The purpose of this study is to observe the variations between the dialects of the Jeongnong Village people from Hwanghae Province in North Korea. Specifically, the study focuses on the variants of oral speech of the elders of the village and the meaning of tendency. The Jeongnong Village formed from North Koreans fleeing the North as a group during the Korean War. In total, there are 130 homes and 200 people in the village. Most of the first generation of the villages came from the Northwest area of Hwanghae Province in North Korea. They have preserved the language and customs of their hometown well. Specifically, this village is considered a “language island” in the center of the Jeonbuk dialect. For the last 60 years, they have continued to preserve their hometown dialect. The dialect that is currently in use in the village is based on the original Hwanghae Province dialect from North Korea. Thus, we can assume that the following three factors affect the use and preservation of the dialect. First, the Jeonbuk dialect, which surrounds this small town, has obviously had an impact on the continued use of the Hwanghae dialect. Second, the standard Korean has also contributed to verbal interference to the Hwanghae dialect. Finally, the language itself varies from the original. However, it’s not easy to investigate the influence of these three factors on the language in Jeongnong Village. Specifically, it’s possible that two or more of these factors influence the language at the same time, or also an additional external factor may act on its preservation and usage. So, this study focuses exclusively on variations of the language, without regard for the before mentioned factors that were determined after the study had been conducted. The variations of the language are referred to as “sociolinguistic” variations herein.
This study contains 6 chapters.
Chapter 1 deals with the purpose of the study and includes advanced research on the language variations. This chapter also introduces the procedure for determining the 6 variables that this study focuses on.
Chapter 2 gives the background of the Jeongnong Village societal language. First, we observe the process by which this village was formed, its geographical location, and its major industries. This chapter also includes a detailed look into the specific lives and traits of 13 individual sources (5 men, 8 women). These sources were all around 15 years old when they fled from North Korea, so we can safely assume that by that point, they had already fully acquired the language and dialect from their hometown. The birthplaces of these sources is Songhwa and Eunyul in northwest area of Hwanghae province. A one-to-many field method was conducted (one researcher, many informants) containing the recorded oral responses of the participants which were later transcribed for further study. This field study was conducted to obtain first-hand accounts and a more natural language resources compared with the original paper-based questionnaire. The subject of these interviews was “life in their hometown, the circumstances that led to their coming South, their main economic activities after arriving in South Korea, marriage, and family.” The complete interview records clock in at 1,226 minutes, and include a total of 70,761 transcribed phrases. The conclusion of the chapter consists of the villagers thoughts about their own unique dialect and general language traits.
Chapter 3 describes the phonetical variables (ts) and (ɨ). These phonetic variants were analyzed through an acoustic method. First, in section 3.1, (ts) is described. This is used in the place of articulation of /c/. It is known that in the Hwanghae province of North Korea, /c/ has an alveolar pronunciation. This was studied in Jeongnong village to confirm the pronunciation of /c/. The spectral peak frequency of the pronunciation of /c/ was measured to determine how closely they adhered to the original dialect. As a result, it was discovered that the women of the village pronounced /c/ as an alveolar sound when it was used before /a/, but when using /c/ before /i/, it was pronounced as a blended alveolar-palatal sound. On the other hand, men pronounced /c/ before /a/ as an alveolar sound, and before /i/ as a strictly palatal sound.
Second, in section 3.2, (ɨ) is described. Analyzing the formant value, it was determined how closely (ɨ) matched /eu/ at the back of the tongue and /eo/ pronunciations. It was discovered that the women pronounced /eu/ in the middle of their tongues while the men pronounced /eo/ at the back of their tongues. In Han, YoungSun(1967) also studied the Hwanghae dialect and mentioned that the pronunciation of /eu/ gradually transitioned into the /eo/ pronunciation. Men in Jeongnong village still maintain the old dialect and the original pronunciation of /eu/ while the women in the village have transitioned to the /eo/ pronunciation.
Chapter 4 describes the phonological variables (eo) and (eu). Section 4.1 is about the high-vowelization of /eo/ > /eu/. In previous studies, /eo/ is pronounced as [eu] in word-initial position. However, in the Jeongnong village, /eo/ has a different pronunciaton when it is not a non-initial position: it more commonly appears as [ɨ]. This seems to be because in the northwest Hwanghae province dialect, the length of the pronunciation is not as distinguished. Narrowing of ‘non-initial’ apertures are considered weaknesses, so it is natural that high-vowelization occurs first in non-initial apertures because in this dialect the length of pronunciation is not as distinguished. Female speakers tend to have a higher realization of high-vowelization, but male speakers have a lower realization of high-vowelization.
Section 4.2 is about the front-vowelization of (eu) which occurs when its pronunciation changes from /eu/ to /i/ after certain consonants. Initially, female speakers showed high rates of front-vowelization after the consonants /s/ and /ss/, while male speakers showed high rates of front-vowelization after the consonant /c/. Thus, it appears that female speakers have preserved the Hwanghae dialect well.
Chapter 5 describes the grammatical variables (s) and (eon). Section 5.1 shows how (s) is related to ‘-is-’(to have), (prefinal ending) ‘-eos-’(past tense marker), ‘-kas-’(future tense or conjection marker), ‘-daes-’(past perfect marker) of the coda ‘s’. In the Hwanghae dialect the coda of these morphemes are realized as [s], but in the Jungbu dialect and Jeonbuk dialects, the final consonant of these words are realized as [s’]. Looking at each morpheme, the lowest rate of [s] occurs with ‘-eos-’ and the highest rate of [s] occurs with ‘-daes-’. This is because ‘-daes-’ is not a morpheme of the Jungbu dialect and Jeonbuk dialects, and the Hwanghae dialect, where this morpheme originated, has been well preserved by these people. The rate of male speakers using [s] is relatively high, while the rate of female speakers using [s] is relatively low. This is because male speakers tend to be more conservative in their speech, whereas female speakers tend to be more liberal. According to the following vowel, it produces [s] pronunciations before /i/ most often; pronunciations of [s] before /eu/ are the second most common; and pronunciations of [s] before /eo/ are the least common.
Section 5.2 shows how (eon) is related to past tense adnominal endings. In the Jungbu dialect and Jeonbuk dialects past tense adnominal endings become ‘-(eu)n’, but in the Hwanghae dialect it is ‘-eon’. This replacement occurs due to vowel harmony. Meanwhile the ‘-eon’ of adnominal ending is different from the ‘-eon’ of final ending. Because final ending ‘-eon’ connects with both verbs and adjectives, but the ‘-eon’ referred to here only connects with verbs. In this dialect, the adnominal ending ‘-eon’ is formed by the combination of ‘-eo-’ and ‘-n’. where ‘-eo-’ is from the Middle Korean morpheme of ‘-keo-’. In the interviews with the villagers, ‘-eon’ can be found to be gradually merged with ‘-(eu)n’. This merging occurs earlier in negative vowels as opposed to positive vowels, and also earlier in back-vowels as opposed to front-vowels. And female speakers tend to be more conservative in their speech, whereas male speakers tend to be more liberal.
Chapter 6 summarizes the findings and limitations of this study. The first limitation of this study is from the analysis of individual narrative (interview) materials. These materials show that the research was not systematic. The second limitation is related to the material providers themselves, that is that it was impossible to research beyond second generation language users. Finally, it is regretable that the research could not also deal with suprasegmentals like intonation.