A linguistic analysis of adapted literary texts in Korean high school English textbooks

Abstract

The present study is aimed to investigate types of input modification in adapted literary texts and its impact on the adapted literary texts. Four literary texts adapted in Korean high school English textbooks were analyzed using a modification tool revised by the researcher based on the previous studies. Overall linguistic analyses on the four literary texts revealed that both simplification and elaboration occurred, not either of them dominantly. Looking inside, content reduction was found to occur the most, followed by syntactic and lexical simplification. In terms of elaborative modification, on the other hand, lexical elaboration was most frequent, followed by content and syntactic elaboration. The authors of the current study judged some negative effects of input modification such as less contextual clues, a decrease in the flavor of the original text, disruption of the flowing of sentences, meaning contraction and change, etc. The findings suggest that modified literary texts could discourage or distort the reader’s comprehension. This study is not an experimental study, however. Thus, an experimental study should be conducted with the effects of modification of literary texts on L2 learning.