A Discourse-pragmatic Approach to Advanced Korean

Existing reference grammars and textbooks tend to structure their discussions of grammatical features on the basis of invented sentences designed, in large part, to illustrate how these grammatical features operate in the light of English equivalencies. While these explanations are helpful at the beginning and intermediate levels of language study, they are much less so at advanced proficiency levels where the grammar fails to address such problematic issues as overlap in meaning and function. For example, Korean uses more than six different morphemes to express the temporal conjunction 'when,' and an equally large number of morphemes to express 'because.' Providing a single English equivalent ('when'/'because') for these multiple forms fails to capture how each one differs from the other in terms of speaker intent and pragmatic meanings. This project will make salient discourse-pragmatic features of Korean uncovered through the analysis of authentic language corpora.

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TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS:

	Korean Grammar in Discourse and Interaction
	by Susan Strauss, Penn State
	Unit 1: Completive Aspect Markers Unit 2: Honorific Speech Levels Unit 3: Newly Perceived Information Unit 4: Route Directions Unit 5: Noun Modifiers Unit 6: Relative Clause Constructions
	Korean Culture and Media Series
	by Susan Strauss, Penn State
	Unit 1: TV Commercials and Korean Culture Unit 2: A Comparative Approach to Culture through Television Commercials: The Case of Korea and The U.S. Unit 3: "The King and the Clown" (Film Series) Unit 4: "Le Grand Chef" (Film Series) Unit 5: "Radio Star" (Film Series)

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PUBLICATIONS:

Strauss, S. (2006). "Learning and Teaching Grammar Through Patterns of Conceptualization: The Case of (Advanced) Korean." In H. Byrnes, H. Weger-Guntharp, and K.A. Sprang (Eds.), Educating for Advanced Foreign Language Capacities: Constructs, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment . Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. GU Press Link

Strauss, S., & Ahn, K. (2007). "Cognition through the lens of discourse and interaction: The case of -kwun, -ney, and –tela." In N. McGloin and J. Mori (Eds.), 15th Japanese/Korean Linguistics. Stanford: CSLI.

Strauss, S. (2006). The television ad as a reflection of culture: The case of Korean, Japan, and the United States. In H. Sohn (Ed.), Korean language in culture and society (pp. 221-233). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Strauss, S., Lee, J., & Ahn, K. (2006). "Applying Conceptual Grammar to Advanced-Level Language Teaching: The Case of Two Completive Constructions in Korean", The Modern Language Journal, 90 (2),185-209.

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Workshops

For information on upcoming workshops please visit our Professional Development page.

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Project Director: Susan Strauss, The Pennsylvania State University
Graduate Assistant: So Eung Cho, The Pennsylvania State University