Studies in Korean Linguistics and Language Pedagogy

Studies in Korean Linguistics and Language Pedagogy is the festschrift commemorates Professor Sohn’s achievement for his scholarship in Korean linguistics and language pedagogy for the past 42 years. It is a collaborative product of Prof. Sohn’s close colleagues and former students in honor of his life-long contribution to promoting Korean linguistics and Korean as a foreign language worldwide.
Composed of three parts: Korean Linguistics, Korean Language Pedagogy, Korean Language Pedagogy and General (written in Korean), it covers the essential aspects of Korean linguistics and Korean language pedagogy, such as phonetics, phonology, discourse analysis, socio-pragmatics, honorifics, grammaticalization, historical linguistics, vocabulary teaching and learning, collocation usage, linguistic research in North Korea, Korean pedagogical grammar.

This volume was assembled to celebrate and commemorate Professor Ho -min Sohn’s contributions to the fields of Korean linguistics and Korean language pedagogy over the course of his highly productive career. The thirty-three individual chapters making up the book, written by former students and close colleagues of Professor Sohn, report on a broad range of contemporary work on the Korean language.
The book is organized into three parts. Parts I and II, which are written in English, consist of chapters dealing with Korean linguistics and Korean language pedagogy, respectively. The chapters in part III, written in Korean, deal mostly with language pedagogy.
True to its name, Studies in Korean Linguistics and Language Pedagogy offers impressive breadth of coverage. The section on Korean linguistics includes chapters on a wide range of matters, including phonology, etymology, compounds, grammaticalization, and honorifics, among others. The eighteen articles on Korean language pedagogy that make up the bulk of the remainder of the book are a welcome addition to the literature on Korean language education. As Korean has become a global language that is taught in post-secondary institutions around the world, there has been an increasing need for pedagogically oriented research on curriculum design, instructional methodology, the place of ‘heritage speakers’ of Korean in second language programs, proficiency standards, and related matters. The chapters in this volume make contributions to these areas.
Studies in Korean Linguistics and Language Pedagogy offers a wealth of material to a broad and varied readership. Linguists and language teachers alike will find much to hold their attention. The book is a valuable contribution to a developing field, and an appropriate tribute to Professor Sohn, who more than anyone else is responsible for the ever-growing prominence of Korean as an academic subject outside Korea.

— Reviewed by William O’Grady (University of Hawai’i at Manoa)