Variation of the Linguistic Profiles of Advanced English-Speaking Learners of Korean

Abstract

This paper, which is a"partial replication of Kanno et a1. (to appear), examined the linguistic profiles of 27 advanced English-speaking learners of Korean (23 heritage, four non-heritage). Data consisted of performance by all 27 subjects on an adapted Korean version of Kanno et at's written test of linguistic intuitions, and six subjects' rendition of the same guided spoken narrative was also analyzed for accuracy and complexity. Results showed that advanced learners of Korean found idiomatic expressions and passive constructions to be the most difficult; heritage learners outperformed non-heritage learners on all areas of the first written test; heritage learners found connectives easy, while non-heritage learners found them difficult; and among heritage learners, the higher their proficiency, the easier they found honorifics.