Magister Commercii - MCom / North Korea has against the numerous warnings of the international community, protocols and sanctions tested nuclear and missile devices. The purpose of this study is to explain how the political ideology of Juche informs North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. Using a qualitative analysis, this study analyzed the origin of Juche and its impact on North Korea’s foreign and nuclear policies through the years. The social values underlying Juche were found to be the foundation of North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions. Juche itself has evolved as a framework that informs North Korea’s international relations and the study traces this evolution through the different Kim presidencies.

In recent years, KSL (Korean as a second language) education has developed together with the rising status of Korea in the international community. In the context of KSL, the number of foreign students has increased dramatically by virtue of Korea??s growing status. Most learn the Korean language for academic purposes and successful reading is an important key to success in their academic setting. The purpose of this study is to examine the types of reading strategies employed by intermediate KSL learners when reading Korean texts. The study also attempted to examine similarities and differences in the use of reading strategies according to the variables of gender, nationality, text genre, and reading proficiency and to investigate the results of data analysis by multiple research methods, namely, reading strategies questionnaires/follow up interviews, think aloud protocols, and diary studies. The results of the study indicated that the participants employed all of the defined reading strategies. In particular, participants concentrated on dealing with cognitive strategies and support strategies. Furthermore, most participants employed ??focusing word?? strategy frequently owing to the effect of orthographic similarity. In addition, some participants used multiple reading strategies simultaneously rather than a particular single strategy to cope with a breakdown in comprehension. This study found no meaningful overall differences in strategy use according to the variables of gender, nationality, and text genre. However, skilful readers employed every reading strategy actively compared with less skilful readers with regard to the variable of proficiency. There were some discrepancies of results among multiple research methods. These differences are due to the characteristics of each research method. This finding suggested that in fact the multiple research methods serve to complement each other. Implications are discussed in relation to the significance of multiple research methods as well as the construction of KSL reading strategy training programs.

The main aim of this thesis is to gain a deep understanding of the meanings of Korean conjunctive verbal suffixes from a pragmatic viewpoint, using real, not constructed data. In order to attain the purpose, this thesis conducts an in-depth analysis of the nature of the meanings, and the use, of six Korean conjunctive verbal suffixes: -ko, -nuntey, -nikka, -se, -ciman, and -to. The term the use refers to the truth-functionality of suffixes, i.e., whether they conjoin or disjoin the two propositions, which are recovered from two segments, truth-functionally. The data are obtained from 360 minutes of audio-taped Korean natural conversations. It adopts as its reasoning tool four major pragmatic theories - Gricean theory, neo-Gricean theory, Relevance Theory, and Default Semantics. However, it does not use the data to compare the four theories. The thesis emphasises how to elucidate the meanings of Korean conjunctive verbal suffixes that modern pragmatic theories cannot neatly explain. In Chapter 1 previous approaches on the six suffixes are analysed. It is pointed out that while these studies correctly equate the meanings of a given suffix with propositional relations that obtain between the two segments (linked by the suffix), they fail to see the importance of the use of the suffix. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the four pragmatic theories. The focus is on strengths and weaknesses of the four theories. In Chapter 3, we introduce propositional relations and the notions of encoding and inferred. What is meant by conjoining and disjoining truth-conditionally is also explained. Chapter 4 specifies the data. In Chapter 5, propositional relations between two propositions which are recovered from two conjoined segments are characterised. Chapter 6 applies the scope test to meanings of the six suffixes and distinguishes encoded and inferred meanings. It discusses encoded meanings of the six suffixes, which conjoin the two propositions truth-functionally, and discusses inferred meanings of only four of the six suffixes, which disjoin the two propositions truthfunctionally. In Chapter 7, we discuss the nature of the meanings of the six suffixes from two theoretical angles, Relevance Theory and Default Semantics, and in particular we argue against a unitary procedure hypothesis. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis and also includes suggestions for future studies.

Graduate

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This dissertation has two main purposes: (a) to provide a contrastive analysis and theoretical background of the passive in English and Korean; (b) to investigate how Korean learners of English use the English passive in terms of forms, meanings, and functions.One major claim in this dissertation is that the passive is best accounted for by the notion of role prominence in both English and Korean. In addition, a significant difference is revealed in emotional (affective) functions of the passive in English and Korean, showing that the emotional function prevails in Korean far more than in English.After the discussion of theoretical background, Korean learners' actual use of the English passive is analyzed. The specific analysis of grammatical errors shows that Korean learners make local errors (errors significantly inhibiting communication) more than global errors (errors not significantly inhibiting communication). Pragmatic errors are divided largely into discourse functional errors (violation of role prominence, abrupt topic shift, and violation of defocusing) and affective functional errors. The results show that affective functional errors outnumber discourse functional errors. These results are accounted for in terms of not only language transfer and but also a socio-cultural factor, prestige of a passive sentence with respect to an active sentence. Of particular interest is the existence of a hierarchy of acceptability in pragmatic errors. Analysis of medio-passive errors suggests that the native language forms greatly affect the learners' target language forms.This dissertation plays particular attention to the pragmatic aspects of the passive, both theoretical and practical. It is argued that the learners' use of the passive in accordance with pragmatic principles will enhance cohesive writing, facilitating communication.Generally speaking, this dissertation contributes to several important areas of study in second language acquisition, including error analysis and contrastive analysis in terms of grammar and pragmatics. A major significance of this dissertation is its demonstration of the importance of pragmatics in understanding the acqusition of grammar. / Department of English

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-284). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xviii, 284 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

In recent years, KSL (Korean as a second language) education has developed together with the rising status of Korea in the international community. In the context of KSL, the number of foreign students has increased dramatically by virtue of Korea??s growing status. Most learn the Korean language for academic purposes and successful reading is an important key to success in their academic setting. The purpose of this study is to examine the types of reading strategies employed by intermediate KSL learners when reading Korean texts. The study also attempted to examine similarities and differences in the use of reading strategies according to the variables of gender, nationality, text genre, and reading proficiency and to investigate the results of data analysis by multiple research methods, namely, reading strategies questionnaires/follow up interviews, think aloud protocols, and diary studies. The results of the study indicated that the participants employed all of the defined reading strategies. In particular, participants concentrated on dealing with cognitive strategies and support strategies. Furthermore, most participants employed ??focusing word?? strategy frequently owing to the effect of orthographic similarity. In addition, some participants used multiple reading strategies simultaneously rather than a particular single strategy to cope with a breakdown in comprehension. This study found no meaningful overall differences in strategy use according to the variables of gender, nationality, and text genre. However, skilful readers employed every reading strategy actively compared with less skilful readers with regard to the variable of proficiency. There were some discrepancies of results among multiple research methods. These differences are due to the characteristics of each research method. This finding suggested that in fact the multiple research methods serve to complement each other. Implications are discussed in relation to the significance of multiple research methods as well as the construction of KSL reading strategy training programs.