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영어

This study aimed to examine the characteristics of the pronunciation of Vietnamese Korean language learners, especially in terms of the applicability of phonological rules. According to the orthographic depth hypothesis, letter-to-sound correspondence affects phonological processing. As the Vietnamese language is a ‘shallow orthographic system’ in which every letter is pronounced, phonological rules hardly take place. On the contrary, in the Korean language, when the final consonant of the first syllable meets the initial consonant of the second syllable, phonological phenomena occur. Therefore, when Vietnamese Korean language learners pronounce Korean, they may fail to apply phonological rules due to their habit. In this study, experiments of pronunciation production were conducted in order to examine the characteristics and errors found in the pronunciation of Vietnamese Korean language learners. As a result, significant differences were found in some vocabularies among the three groups―beginner, intermediate, and advanced. However, errors were much more frequently observed in pronouncing as letter-to-sound without applying phonological rules than in mispronouncing due to the incorrect application of phonological rules. These results show that accurately pronouncing the phonetic value of individual consonants and applying phonological rules are two different issues; moreover, the results indicate that practicing the application of phonological rules is important for Vietnamese learners to pronounce Korean in a natural manner.