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A Language Without a Rhyme: Syllable Structure Experiments in Korean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Yeo Bom Yoon  and
Bruce L. Derwing
Yeo Bom Yoon
Affiliation:
Seoul National University of Education
Bruce L. Derwing
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Abstract

Prior research has suggested that Korean might constitute an exception to the proposed notion of the universality of the rhyme. Five experiments were performed to test this hypothesis out with native speakers of that language. Four different experimental tasks were employed: a global sound similarity judgement task, a concept formation task, a unit reduplication task, and a list recall task. In all cases the results indicate that Korean syllables were seen to contain a cohesive CV or body unit, in contrast to the VC of rhyme unit of English. The final experiment, involving list recall, was considered especially important, as it involved the testing of preliterate children, whose results could not have been influenced by knowledge of the orthography. An attempt is made to explain these findings in terms of intrinsic properties of the syllables in the two languages. The theoretical significance of this research is also discussed.

Résumé

Résumé

Des recherches antérieures suggèrent que le coréen pourrait faire exception à l’idée, déjà avancée, de l’universalité de la rime. Cinq expériences ont été menées afin de tester cette hypothèse auprès de sujets de langue maternelle coréenne. Quatre tâches différentes ont été utilisées, dont une tâche de jugement de similitude globale des sons, une tâche où il s’agissait de former des concepts, une tâche de réduplication des unités, ainsi qu’une tâche sur le rappel de listes. Dans chaque cas, les résultats indiquent que les syllabes du coréen contiennent une unité CV ou «corps». Par contre, les syllabes de l’anglais contiennent une unité VC, ou «rime». La dernière expérience, sur le rappel de listes, revêt une importance particulière, puisque les sujets testés sont des enfants d’âge préscolaire, pour lesquels les résultats ne pouvaient avoir été biaisés par la connaissance de l’orthographe. Les résultats obtenus sont évalués selon les propriétés intrinsèques des syllabes des deux langues et l’apport théorique de la recherche est également abordé.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 46 , Issue 3-4 , December 2001 , pp. 187 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2001

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