Grammar
-을/를 대상으로
Meaning
Intermediate-eul/reul daesangeuro
Names the group a survey, a policy or a programme is directed at — the population it covers. 대상 is the noun for a target or subject, and 으로 makes it the frame the action is carried out under, so 가입자 3241명을 대상으로 수행됐다 says the survey was run over those 3,241 enrollees and over nobody else. In statistics reporting this phrase is where the scope of a finding gets set: the same figure reads as a fact about everyone when the phrase is missing, and as a fact about one named group when it is there.
Form
Noun + 을 대상으로 after a final consonant (직장인을 대상으로), 를 대상으로 after a vowel (학교를 대상으로) — literally with N as the target. It normally sits in front of the verb of the main clause (…을 대상으로 조사했습니다). To modify a following noun it becomes -을/를 대상으로 한 N (청년을 대상으로 한 정책), and -을/를 대상으로 하는 N when the programme is ongoing; 대상으로 삼다 is the same 대상 used as a full verb. A counted amount rides along with the noun it counts (가입자 3241명을 대상으로) rather than standing on its own.
Examples
이번 조사는 가입자 3241명을 대상으로 수행됐습니다.
This round of the survey covered 3,241 enrollees.
Common mistakes & nuance
The phrase draws a boundary and claims nothing else. It says who was covered, not that they all answered, agreed or benefited — 3241명을 대상으로 조사했다 is the size of the frame, not the size of the response, and the response rate is a separate number the sentence may never give. It is also not a statement that the group gains something: 대상으로 marks who is acted upon, so 청년을 대상으로 한 조사 studies young people while 청년을 위한 정책 is meant to help them, and a rule can perfectly well take a group as its 대상 in order to restrict it. This phrase is the first thing dropped when a report gets summarised, which is exactly how a finding about one group ends up quoted as a fact about everyone.
Similar grammar
- N을/를 통해
Two different slots in the same kind of sentence. -을/를 통해 marks the route the action went by — a method, a channel, an intermediary — and -을/를 대상으로 marks who it was aimed at. 설문조사를 통해 알아냈다 says the survey was the means; 가입자를 대상으로 조사했다 says enrollees were the population. A single sentence often carries both, each answering a different question about the same study.
- -기 위해(서)
위해 names the aim or the beneficiary; 대상으로 names who is acted upon. In the noun notation the pair is at its closest — 청년을 위한 정책 is for young people's benefit, while 청년을 대상으로 한 정책 only says they are its scope, which may mean support and may mean restriction. Reading 대상으로 as if it were 위해 turns a description of coverage into a claim about intent.