Collocational competence is important part of L2 English amplifier acquisition. This competence entails learners' ability to use the right combination of words with natural-sounding semantic prosody. It is known to be an integral part of mastering pragmatic function of L2 English vocabulary, which also is a challenge for the learners at the same time (Zhang, 2008). Despite the importance, previous studies on ESL/EFL learners' amplifier use lacked empirical evidence and insight about semantic prosody. The purpose of present learner corpora-based study was to fill the existing research gap by finding patterns of amplifiers. Two existing corpora were selected, coded, and analyzed to fulfill this purpose; they are Korean EFL learners and native speakers of English (NE). Results from analysis found Korean learners' overall underuse in amplifiers. Also, frequently occurring amplifier ranks for each corpus differed. Semantic prosody analysis revealed that amplifier associated with dominantly positive connotation were very, really, and highly. Amplifiers associated with dominantly negative connotation were extremely, absolutely, severely, and greatly. Contrast analysis showed that the only amplifier that Koreans and NEs used amplifier to signal same semantic prosody dominantly was severely (negative). Other than that, Koreans and NE showed salient discrepancies in semantic prosody use. The pedagogical implication of the present study is that vocabulary teaching need to include semantic prosody, and the first step will be to conduct ESL/EFL teacher education about it (Zhang, 2009). It's important to remind them of the value of semantic prosody in language communication (S Lee, 2011).

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between prosody and reading comprehension of elementary school students in Korea. To achieve the purpose of the study, 114 fifth and sixth graders were selected from three schools of Seoul city and Gyeonggi province, and their prosody, word recognition and comprehension were assessed. In order to measure their prosody, students were asked to read a reading text orally for one minute, and the teacher checked their reading rate, decoding accuracy, and prosody. Students’ prosody was measured through Clay and Imlach’s (1971) method. The results of this study showed that while most students gained higher score in word recognition and reading rate, their prosodic features was found comparatively weak. It also revealed a correlation between the three sub-categories of prosody and reading comprehension. Based on the results of this study, it could be concluded that prosodic reading features of Korean EFL students have co-relations with comprehension, even if their prosodic feature is weak. Finally some ideas for enhancing prosody in L2 students’ reading instruction were suggested.

The purpose of the current study was bi-fold. First it was to examine how the semantic prosody of eight lexical items that had a specific semantic prosody were presented and explained in the six English-Korean bilingual dictionaries. In addition, it was to investigate how those lexical items were used in university students’ sentence writings in relation to semantic prosody. The result showed that the semantic prosodies of the lexical items were not adequately presented in the dictionaries in general and a number of inappropriate uses of lexical items in relation to semantic prosody were identified in the students’ sentence writings. It was suggested that EFL dictionary publishers should explicitly address the issue of semantic prosody by providing information about the semantic preference and collocational behavior of a lexical item and they should be more cautious when presenting Korean translations/equivalents in the dictionaries. Along the same lines, it was also suggested that EFL/ESL teachers should (a) recognize the value of semantic prosody in L2 communication; (b) avoid the vocabulary teaching practice of explaining the meaning of words by simply providing near synonyms; and (c) make the students more aware of the difference in semantic prosody between English lexical items and their Korean translations/equivalents.

예이츠는 테니슨 이후 가장 기교가 뛰어난 시인으로, 스펜서의 시학, 셸리의 시학을 자신의 시학과 연결 짓는 전통을 소중히 여겼다. 그의 현대시에 대한 공헌은 지대하며, 그는 결코 영문학의 시작법을 버리지 않고, 시어, 신택스, 리듬, 톤을 현대화 시킨다. 그는 “현대 시”(1936)에서 “시란 일상어의 리듬을 다듬은 것이고, 그 리듬을 깊은 정서와 엮어주는 것이다.”고 말한다.

This study examines the patterns of prosodically induced variation in the English stop contrast produced by Korean learners of English. The acoustic realization of the laryngeal contrast in English stops is observed in utterance-initial, -medial, and –final positions either with or without contrastive focal accent. The speech data in English collected from 4 adult male Korean speakers are compared with the result of a previous study by 6 adult male speakers native in American English (Choi, 2005). Overall, statistical results show that Korean adult speakers do not specify variation conditioned by focus and position. Focus-induced acoustic variation in the stops, observed in the speech by native speakers of English, is not significantly replicated in the speech of the Korean learners in the present study. Additional difference in using the acoustic correlates to mark the contrast is detected in the Korean adult speakers. It suggests the adult learners have problem in specifying the postlexical prosodic structure and segmental variations, and thus, rather active instruction of the phrasal prosody is also needed in educational settings.

This study tries to provide an experimental explanation of a type of wh-question in North Gyeongsang Korean in which the so-called weak wh-island condition is violated. More specifically, this study concerns itself with the scope and prosody of wh-phrases in constructions with weak wh-island condition violation. The experiment carried out in this study is about the interaction between wh-scope and prosody at the syntax-phonology interface. It is shown in the paper that for wh-questions with weak wh-island violation to be produced and perceived grammatically, three conditions should be met: which include interpretation- matched prosody, D-linking, and forms of functional categories.