몽골인 학습자의 단모음 지각 오류 양상

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the patterns and characteristics of monophthong perception errors in Mongolian Korean language learners. For this study, a perception experiment was conducted on the vowels ‘ㅣ, ㅐ, ㅡ, ㅓ, ㅏ, ㅜ, ㅗ’ targeting both beginner and advanced Mongolian learners. Specifically, perception experiments for each monophthong were conducted among beginner and advanced learners to analyze the correlation between learning proficiency, phonological conditions, and individual vowels. The analysis showed that the influence of syllable structure or preceding consonant types on monophthong perception was minimal, and the phonetic characteristics inherent to the monophthongs themselves provided more critical cues for vowel perception. Monophthongs such as ‘ㅏ’, ‘ㅐ’, and ‘ㅓ’ exhibited high perception accuracy among both beginner and advanced learners, whereas ‘ㅡ’, ‘ㅣ’, ‘ㅜ’, and ‘ㅗ’ showed various perception errors. Particularly, ‘ㅡ’ and ‘ㅣ’ demonstrated a bidirectional perceptual error relationship, suggesting confusion between the two due to the absence of a corresponding phoneme for ‘ㅡ’ in Mongolian. ‘ㅜ’ and ‘ㅗ’ showed a unidirectional error structure, with a tendency to perceive ‘ㅜ’ as ‘ㅡ’, and ‘ㅗ’ as ‘ㅜ’. This is interpreted as being influenced by the differences in the phonological systems of the learners' mother tongue and Korean, as well as variations in the vowel space structure of Korean. The rate of monophthong perception errors between beginner and advanced learners did not show significant differences, revealing a pattern of entrenchment in perception errors. However, there was a significant improvement in the perception error rate of the ‘ㅗ’ vowel, suggesting the potential for developing perception skills. The findings of this paper highlight the importance of focused and continuous education on vowel perception in Korean language education and are expected to contribute to providing specific strategies for effectively improving the perception errors of Korean vowels among Mongolian learners.