Pyun, Danielle O., Chung, Miri K. & Choi, Ho Jung. 2013. KFL learners’ acquisition of Korean locative particles: A corpus-based contrastive interlanguage analysis. Language Information. Volume 17. 23-46. Adopting the contrastive interlanguage analysis methodology, this study investigates KFL (Korean as a Foreign Language) learners’ acquisition of Korean locative case particles. A learner corpus compiled from eighty-seven intermediate learners of Korean was compared with a native speaker corpus on the frequency distribution of the five semantic categories of the Korean locative case (i.e, static location, dynamic location, time, goal, and source). In addition, learner errors on the use of locative case particles were quantified and examined according to the five semantic categories. The results of this study showed that KFL learners’ use of locative case particles substantially deviated from native speakers’ usage in frequency. Learners’ inaccurate and limited use of locative case particles were attributed to such factors as L1 transfer, overgeneralization, prior input, and interlanguage development.
Key words: Korean, Korean as a foreign language, learner corpus, contrastive interlanguage analysis, Korean locative particles