences in geographical environments or sociocultural differences between Chungcheongbuk-do and Jeongamchon, were at the verge of extinction. The indigenous vocabulary items in Jeongamchon, which refer to objects reflecting sociocultural differences from Chungcheongbuk-do, were substituted into the Chinese-Korean dialect, reflecting local culture.

Reform and opening-up in China brought rapid changes in the society of ethnic Koreans in China. And those changes caused following changes in language identity and language attitude of those ethnic Koreans that eventually led to change in their language use. The present study investigates relation between changes in language identity and language attitude and their language use. The rates that Ethnic Koreans living in Jilin, China consider their mother language to be Korean(Joseon language, South Korean language and North Korean language) are different by their generations. Middle aged and older people tend more to consider Korean as their mother language compared to younger generation. Those two generations, however, showed opposed opinions about the future language they will use. More of older generation predicted that Korean will be rarely used among ethnic Koreans living in China in the future compared to younger generation. The difference of language identity and the attitude to the language across generations was reflected in their actual language use. Older generations use Korean in general.They may borrow Chinese words when they can’t come up with appropriate Korean words or sometimes show code mixing by using Chinese words and sentences while speaking in Korean. In generations younger than middle age, code mixing and code switching are more frequently observed when their conversation topics are Chinese politics and Chinese cultures. The youngest generation mainly uses Chinese and showed code switching most frequently among all generations. The language use observed differently among the generations is reflection of changes in language identity and language attitude.

The purpose of this study is to investigate change in linguistic identity and language use of Korean Chinese. This study also aims to demonstrate that Korean Chinese are preserving both their identity as Korean and the language. All data were collected by field study which revealed Korean Chinese had high ability of Korean language use. However, considerable differences among the generations were shown. Teenagers showed less fluency of Korean compared to older generation. And Korean Chinese from highly populated with Korean Chinese region spoke Korean as their first language and showed more fluency while those from other region in China mostly spoke Chinese as their first language and spoke Korean less fluently. It is also noticeable that code-switching and code-mixing are prominent in the language use of Korean Chinese, especially among male middle school students. They showed code switching more markedly suggesting their language transition to Chinese. Therefore, further study on detailed examples of code-switching and code-mixing is required.

The purpose of this research is to examine features of addressee honorifics by observing sentence endings used by the Jeongam village that consists of major speech group speakers from Chungcheongbuk-do and minor speech group speakers from Hamgyeongbuk-do. Addressee honorifics in the Jeongam dialect are distinct with respect to social status or social conditions such as social positional relationships between speaker and listener, the listener's native region, the occupation of the listener, intimacy between speaker and listener, and so on. The speakers of the Jeongam dialect recognize different levels of addressee honorifics such as 'Yeye, Yaya, Eungeung' and like the Hamgyeongbuk-do dialect it is possible to divide them into sub-levels. It is also observed that imperative and request sentence endings, which are used in the Jeongam dialect are a mixture of the Chungbuk cJjalect and the Hamgyeongbuk-do dialect. This is understood as an overlapping phenomena of the two dialects due to the fact that Hamgyeongbuk-do dialect speakers outnumber Jeongam speakers where Chungbuk dialect speakers live. This indicates that features of the Chungbuk dialect and the Hamgyeongbuk-do dialect coexist in the Jeongam dialect through borrowing.