An Analysis of Lexical Errors of Korean Language Learners - Some American College Learners’ Case

Sep 29, 2026

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This study investigates lexical errors produced by beginner-intermediate learners of Korean who are from an American college context. It addresses the research gap that lexical errors are often overlooked compared with syntactic errors in second language acquisition work, especially for Korean. Drawing on written homework from intermediate Korean classes, the paper categorizes recurring lexical error patterns and discusses findings with implications for Korean language teaching and directions for future research.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Error analysis and pedagogical feedback

Background of Study

Interlanguage and developmental errors

Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics 18(2), 93-110 An Analysis of Lexical Errors of Korean Language Learners: Some American College Learners’ Case Manjin Kang and Sunmee Chang􀀍 Hoseo University Kang, Man-Jin & Chang, Sunmee. (2014). An analysis of lexical errors of Korean language learners: Some American college learners’ case. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 18(2), 93-110. There has been a huge amount of research on errors of language learners. However, most of them have focused on syntactic errors and those about lexical errors are not found easily despite the importance of lexical learning for the language learners. The case is even rarer for Korean language. In line with this background, this study was designed to find out what the actual features of lexical errors made by some American college learners of Korean language. These beginner-intermediate level learners showed a variety of features of lexical errors. Detailed explanations and discussion on the finding are followed. It concludes with some implications and some suggestions for the future research. Key Words: Korean language, error analysis, lexical errors, nonheritage learners, college language learner 1 Introduction These are just a few of the countless examples of where a wrong lexical choice would not only sound odd but would lead to the production of“funny”utterances not easily comprehensible. 􀁸 A Korean asked if his American English female teacher is single,‘Are you a virgin?’ 􀁸 A man wanted to impress someone with a more sophisticated vocabulary so, he said, ‘You are ignorant of it’ instead of ‘You don’t know it’. No matter what method is employed, learners’ errors will always be there. Some errors are intriguing and some are downright frustrating (of course, the above cases are embarrassing and frustrating) . The problem of difficulty in the second language (L2) learning has long attracted the interest of researchers. In one way or another, teachers, linguists, and psychologists 􀀍 First author: Manjin Kang; Corresponding author: Sunmee Chang. 93 ○C 2014 PAAL 1345-8353/00 Man-Jin Kang & Sunmee Chang have attempted to predict and find the causes of learning difficulties. It is a common experience that languages are difficult to learn. But what it is that constitutes “difficulty” is still a baffling problem. Little is known of the learning mechanisms, especially in the realm of L2 learning. What actually takes place in the learner’s mind is by and large a mystery (Tran-Thi-Chau, 1991) . Forced to cope with the problem of difficulty in L2 learning without adequate knowledge of the learning mechanisms, researchers have had resource to the output of those learning processes that have, as their most observable manifestations, the errors made by the learner. To diagnose difficulties, errors are systematically collected, analyzed, and categorized. This approach, commonly known as Error Analysis (EA), is based on the assumption that the frequency of errors is proportional to the degree of learning difficulty. EA has been one of the major disciplines in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research since the 1960s. Even after EA was superseded by Performance Analysis (PA) in the 1980s, the significance and usefulness of EA in language pedagogy have never been downgraded (Wang, 1997) . However, these days, language learner errors are looked in a different angle. The issue has moved from ‘what are they?’ to‘how to fix them?’and‘does it work?’People have more interest in correcting language learners. Especially recast is the one form of interactional feedback that has been studied by a number of researchers (Song, 2009) . All these efforts seem to have been made to balance between fluency and accuracy. Including some descriptive studies of recasts (Doughty, 1994; Lyster, 1998; Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Panova & Lyster, 2002) there have been tons of studies that have been conducted especially

FAQs

Why is lexical error analysis important in second language learning for Korean learners?

Lexical learning is important, yet lexical errors have been harder to find and are often excluded in prior analyses that focus mainly on structural errors. This study targets that gap for Korean language learners.

What data source does the study use to examine lexical errors?

The study sorts and analyzes written homework collected from intermediate Korean language students at an American university.

How does the paper explain errors from a theoretical perspective?

It connects errors to an interlanguage stage, treating errors as developmental evidence of learners’ attempts to acquire the target language based on their hypotheses.

Sep 29, 2026

Upload by OmBimo