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In:Acquisition of Korean: The state of the art
Edited by Soonja Choi
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 36] 2026
► pp. 34–53

Chapter 1
Phonological development of monolingual Korean children

 | California State University, Fullerton
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to Korean phonology and explores how monolingual Korean children acquire their native phonology. It offers overviews of the vowels, consonants, syllable structure, and prosodic features of the Korean language, along with a comprehensive literature review on the phonological development of monolingual Korean children. In addition, it compares the developmental patterns of Korean consonants in both single-word production and conversational speech, emphasizing the importance of assessing both speech sample modes to fully understand a child’s phonological system. The chapter also compares studies on the acquisition of Korean phonemes with cross-linguistic research from various languages, identifying universal patterns and cross-linguistic differences in phonological development.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Korean phonology
    • 2.1Vowels
    • 2.2Consonants
    • 2.3Syllable structure
    • 2.4Prosody
  • 3.Phonological development of Korean
    • 3.1Methodology in studies of phonological development
    • 3.2Age and order of phoneme acquisition
      • 3.2.1Vowel development
      • 3.2.2Consonant development
    • 3.3Phonological error patterns
    • 3.4Comparison of Korean consonant acquisition in conversational speech and single words
    • 3.5Prosodic development
  • 4.Cross-linguistic comparisons of phonological development
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Note
  • References
References (59)
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