Hakyung Sung
Contact
hksgla [at] rit [dot] eduAbout Me
I am an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Departments of Psychology and Modern Languages and Cultures at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I received my Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Oregon, where I worked with Kris Kyle. My research lies at the intersection of applied and computational linguistics, where I explore lexicogrammatical complexity and sophistication in second language production through NLP-based corpus analysis. To support this work, I construct annotated treebanks and evaluate language models for their accuracy in tagging and parsing linguistic features. I am also interested in leveraging large language models to enhance linguistic annotation and analyze learner language.
Education
- University of Oregon, Linguistics, PhD; Computer Science, MS, 2021.9–2025.6
- Seoul National University, English Language Education, MA, 2016.3-2018.2
- Ewha Womans University, English Language and Literature, BA, 2011.3-2016.2
- Sung, H., & Kyle, K. (2025). ASC analyzer: A Python package for measuring argument structure construction usage in English texts. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Construction Grammars and NLP, 41–49, Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Sung, H., & Shin, G-H. (2025). Towards robust morphosyntactic analysis of L2 Korean: Evaluating and fine-tuning a Korean language model. Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing.
- Sung, H., & Wolf, MK., Suhan, M., & Kyle, K. (2025). Lexical richness in young English learners’ writing: A focus on opinion and listen-write task types. Assessing Writing.
- Sung, H., & Kyle, K. (2025). Usage-based analysis of L2 oral proficiency: Characteristics of argument structure construction use. Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
- Sung, H., Csuros, K., & Sung, M-C. (2025). Comparing human and LLM proofreading in L2 writing: Impact on lexical and syntactic features. In Proceedings of the 20th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications.
- Sung, H., Shin, G-H., Lee, C., Sung, Y-K., & Jung, B-K. (2025). UD-KSL Treebank v1.3: A semi-automated framework for aligning XPOS-extracted units with UPOS tags. In Proceedings of the 19th Linguistic Annotation Workshop (LAW-XIX).
- Sung, H., & Shin, G-H. (2025). Second language Korean Universal Dependency treebank v1.2: Focus on data augmentation and annotation scheme refinement. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Resources and Representations for Under-Resourced Languages and Domains (RESOURCEFUL-2025).
- Sung, H., & Kyle, K. (2024). Leveraging pre-trained language models for linguistic analysis: A case of argument structure constructions. In the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2024.
- Sung, H., & Shin, G-H. (2024). Constructing a dependency treebank for second language learners of Korean. In LREC-COLING 2024.
- Sung, H., & Kyle, K. (2024). Annotation scheme for English argument structure constructions treebank. In Proceedings of the 18th Linguistic Annotation Workshop (LAW-XVIII).
- Sung, H., Cho, S., & Kyle, K. (2024). An empirical evaluation of lexical diversity indices in L2 Korean writing assessment. Language Assessment Quarterly, 1-22.
- Sung, H., & Shin, G-H. (2023). Diversifying language models for lesser-studied languages and language-usage contexts: A case of second language Korean. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2023.
- Kyle, K., Sung, H., Eguchi, M., & Zenker, F. (2023). Evaluating evidence for the reliability and validity of lexical diversity indices in L2 oral task responses. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1-22.
- Sung, H., & Shin, G-H. (2023). Towards L2-friendly pipelines for learner corpora: A case of written production by L2-Korean learners. In Proceedings of the 18th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications, 72-82, Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Kyle, K., & Sung, H. (2023). An argument structure construction treebank. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Construction Grammars and NLP, 51–62, Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Sung, H. (2019). Korean EFL learners’ processing of English caused-motion construction, English Teaching, 74(1), 49-73.
Publications
External Fellowships/Grants
- Harold Gulliksen Psychometric Research Fellowship (PI), ETS, 2024.9-2025.6
- Korean Studies Grant (co-researcher), The Academy of Korean Studies, 2024.2-2025.1
Experience
- Graduate Employee, UO Linguistics, 2022.9-2024.12
- Summer Intern, ETS, 2024.6-2024.7
- Summer Intern, ACTFL, 2022.6-2022.8
- English Teacher, Daewon/Gyeonggi Foreign Language High Schools, 2018.3-2021.2
Services
- Ad-hoc reviewer for peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences
- Student Editorial Board Member, Journal of Second Language Writing, 2024.12-Current
- Conference Committee: AACL 2024
- Program Committee: BEA, LAW
Other Expertise
- Applications of linguistic analysis tools: LxGrTgr, TAALED
- Treebank constructions: ASC treebank, UD KSL treebank
- Treebank applications: ASC tagger
- Python package: ASC analyzer