Yujong's webpage

Yujong Park (박유정)

Professor of Applied Linguistics
Department of English Language and Literature, Sungkyunkwan University

Language, Interaction, and AI

How do people establish understanding, participate in learning, and manage relationships through conversation? My research examines these questions across classrooms, multilingual encounters, medical consultations, emergency calls, disputes, and AI-mediated communication.

Using conversation analysis and multimodal interaction analysis, I investigate how talk, timing, gaze, and gesture work together to accomplish social actions. My recent work extends this approach to conversational AI and AI-supported language learning, examining how interaction and interface design shape opportunities for communication and participation.

Research Themes

Human–AI Interaction and Language Learning

What makes AI-mediated conversation work, and how can AI tools support meaningful learner participation? I study the interactional features of synthesized conversation and the design of AI-supported learning activities, connecting close analysis of communication with questions about technology design and educational practice.

Classroom and Multilingual Interaction

How do teachers and learners create opportunities to speak, respond, and develop understanding? My research examines practices such as repetition, questioning, and multimodal turn construction in language classrooms. I also investigate how multilingual speakers coordinate interaction and negotiate identities when using English as a lingua franca.

Communication in Institutional Settings

How are institutional tasks accomplished—and sometimes disrupted—through conversation? My work on medical consultations and emergency calls examines how participants ask questions, make requests, manage authority, and respond to one another. These studies reveal how the unfolding organization of interaction shapes the delivery of institutional services.

Selected Research Contributions

What kind of conversational practice do AI speaking apps provide?

Our analysis of 84 sessions between six Korean EFL learners and the speaking application Speak found limited opportunities to resolve misunderstandings. The application continued exchanges without addressing learners’ displayed misunderstandings, while learners’ attempts to correct speech-recognition errors met with variable success. The study shows why evaluating AI speaking tools requires examining how they support the collaborative work of maintaining understanding, alongside the opportunities they provide for spoken production.

Lee, J., & Park, Y. (2026). Conversation by design: Repair and interactional competence in L2 talk with an AI speaking application. Applied Linguistics. Advance online publication.
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How AI feedback design shapes students’ revision

Our study of an AI writing tool with specialized feedback agents found that learners using the tool engaged in more revision cycles than those using standard AI chatbots. The findings highlight the importance of pedagogical interface design, while identifying limitations in feedback specificity and scoring consistency.

Park, Y., & Ryoo, J. (2026). Promoting revision in L2 writing: A mixed-methods study on the role of specialized AI feedback agents. Language Learning & Technology, 30(1), 1–20.
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How repetition contributes to conversational naturalness

In a study of synthesized speech, conversations containing structural repetition were rated as more natural than those without it. This finding identifies repetition as an interactional resource worth considering in the design of conversational technologies.

Park, Y., Cho, H., & Song, J. (2025). Not a bug, a feature? How repetition enhances perceived naturalness in synthesized conversation. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction.
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Why teachers’ repetitions do different things in different activities

My analysis of second-language classrooms and ELF interaction shows how the functions of repetitions vary with the pedagogical focus and aims of the interaction. The 2014 study demonstrates why teaching practices need to be understood in relation to the activities and sequences in which they occur.

Park, Y. (2026). More than words: The multimodal practice of repetition in English as a lingua franca interactions. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Read the article

Park, Y. (2014). The roles of third-turn repeats in two L2 classroom interactional contexts. Applied Linguistics, 35(2), 145–167.
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How an emergency call becomes a dispute

Through a detailed analysis of a Korean emergency call, this study traces how the work of requesting help and establishing the reason for the call becomes displaced by argument. It demonstrates how communication difficulties develop through successive actions and responses.

Park, Y. (2025). Activity contamination in a problematic call made to the Korean emergency center. Pragmatics and Society, 17(1), 92–122.
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Background

I received my Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from UCLA, where I trained under John Heritage and Charles Goodwin, and my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Language Education from Seoul National University.

At Sungkyunkwan University, I have served as Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature and Dean of the Graduate School of Translation–TESOL / Graduate School of Language AI. In 2019, I was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at UCLA.

My teaching includes conversation analysis, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, interactional linguistics, and English education and AI.

Collaboration and Contact

I welcome inquiries about research collaboration and academic exchange, particularly in human–AI interaction, language learning, multilingual communication, and institutional discourse. I am interested in projects that connect detailed analysis of interaction with educational practice and technology design.

Email: yujpark@skku.edu

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Language, Interaction, and AI

Research Themes

Human–AI Interaction and Language Learning

Classroom and Multilingual Interaction

Communication in Institutional Settings

Selected Research Contributions

What kind of conversational practice do AI speaking apps provide?

How AI feedback design shapes students’ revision

How repetition contributes to conversational naturalness

Why teachers’ repetitions do different things in different activities

How an emergency call becomes a dispute

Background

Collaboration and Contact