A Study on a Linguistic Consciousness in Formative Period of Modern Korean Linguistics
Yang, Geun-Yong
Dept. of Korean Language and Literature
Graduate School, University of Incheon
The purpose of this study is to find linguistic consciousne...
A Study on a Linguistic Consciousness in Formative Period of Modern Korean Linguistics
Yang, Geun-Yong
Dept. of Korean Language and Literature
Graduate School, University of Incheon
The purpose of this study is to find linguistic consciousness about the objects of a language study produced in the formative period of modern Korean linguistics. This means that this study investigate the observation attitude and the stream concerning the study objects which was ignored by the history of Korean linguistics.
The period of the modern Korean linguistics was divided into four sections : the period of Dae-Han Empire, the period under Japanese colonization, the period of post-Independence, and the period of pre-Korean War. In this study, the generality on the linguistic consciousness in the Dae-Han Empire period was considered as materiality and a regulation for spoken and written language. The generality in the period under Japanese colonization was considered as a regulation for spoken and written language pertaining to dialects, loan words, orthography, dictionaries, standard language, and linguistic consciousness which emphasized the mutual relations with a people, culture, and science. The generality in the periods of post-Independence and pre-Korean War was considered as an interest about scientific study of Korean linguistics based on general linguistics and about national unique spoken language and Korean education in order to escape from the influence of Japanese. The results from the contents discussed in each chapter based on the generalities are as follows.
The linguistic consciousness of Dae-Han Empire period can be summarized into four sections. First, the consciousness on a part of speech was to classify a language itself, and there were 6 parts of speech, 7 parts of speech and 8 parts of speech. Because of differently dealt with postpositions, these various classifications took place. Second, a vocabulary 'Korean(National) Language' was resulted from combination of 'a nation' with 'a letter', which excluded Chinese letters, with regarding them an obstacle after setting binarity relationship between Korean and Chinese. And the identity of spoken and written language was an outcome on recognizing the mutual relationship of the spoken language and written language as identity and restoration, which means that the spoken language is the written language and the written language is the spoken language.
Third, a style mixed Korean with Chinese was to arrange Chinese letters in the Korean word order after excluding Chinese writing by setting Chinese letters as an assistance of Korean. The style was recognized as a style which embodied the identity of spoken and written language, However, it used to regarded as a problem which disturbed the embodiment of the identity of spoken and written language. It was resulted from two contrary recognitions. One is that Chinese letters in the style caused double illiteracy, and the other is that they were assistant means of Korean. Fourth, phonogram was recognized as a letter which embodied homography. And the classification system of a letter was regarded same as that of initial, medial, and final sound. This resulted from setting the initial sound and final sound as a same character based on the regulation that initial sound is used again in the location of final sound. Ju, Sikyeong set unchangeable original forms, fundamental sounds and fundamental bodies, which distinguishes an ending of the word from a stem. This is origin of orthographic principle which sought for representing the meanings of the phonogram.
The linguistic consciousness under the period of Japanese colonization can be summarized as follows. First, Korean study that emphasized the national culture set the mutual relationship between the national culture and the language as a mental category, and it performed toponymy which stressed community of a cultural area in Northeast Asia and features of Korean culture. Second, the consciousness that enforces natural character of Esperanto was more perfectly recognized Esperanto than natural language. On the other hand, the consciousness that Esperanto is superior artificial language made us recognize natural character of language as a artificial product, and it regarded the artificial character of language as essence of language. Third, a Draft for Unified Loanwords Orthography premised the fact that international pronunciation symbols embodied homography, with looking squarely marking limitation of native letters about loanwords sound. And the treatment on the Chinese formed a linguistic consciousness that clearly made difference of the concept between a foreign language and a loanword.
Fourth, a horizonal writing and a meaning representation of phonogram based on a phoneme notion were stressed on Hangeul Proclamation Day. Fifth, a discussion in the movement for improving the system of spelling handled the problems of rationality about agreement between linguistic theories and linguistic facts. Futhermore, scientific language study on Korean made people naturally accept divided speech function between specialists and common people. And it made linguistic consciousness detailed based on the general linguistics and created a domain of Korean Study. Sixth, the geographical, era, and social class standards were introduced to set the terms of the standard language, which formed the consciousness that differentiates dialects from the standard language. Seventh, the interest in the orthography brought about the consciousness which classifies into 'grammatical expressions' and 'habitual expressions' according to the grammatical rules and pronunciation systems. Eighth, a discussion about the orthography created a possibility which was able to think other study viewpoints on given linguistic facts, with causing linguistic consciousness which excluded each other's viewpoints.
The linguistic consciousness of pos
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