The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature 

About: The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Poetry & Reading (process). It has an ISSN identifier of 1598-3293. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 471 publications have been published receiving 128 citations.

On Modality in English

Abstract: This paper argues that modality should be recognized as an independent grammatical category, since it behaves separately from proposition in terms of time and negation. Modality in English is typically expressed by modal verbs, and they are divided into epistemic, deontic, and dynamic in the spirit of Palmer (1986, 1987). These three types of modals exhibit different behaviors in terms of time and negation. First, with epistemic modals only the proposition is marked for time, but either the modality or the proposition is marked for negation. Second, with deontic modals time cannot be marked either on the modality or on the proposition due to their performative disposition. For negation, only the modality is normally negated for possibility, but the proposition is negated for necessity. Finally, with dynamic modals only the modality is marked for time and negation in a straightforward manner. This complicated system of time and negation in English modals leads Korean EFL learners to commit a host of errors in their interpretation, and they should be taught modality and proposition separately in terms of time and negation.

Writing and Grammar

Abstract: Although most writing test batteries include grammar as one of scoring criteria, there has been a hot debate concerning the effect of grammar teaching in writing class. Recently, represented by Weaver (19%, 2008), a minor group of researchers emerge and advocate the teaching of grammar for writing. The researchers, including Weaver (1996, 2008), suggest that grammar be taught not in isolation but in context We note that student writing provides language teachers with a valuable context for teaching grammar. This paper reviews the typical grammar errors made by native college students and examine the corresponding ones made by Korean EFL learners. Korean EFL learners exhibit a remarkable error rate in `subject-verb agreement`, `article`, `subcategorization`, and collocation`. I attribute this to cross-linguistic differences or transfer between the two languages. One of the best ways to narrow such differences might be teaching grammar not in isolation but in context, especially in the context of student writing.