COGNITIVE AND CULTURAL BARRIERS IN SYNONIM ACQUISITION: A PSYCOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF INDONESIAN LEARNERS OF KOREAN

Abstract

This study investigates the challenges Indonesian learners face in understanding Korean synonyms, particularly adjectives that share similar literal meanings but differ in contextual, emotional, and cultural usage. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the research combines qualitative data from interviews, classroom observations, and task analyses with quantitative survey responses from 60 intermediate-level learners. The findings reveal significant difficulties in distinguishing near-synonyms such as 아름답다 (beautiful) vs. 예쁘다 (pretty) and 행복하다 (happy) vs. 기쁘다 (glad), primarily due to limited exposure to nuanced usage and the influence of the learners' native language. Drawing on theories from psycholinguistics, including semantic processing and working memory, the study interprets these challenges as cognitive in nature, involving high lexical ambiguity and processing load. The results underscore the importance of context-based instruction and culturally informed vocabulary teaching. Furthermore, the study suggests that language proficiency assessments should account for contextual and pragmatic competence to more accurately measure learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge. These insights contribute to both applied linguistics and psycholinguistic approaches to second language acquisition, offering pedagogical strategies for enhancing lexical precision and cultural fluency in Korean language education.