earticle

영어

The primary objective of this paper is to advocate for the necessity of Korean Education as a Heritage Language for overseas Koreans and to explicitly establish that the ethnic Korean group in China should also be considered as a target for such education. To achieve this, the paper first examines various definitions of heritage language, heritage language speakers, and heritage language learners, and then explains why the ethnic Korean group in China can be classified as heritage language speakers and heritage Korean language learners. By analyzing trends in both domestic and international heritage language research, the paper highlights the need to expand the scope of research topics within the field of Korean Education as a Heritage Language. It is particularly noted that studies focusing on the ethnic Korean group in China as heritage language learners are extremely scarce. The paper discusses the crisis of Korean language maintenance from the perspective of minority language education in China. It points out that although Chinese Korean(Joseonmal) shares linguistic roots with standard Korean, it has evolved into a unique Korean variety due to the historical and social context of Korean immigrants from various regions of the Korean Peninsula. This linguistic divergence necessitates tailored educational strategies for Korean language learners among the ethnic Korean group in China. By presenting these linguistic differences, the paper emphasizes the need for specific and concrete educational approaches to support Korean language learning for this group.