한·일 고등학교 국어교과서의 어휘 분포에 나타난 사회 문화적 특징 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to comprehend the social and cultural characteristics of Korea and Japan by examining significant difference in the lexical distributions in the high school national language textbooks of Korea and Japan based on Bunrui Goihyo(1964). First, in ‘the overall number of words’ of the 5 large categories, Korean language textbooks showed a great significant difference in the item ‘the subject of human activities’ while Japanese language textbooks showed a great difference in the item ‘abstract relationships’. This is a phenomenon consistent in the national language textbooks after the level of elementary and middle school. To focus on the overall number of words among 43 sub-categories, Korean language textbooks showed a great significant difference in 14 items including human beings, family, members･position, society, and economy. Japanese language textbooks showed a great significant difference in 9 items including instructions, alliance･organization, mind, creative activities･writing, interaction with people, machine, and animal. Based on the above results, a comparison of social and cultural characteristics through small categories and words of high frequency can be made as follows: Korean language textbooks use titles of relatives of a wider range associated with husband and wife, grand parents, grandchildren, and brothers, and showed a significant difference in specific person, words indicating persons, boss, monarch, ruling class, tax, wage, income, occupation, peace･war and various products. This probably reflects actual life including economy and national security as greater emphasis is laid on individual, family, and relationship between subordinates and superiors. In Japanese language textbooks on the other hand, most of the words related to family were those about parents, many words were common names referring to humankind in general, and words indicating ethnicity and temporary positions, and there was a significant difference in words related to feelings, knowledge/opinion, creative activities/writing, organization, assembly, and machine. This result confirms that Japanese society gives priority to group over individual, and is comparatively free from the dominant-subordinate or subordinate-superior relationship, and more focused on emotions and mental activities rather than on practical reality.