The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(1), 179-197. The goal of this study was to characterize consonant replacement errors in the spontaneous speech data of Chinese learners of L2 Korean. For this study, I collected natural utterances from 100 Chinese students consisting of 50 intermediate and 50 advanced learners of Korean, and investigated whether specific consonants were replaced based on syllable structure. The results indicate that consonant replacement mainly occurred at syllable onset in word-medial position. It was found that advanced learners of Korean confused lax consonants with aspirated ones at syllable onset and learners of Korean confused lax consonants with fortis consonants at syllable onset word-medially. In addition, advanced learners of Korean confused /ㅇ/ and /ㄴ/, /ㄱ/ and /ㅂ/, /ㅇ/ and /ㄹ/ in word-final position. From the analysis of the results, I was able to find which articulation constraints and strategies work when non-native speakers learn the Korean language.
주제어(Key Words): 제2언어 습득(L2 acquisition), 한국어 교육(Korean education), 자음 대치(consonant replacement), 중국인 화자(Chinese speakers), 한국어 발음(Korean pronunciation), 자유 발화(spontaneous speech data)