In this blog post, I will look at the errors of Korean learners and their educational implications, focusing on the concept of intermediate language.
As Korean society develops, it is easy to meet people who speak Korean as a second language. They learn Korean for various reasons, including studying, employment, international marriage, and simply experiencing Korean culture. These learners, who have different purposes, acquire Korean according to their own backgrounds, and they also differ in the way they use the language. The first language that a person learns is called L1, and the language that they learn after acquiring L1 is called L2. For them, Korean becomes L2.
In language acquisition research, the unique language forms that appear in the process of learning a second language are called intermediate languages. An intermediate language is a language system that is neither the learner’s first language (L1) nor the second language (L2) but contains elements of both languages. The system of an intermediate language is generally simpler than that of the target language (L2), and learners gradually develop an intermediate language as they work toward L2. In this process, learners make various errors, which are inevitable in the process of struggling to get closer to L2.
Communication can be hindered between people whose first language is Korean and those whose second language is Korean because they do not share the same lang. Here, “langue” refers to the totality of linguistic rules shared by members of the same language community, and thanks to this langue, it is possible for speakers of the same language to communicate with each other without encountering major communication problems. For example, speakers of different dialects of the Korean language in Seoul and Busan can easily communicate with each other even though they do not speak the exact same words because they share the same Korean langue. On the other hand, learners who use an intermediate language cannot form a unified langue because they each form a different intermediate language system.
Therefore, the intermediate language of a learner is only the language that is in the process of developing as the target of the L2, and it is different for each learner and does not have fixed rules. As a result, people learning Korean as a second language do not use completely identical rules. For example, when a learner whose L1 is English and another whose L1 is Chinese learn Korean, they both try to follow the basic rules of the Korean language, but they form sentences in different ways due to the characteristics of their L1s, and they often make different errors.
L2 learners are bound to produce various types of errors during the development of their intermediate language. In the past, these errors were thought to hinder successful L2 acquisition, and learning to reduce them was emphasized. However, today, errors are seen as a natural part of the development process, and L2 learners’ errors are used to assess their language acquisition status and to find more effective teaching methods. Such errors are mainly caused by negative transfer, i.e. errors that occur when learners apply the rules of their native language to L2. For example, a Korean learner of English who says “I go to school” when saying “I go to school” is making an error influenced by the English preposition “to,” which is an interference of the learner’s native language into the intermediate language.
However, not all errors can be explained by negative transfer. There are also errors caused by intermediate language rules, which are created by the learner based on their own rules until they have mastered the target language rules. For example, if a learner who has not fully mastered honorifics in Korean adds unnecessary honorifics to every sentence, this can be considered an error caused by an incomplete rule of the intermediate language. These errors are a byproduct of the L2 learning process that inevitably occurs and gradually decrease as the learner increases their proficiency in the L2.
If we compare the process of language acquisition in infants with that of adults, we can find similarities with intermediate language. This is because the infant language system also has a simpler structure than the adult language and goes through a developmental process. However, infant language simply develops into adult language over time, while intermediate language does not necessarily become closer to the target language or develop into a complete L2. The degree of L2 acquisition of each individual varies greatly depending on the language environment, the learner’s efforts, and the given language resources, and sometimes learning can stop and become fixed. This is called language entrenchment, which refers to the phenomenon of a language becoming stagnant at a certain level without further developing an intermediate language.
The various errors and developmental differences that occur during L2 learning show that it is not simply the learner’s limitations, but rather the complex process of language acquisition and the educational approach that supports it. Analyzing the errors of L2 learners and identifying their causes can be used as important data to understand the learner’s intermediate language system and develop more effective language education methods.
