A Study on Passive voice Errors of Chinese-speaking Korean Learners

Objectives This paper examines the patterns of passive errors among Chinese-speaking Korean learners from a cognitive linguistic perspective. The goal is to minimize passive errors by analyzing their causes and revealing the cognitive semantic characteristics of Korean passives. Methods For this purpose, a total of 221 samples of passive errors by Chinese-speaking learners were extracted from the National Institute of the Korean Language error annotation corpus for analysis. The errors were categorized into ‘formal elements’ and ‘cognitive semantic elements’, and the root causes of the errors were analyzed focusing on learner factors, including cognitive and linguistic aspects. Results There is no significant decrease in passive expression errors with higher proficiency levels, suggesting considerable difficulty for Korean learners in using passive expressions. Moreover, errors due to ‘cognitive semantic elements’ were significantly higher than those due to ‘formal elements’, emphasizing the need for cognitive-functional education rather than traditional form-focused passive education. Such errors include learners’ inaccurate understanding of the motivation for using passive expressions in Korean and linguistic elements arising from different ways of perceiving and interpreting situations or events. Conclusions From a cognitive linguistic perspective, ‘voice’ can be understood as the speaker's perception of the situation. While Korean native speakers use passives focusing on the ‘change of state’ that occurs to the patient affected by external actions, Chinese native speakers are more inclined to analyze the situation from an individual-oriented perspective when using passives. Clarifying the cognitive semantic characteristics of Korean and Chinese passives can help Chinese learners accurately perceive and understand Korean passive expressions.