This study outlines the language and gender studies in Korea over the past 30 years and derives some prospect of the future research. Following the epitome of the beginning and development of the studies in the framework of modern sociolinguistics, this article reviews the relevant studies on both Korean and foreign languages. The review shows that the works on this topic can be broadly classified into three main research areas; language variation, utterable genderlect and objective genderlect. Though having entered upon this research area two decades later than those in Amercian and European countries, Korean sociolinguists have produced significant results, especially in the gender-specific utterances in Korean. Works on other languages have been also carried out, often with applied linguistic purposes of cross-linguistic/cultural analysis, foreign language education, translation as well as consciousness raising of gender issues. Emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary approaches both in perspectives and research methods of the future studies, this article expects continuation of variation studies for completing the description of ‘language variation and change’, sociolinguistic efforts and movement against the gender bias and discrimination, and analysis of various types of communication in cyber space. It is also pointed out that language use of sexual minorities is one of the most untapped and subtle sociolinguistic topics in Korea.

Paik, Kyungsook. 2016. “‘About the Author’ Texts as Promotional Genre in Korean Books”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(3). 191~222. This article is a genre analysis of ‘About the Author’ texts (ATAs) in Korean books. Without any previous investigation, the present study first argues that ATAs duly comprise an independent genre with a promotional communicative purpose shared by Korean discourse community. Then, to answer the question, ‘Why are the ATAs are written the way they are?’, this study identifies ‘moves’ and their ‘strategies’ as well as some stylistic features of those texts. The analysis of 158 ATAs from contemporary Korean books shows that the ATAs are composed with 4 moves; an obligatory ‘Establishing Credentials’ and 3 other optional moves, ‘Giving Personal Information’, ‘Promoting the Book’, and ‘Offering Contacts’, which are realized with different strategies respectively. It also reveals that the move structures of the texts vary but a couple of patterns explain the great majority of all the texts and that the distribution of the strategies within each move also varies across genres of the books. All these moves and strategies are found to serve the purpose of the ATAs; Establishing credentials of the author by presenting the author’s relevant selves. Finally, overall subject deletion, enumeration and frequently occurring adjective clauses were also identified as the distinctive stylistic features.

Paik, Kyungsook. 2014. “They make me feel guilty”: An analysis of some pragmatic effects of Korean college students’ e-mail messages in English about their grades. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 22(3). This study investigates some pragmatic effects of Korean college students’ e-mail letters about their grades sent to English speaking professors. The pragmatic effects of 51 naturally occurring e-mail messages were evaluated by 4 native professors of English from the U.S. and New Zealand. The results show that Korean students at their intermediate proficiency level in English were found to be not very successful in writing e-mails inquiring about their grades. Their inappropriate pragmatic behaviors include structural informality of the letters, illegitimate goal of the letters, rude or not specific enough requests, some irrelevant or inefficient supportive moves and casual languages and symbols. Based on the students’ pragmatic failures in their messages, some relevant pragmatic norms of the native English professors were identified first, which were then compared to some Australian students’ linguistic behaviors in the same speech event to elicit the common core of the pragmatic rules of native speakers of English. Some additional interviews with the native evaluators were also carried out to clarify their baseline norms regarding some controversial aspects of the messages and to acquire some ethnographic information about their relationship with the students as well as other off-line interactions and practices in their academic community. This study finally discusses some implications of the results from the perspectives of applied linguistics and intercultural rhetoric.

본 연구는 코칭기술을 적용한 유아 셀프리더십 프로그램을 유아교육기관에 적용하여 유아 들에게 나타나는 변화를 살펴봄으로써 효과를 검증하는데 목적이 있다. 연구대상은 만5세 유 아 총 32명이며 실험집단 16명을 대상으로 6주 동안 유아 셀프리더십 프로그램을 실시하였다. 본 프로그램은 ‘자기 존중’ 영역에서 하위영역으로 수용하기(수용), 조절하기(조절), 확신하기 (확신)의 3개 영역, ‘자기 효능’ 영역에 하위영역으로 과제하기(과업 효능), 대처하기(대처 효 능)의 2개 영역, ‘자기 보상’ 영역에는 만족하기(정신적 보상), 인정하기(신체적 보상)의 2개 영역, 총 7개의 하위영역 구성이다. 프로그램의 내용은 유아가 이해하기 쉽도록 게임, 이야기 나누기 및 만들기, 신체표현, 분류, 동화 및 발표, 소리 탐색 및 듣기 등 15개의 활동으로 구성 하였다. 본 연구결과 유아 셀프리더십 프로그램에 참여한 실험집단의 유아들은 통제집단의 유아들 보다 유아셀프리더십 수준에서 모두 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 나타났다. 또한 실험집단의 사전-사후 점수 증가분의 차이도 모두 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 나타났다. 즉, 자기존중, 자기 효능, 자기 보상의 전 영역에서 유의미한 긍정적 변화를 보였다. 따라서 코칭기술을 적용한 유아 셀프리더십 프로그램이 유아 셀프리더십 증진에 효과가 있음이 밝혀졌다.

Paik Kyung-sook. 2012. Do they teach the prospective teachers properly?: Suggestions based on an analysis of the courses on culture at the English education departments of Korean colleges. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 20(2). pp. 239-268. This study analyses the contents of the courses on culture at the English education departments of Korean colleges to evaluate if the prospective teachers are learning properly what it takes for teaching culture. Referring to the relevant theories and the results of a pilot questionnaire on the practice and difficulties in culture education at Korean secondary schools, this study diagnoses the courses on culture(/culture teaching) by examining the contents of the appropriate syllabuses. The analysis shows that most departments offer a culture-related course or two, but mostly about culture on a macro-level. It also reveals that contents about the multicultural nature of the English speaking communities are not properly included and that the relevant teaching approaches/methods are rarely dealt with. The contents targeting the prospective teachers’ understanding of the ‘intercultural communicative competence’ were rarely found, which inevitably discloses the college educators’ lack of adequate concept of ‘culture education’ in this globalized era. This study finally suggests that the ethnographic perspective and knowledge along with the notion of ‘intercultural communicative competence’ serve as the key concepts in constructing a suitable model of culture education for the prospective teachers as well as the learners in Korea.(197)

The optimization of conditions for the cultivation of Agaricus blazei was conducted in order to do mass production of mycelia by submerged cultivation. The carbon source and nitrogen source of medium were selected with high fructose syrup and soybean flake, and their optimized concentrations were determined as 8% and 3% respectively. Operation conditions were also optimized as the culture temperature of 25oC and pH of 6.5. The production of mycelia in the fermenter with optimized culture conditions has reached to 8.04 g/L, which was about 3 times as much as that of conventional flask cultivation. In the fed-batch cultivation, the productivity of Agaricus blazei mycelia was 12.01 g/L during 10 days.