Dear Sir/Dame,
We are privileged to introduce new book titles written in English on Korean language, linguistics, pedagogy and culture. These books are authored by experts in respective fields, who are currently teaching at major universities in the United States and other countries.
Attached is an introductory leaflet of the books.
To order, please refer to the information below:
■ Online order on Amazon.com
Essentials of Korean Culture
(Link: http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Korean-Culture-Edition/dp/8976418263/)
Korean
(Link: http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Ho-min-Sohn/dp/897641831X/)
Topics in Korean language and Linguistics
(Link: http://www.amazon.com/Topics-Korean-language-Linguistics-Ho-min/dp/8976418328/)
Studies in Korean Linguistics and Language Pedagogy (English and Korean)
(Link: http://www.amazon.com/Studies-Linguistics-Language-Pedagogy-English/dp/8976418301/)
Linguistic Expeditions
(Link: http://www.amazon.com/Linguistic-Expeditions-Ho-min-Sohn/dp/8976418360/)
■ Purchase order via email: kupress@korea.ac.kr, kupress1956@gmail.com
This book is written in Korean with two main goals in mind: content learning and language improvement. That is, the first goal is to provide students with a systematic knowledge of the fundamental aspects of Korean studies. The second goal is to help students achieve a professional (superior) level of proficiency in Korean language and culture through content-based instruction. This book will be of great use not only to Korean language learners all over the world but also to general Korean native speakers who would like to have a comprehensive knowledge of how Korea has evolved through ups and downs from the time immemorial to the present, how Korean tradition, arts, language, and literature have grown and developed, and what contemporary Korean social, cultural, and economic lives are like.
The last two decades have seen the dramatic success and expansion of Korean language programs around the world, which in turn has created widespread interest in the culture of Korea-a phenomenon known as hallyu ('the Korean wave'). Essentials of Korean Culture, the English version of a textbook first written and published in Korean, responds to this need. This interdisciplinary project, involving faculty at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Korea University, offers chapters on important aspects of Korean culture, written in an engaging non-technical style.
The book begins with a series of four chapters on Korean history beginning with the pre-historical epoch and progressing through the major events and periods that ultimately shaped the modern nation-the Three Kingdoms, Unified Shilla, the Koryŏ Dynasty, the Chosŏn Dynasty, and post-liberation Korea.
This sets the stage for a panoramic treatment of contemporary Korea, including its language and literature, its philosophy and religion, its system of education, its economy, politics and government, its attitudes about family and gender, its visual and performing arts, its progress in science and technology, and its preferences in food and sports. Each receives careful treatment in one or more chapters, with a special chapter devoted to the impact of Korean culture on the world (the Korean wave phenomenon). In addition to presenting the essentials of its subject matter, each chapter includes recommendations for additional readings (some in English, some in Korean), and a set of questions for discussion and additional research.
It would be difficult to overestimate the value of this book to the field of Korean studies, which has long suffered from the lack of an appropriate college-level textbook for courses on culture-an increasingly important part of Korean language programs around the world. Essentials of Korean Culture is a landmark contribution, filling in an important curricular need while at the same time creating a resource whose attractiveness and usefulness will extend well beyond the classroom.
— Reviewed by William O'Grady (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
This volume was originally published by the Routledge in 1994 as one of the Series planned by Bernard Comrie. The Series covers those languages such as Abkhaz, Kobon, Mangarayi, Tamil, West Greenlandic, Japanese, Rumanian, Modern Greek, Amele, Basque, Gulf Arabic, Kannada, Finnish, Catalan, Punjabi, Maori, and Korean, representing diverse language typologies and families. Under the expert leadership of Comrie, a descriptive guideline is prepared and provided for standardized and parallel description of those select languages in the Series.
This particular volume has been sold out immediately after its publication due to highest demand among readers including researchers, instructors, and students of Korean language and linguistics. Its standardized description on grammatical characteristics, concepts and terminologies of Korean language from a perspective of the Korean as one of major world languages serves as a key factor positioning this volume as a must-have reference grammar book for Korean language.
First published in 1994 by Routledge as part of its Descriptive Grammars Series, Korean marked a significant milestone in the internationalization of Korean studies, as it followed the general framework for language description developed by world-renowned typologist, Bernard Comrie. In accordance with the intent of the Routledge series, this allowed the structure of Korean to be presented in a way that facilitates comparison with a broad range of typologically and genetically distinct languages for which parallel reference grammars have been published: Abkhaz, Basque, Tamil, Rumanian, Finnish, Punjabi, and Maori, to name just a few.
Following Comrie's principles, the book is organized into five major chapters, each covering a different field of inquiry within linguistics: syntax, morphology, phonology, ideophones and interjections, and lexicon. Within each chapter, carefully constructed sections and subsections take the reader through the fine details of the language's vocabulary and structure, with revealing examples and commentaries underpinning the presentation.
Sohn's discussion of coordination is a case in point. One of the sixteen major sections in the chapter on syntax, it is subdivided into multiple sub-sections, each dealing with a different aspect of this phenomenon-coordination with 'and,' with 'or', with 'but,' coordination at the level of sentences, coordination at the level of words and phrases, and so on. Reading through these sections, the key points, all amply illustrated, are evident. Not only is the essence of the Korean system easy to discern, the points of differences with other languages, especially English, come quickly to the fore-fulfilling the intent of the book and of the series in which it appears. The entire book is a model of carefully organized and clearly written linguistic exposition and commentary, offering broad coverage of the patterns and phenomena that make Korean unique.
Korean has aged well. It remains a highly accessible and useful compendium of Korean grammar. It is still considered a standard work in the field and is an essential addition to the library of scholars working on Korean linguistics and pedagogy.
— Reviewed by William O'Grady (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
This book is an anthology of selected papers on Korean language and linguistics that Ho-min Sohn, Professor of Korean linguistics and Director of the Korean Language Flagship Center at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM) and President of the Korean Language Education and Research Center, Inc., have written for academic conferences, journals, and/or chapters in edited books during the past twenty odd years.
A total of thirty-four papers were selected to encompass topics on diverse aspects of Korean language and linguistics. These papers are topically classified into four major categories: (a) linguistic and pedagogical overview, (b) structural dynamism, (c) sociolinguistic and pragmatic issues, and (d) teaching Korean as a foreign language.
Topics in Korean Language and Linguistics presents thirty-four of Ho-min Sohn's articles on Korean, most of which have been prepared in the past decade. Six of the articles are written in Korean, and the remainder in English. The book is divided into four parts, each reflecting a different area of the prolific author's ongoing scholarship: Linguistic and Pedagogical Overview, Structural Dynamism, Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic Issues, and Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language.
There is much here that will appeal to readers of different backgrounds. For example, three articles in Part I will be of special interest to English-speaking readers who are seeking an introduction to the linguistic features that define the Korean language and make it a worthy object of study for linguists-the focus of the first and third chapters. A special bonus for professional linguists who do not speak Korean is the second chapter, which presents a lucid overview of Middle Korean, summarizing and outlining information that is not often accessible in the English language.
Parts II and III focus on more specific sub-systems of Korean, including its parts of speech (especially adjectives), its complex predicates, its system of honorifics, and the way in which politeness is expressed through lexical and morphological choices. There are also fascinating chapters on the influence of Chinese on Korean, the role of grammaticalization in language change, lexical and orthographic differences between North and South Korea, and the influence of culture and society on language.
Part IV focuses on the teaching of Korean as a foreign language in America, an area in which Sohn has been the leading scholar for many years. Topics covered in this section help define the research program for the entire field of Korean language pedagogy, including the role of sociolinguistics and pragmatic appropriateness in designing proficiency-based programs of instruction, guidelines for assessing and measuring proficiency, standards for curriculum design, and the achievements of the pioneering 'Korean Flagship' program, with its focus on developing professional-level competence in Korean.
Topics in Korean Language and Linguistics will have a broad appeal. Some chapters are essential reading for professional linguists specializing in Korean, others for teachers and educators, and still others for anyone with an interest in understanding the place of Korean in the modern world.
— Reviewed by William O'Grady (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
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)
Sohn is a linguist of great versatility, who has done extensive work in two fields of areal linguistics: (i) Korean and Japanese, and (ii) Micronesian languages (Ulithian, Woleaian, Kwara'ae, and others). To the languages in both of these groups he has applied methods and theories of phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and historical-comparative analysis. Not only does he cover these various "bread-and-butter" areas with equal skill, but he also manifests an adept approach to sociolinguistic issues and matters of language pedagogy. In treating various comparative problems, he further shows sensitive understanding of semantic and pragmatic values in English.
By and large Sohn's work will be of general appeal both to theoretical linguists and to non-theory-oriented students of Korean (or to some extent Japanese), because "most analyses and accompanying discussions are predominantly data-based, without extensive involvement in the matters of abstract theoretical polemics."
- Lewis S. Josephs.
This unique and intriguing collection of papers was initially published in 1986 by Hanshin Publishing Company in Korea. It brings together twenty-five articles, representing the scholarly activity of the author from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s. A remarkable feature of Sohn's scholarship during this period is its striking breadth. Topics covered include the design of writing systems, comparative-historical linguistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and language pedagogy. Even more remarkable is the range of languages on which Sohn worked during this period. In addition to Korean, for which he was already becoming a leading scholar, he worked on three Oceanic languages-Kwara'ae, a language of the Solomon Islands; Ulithian, spoken on the Ulithi atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia; and Woleaian, another language of the Federated States of Micronesia. (The book's title alludes in part to the author's fieldwork-related travels in the Pacific.)
There is much here to capture the interest of researchers in the twenty-first century. For instance, the chapter on 'case incorporation in English verbs' deals with a phenomenon that is now once again at the forefront of attention in syntactic theory, making Sohn's early comparative treatment of its properties in English and Korean highly topical. Another example involves the very insightful chapter on how best to romanize Korean-a long standing problem that has led to many proposals over the years, including a controversial new 'official system' promulgated by the Korean government. Sohn's observations and experiments pinpoint the challenges associated with writing one language in the orthography of another, and offer very interesting insights into how this might best be achieved in the case of Korean.
Linguistic Expeditions is not just of historical interest. The papers that it contains, many of which would otherwise be inaccessible to researchers, are of fundamental importance to modern scholarship. This includes not only Sohn's early work on Korean, especially its verbal system, its system of honorifics, and its ways of expressing power and solidarity, but also his pioneering work on Oceanic languages, which continues to serve as an important foundation for work in that area.
— Reviewed by William O'Grady (University of Hawai'i at Manoa)
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New Books on Korean Language, Linguistics and Pedagogy