Korean College Students' Understanding of the African American Vernacular English and Its Implications

초록

This paper examines if Korean learners of English understand a variety of nonstandard English, and if so, which features present difficulties in comprehension and why. This study employed a simple translation test on Korean college students using sentences which included typical characteristics of the African American Vernacular English and found that they have difficulty in understanding two features of AAVE: habitual be and remote time been. Many other distinctive features of AAVE such as copula deletion, multiple negation, perfect done, and continuative steady proved to be not quite difficult to understand by Korean students. The two difficult features are part of Creole traits in AAVE. These results have useful implications for English education and facilitate a better understanding of various forms of nonstandard English used around the world.

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