in Korean English (two-tailed χ2 with Yates’ correction is 22.5 when a bit of is compared with OTHER of in SK and the BNC, df=1, p <0.0001). Four occurrences in LK suggest that the form may be developing with the presence of a bit of a passion, two closely related strings relating to studies from two speakers: I studied a bit of sociology and I studied a bit of infectious disease and what appears to be a reformulation as a speaker produces we had a bit of we had a few complaints which suggests the speaker was primed to refer to small amounts as a bit of but then became aware of the problematic string we had a bit of complaints and reformulated. 3.2 a little bit Returning to 3 it is interesting to note that the string a lot takes up 15% of all uses of a in both Korean corpora while the corresponding figure is 4% in both British corpora. The variation of the second most frequent 2-gram, a little, in both Korean corpora appears to be less striking with 8% of SK, 6% of LK and 2% of the British corpora but these numbers hide a surprising point. The 3-gram a little bit takes up 78% of all a little strings in SK, 79% in LK but just 31% and 32% in SCO and the BNC (see Table 5, p <0.0001 when a little bit is compared with a little OTHER for SK and the BNC, two-tailed FE). After the highest frequency of 70 occurrences of a little bit in SK the second most frequent a little * string is a little different but with just three occurrences there is a notable drop in frequency that is shared with LK. It seems reasonable to suggest that speakers of Korean English are primed to use the string a little bit and that this may partially explain the smaller frequencies of the string a bit seen in Table 3. The phrase a little bit appears as an adjective modifier in most cases with examples ranging little bit different and a little bit better to a little bit free and a little bit hard; this could reflect the L1 primings for the item (chokum). Table 5: Frequency details for a little and high frequency R1 items in four corpora
during their time in the UK (Concordance six illustrates the lack of time expressions in SK, p=0.105 when LK is compared with SK for time expressions but p < 0.0001 when SK is compared with the BNC). Concordance 6: Sample concordance of the other in SK showing R1 flexibility but a lack of time expressions 6 Conclusion In this I have tried to show some of the variety as well as the consistency of the English spoken by Korean adults by discussing three lexical environments: the phraseology and lexis surrounding the items a, an and the in two small corpora of Korean English and, as comparator corpora, a small ‘scouse’ corpus and the spoken demographic section of the BNC. Some of the similarities between the Korean corpus (SK) and the Liverpool Korean corpus (LK) include the following: The percentage of a * that takes the form a lot is consistent at 15% and this is notably higher than the British corpora. The percentage of a little * that takes the form a little bit is very similar at 78% (SK) and 79% (LK); this is also much higher than the British corpora. The string get a job shows a comparable level of fixedness in the Korean corpora with 100% of get * job taking the form get a job, for example, compared with 67% and 61% in SCO and the BNC. The item an occurs with very low normalised frequency in the Korean corpora: 222pm and 467pm in SK and LK compared with 1398pm and 1303pm in the BNC. The string the has a strong tendency to form the 3-gram and the other in the Korean corpora compared to SCO and the BNC which tend to form R1-based the other * strings. While differences between SK and LK include:
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