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     Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
    Modelling the Englishization of vocabulary in
    contemporary Korean
    Ahn, Hyejeong
    2018
    Ahn, H. (2018). Modelling the Englishization of vocabulary in contemporary Korean. World
    Englishes, 37(4), 570‑589. doi:10.1111/weng.12345
    https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104691
    https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12345
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    Englishes and is made available with permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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  3        Modelling the Englishization of vocabulary in contemporary Korean 
  4
  5         
  6        Abstract 
  7        This  study  aims  to  analyse  how  English  has  been  incorporated  into  newly-coined  Korean 
  8        vocabulary, using vocabulary items from the 2014 New Word list published by the National 
  9
  10       Institute of Korean Language. It also surveys previous research on the Englishization of Korean 
  11       vocabulary in  order  to  devise  a  descriptive  model  of  lexical  borrowing  from  English  in  the 
  12       contemporary Korean language. The examination of a wide range of data demonstrates that  
  13       lexical borrowing into Korean is highly complex, involving at least four combinations of source 
  14
  15       languages, that is  (i)  English  (only),  (ii)  traditional  Korean  and  English,  (iii)  Sino-Korean  and 
  16       English,  and  (iv)  English,  traditional  Korean  and  Sino-Korean.  The  findings  suggest  that 
  17       ‘borrowed’ words undergo hybridized word formation processes in creative and innovative 
  18       ways, which I have attempted to describe through the model of lexical borrowing presented in 
  19       this article.     For Review Only
  20
  21        
  22       1 | INTRODUCTION 
  23        
  24
  25       The  linguistic  phenomenon,  ‘Englishization’,  broadly  refers  to  changes  in  an  indigenous 
  26       language  caused  by  language  contact  involving  English,  including  the  transfer  of  syntactic 
  27       structures and large scale lexical borrowing (Kachru, 1994). In his 1994 article on ‘Englishization 
  28       and  contact  linguistics,  Kachru  describes  a  range  of  linguistic  processes  associated  with 
  29       language  contact  involving  English  worldwide,  at  the  levels  of  lexis,  grammar,  and  literary 
  30
  31       expression.  In  his  discussion  of  the  Englishization  of  lexis,  Kachru  noted  that  this  typically 
  32       involved processes such as (i) loan words, (ii) loan shifts, (iii) hybridization, and (iv) parallel 
  33       lexical sets. Kachru further noted that in many parts of the world such processes were either 
  34       ‘donor initiated’ or ‘receiver initiated’, and, for Kachru, the term Englishization ‘does not refer 
  35
  36       only to phonology, grammar and lexis, goes beyond these levels into discourse, registers and 
  37       styles and the development of literary genres’ (Kachru, 1994, pp. 138-141). Kachru’s pioneer 
  38       theorization of Englishization provided the stimulus for a number of early studies of linguistic 
  39       contact between English and Korean, including Baik (1994), Jung (1998), and Jung and Min 
  40       (1999). 
  41
  42          In South Korea, since the end of the Second World War, a process of Englishization has taken 
  43       place in which the Korean language has become the ‘recipient’ language in its contact with 
  44       English,  although  in  recent  years,  Koreans  are  becoming  active  participants  in  producing 
  45       nativized English words for domestic use (Kiaer, 2014). This process has been realized through a 
  46
  47       wide range of nativization processes, including the introduction of English loanwords into the 
  48       Korean vocabulary. The intense presence of English in contemporary Korea has produced new 
  49       types  of  hybrid  words,  which  liberally  blend  English  and  Korean  vocabulary  items.  The 
  50       Englishization of Korean has been examined in a number of early studies which have focused on 
  51                     1                          2
  52       syntactic  features   and  also  on  phonological  features .Other  studies  have  investigated  the 
  53                                                 3       4               5
           sociolinguistic effects of English mixing in advertisements , in K-pop , television programs  and 
  54       movies6. 
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                            World Englishes              Page 2 of 27
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 3         This current study sets out to investigate Englishization at the level of linguistic borrowing and 
 4      the  incorporation  of  English  vocabulary  items  into  the  Korean  language.  This  topic  has 
 5      previously been investigated by Kiaer and Bordilovskaya (2017), Kiaer (2014), E. Kim, (2016) and 
 6
 7      a  number  of  others.  Kiaer  and  Bordilovskaya  (2017)  in  their  recent  studies  discuss  the 
 8      inadequacy of terminology such as ‘loanwords’ to collectively describe new English-influenced 
 9      Korean and Japanese words and argue that new terminologies should be created in order to 
 10     accurately capture their unique nature. They have named them ‘first generation English words’, 
 11
 12     ‘second-generation English words’ and ‘global English words’ (pp. 170-171). Kiaer (2014) in her 
 13     study provides a comprehensive investigation of the development of English loanwords in the 
 14     Korean  language  which  focuses  on  the  frequent  use  and  creation  of  English  loanwords  in 
 15     various sociolinguistic domains, the overall structural patterns in the making of new words and 
 16     public attitudes towards their usage in South Korea. E. Kim (2016) also examines a similar topic 
 17
 18     by providing an overview of the development of new Anglicized words in Korean and highlights 
 19                 For Review Only
 20     the innovative formation processes of these new words including such things as pictographic 
 21     presentation and inverse phonetic translation. In addition to these studies, Nam (2015b), Jeong 
 22     (2015) and Cho (2014) have investigated the usages of new Englishized Korean words. For 
 23     example, Nam (2015b) analyzes the usage of new words using the criteria of dictionary entry 
 24     and Jeong (2015) examines the frequency of their usage. Cho (2014) also focuses on the usage 
 25     of new words in relation to their acceptance by the South Korean public. In addition to this, 
 26     Korean studies of loanwords by H. Kim (2007) investigate the linguistic motivation for the 
 27     creation of loanwords from English, while S. Lee and Y. Lee (2013) focus particularly on the 
 28
 29     truncation and blending patterns of loanwords. 
 30        Despite the proliferation of interest in studying new Englishized Korean words, few studies 
 31     have  provided  an  in-depth,  detailed  analysis  of  the  complex  linguistic  features  of  new 
 32     Englishized Korean words and their ubiquitous formation processes, providing little insight into 
 33     how these words should be categorised and analyzed. Therefore, the present study aims to 
 34
 35     answer this need by providing a comprehensive structural analysis of word formation in defined 
 36     categories  according to  the  constituent parts of new  words and the linguistic performance 
 37     played in their formation process, which is highly complex and hybridized. In addition, this 
 38     study attempts to present a new analytical model which provides a useful tool with which to 
 39
 40     examine distinctive features and formation process of new, Englishized Korean words. 
 41        This study firstly discusses the Englishization of Korean vocabulary by providing an overview 
 42     of  the  recent  research  on  this  topic,  then  detailed  analyses  of    examples  of  hybridized 
 43     vocabulary taken from the recent list of  ‘new words’ published by the National Institute of 
 44     Korean Language (NIKL) (Nam, 2015a) is carried out. The study presents a detailed account of 
 45
 46     word formation processes for new words which not only discusses the impact of English on 
 47     Korean vocabulary, but also the role of Sino-Korean in the layering of the Korean lexicon. As the 
 48     analysis below explains such borrowings may involve various types of word formation including 
 49     ‘English only’ elements; the combination of elements of traditional Korean and English; both 
 50
 51     Sino-Korean and English elements; as well as a combination of English, traditional Korean and 
 52     Sino-Korean elements. The findings illustrate that newly-coined words are not only hybridized 
 53     with elements of English through common word formation processes such as compounding, 
 54     affixation and truncation but are also put together in creative and unpredictable ways. English 
 55     is  ubiquitously used in newly-coined Korean vocabulary, which suggests a growing bilingual 
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  3        creativity  in  the  Korean  population.  The  present  study  suggests  that  the  influence  of 
  4        Englishization in Korean is visible and widespread, and it appears likely that linguistic contact 
  5        with the English language will critically influence the future development of Korean in a variety 
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  7        of ways, including its influence on the Korean lexicon. 
  8         
  9        2 | THE LAYERING OF THE KOREAN LEXICON 
  10        
  11
  12       Arguably, the Korean language, which is used by more than 70 million Korean speakers, is one 
  13       of  the  largest  isolate  languages  (Koh  &  King,  2014;  Song,  2005).  A  proposal  regarding  the 
  14       genetic  affiliation  between  Korean  and  Japanese  was  advanced  as  early  as  1717  by  Arai 
  15       Hakuseiki, and more recently by Yi (1972), and Whitman (2012) but these arguments have 
  16
  17       gained only limited support. Although the Korean language is considered an isolate language, it 
  18       has  experienced long and constant contact with other languages, mainly with Chinese and 
  19                          For Review Only
  20       Japanese, and more recently, with English. As a result, a wide range of features from Chinese, 
  21       Japanese and English are commonly found in the Korean language, and, particularly within its 
  22       vocabulary. Throughout the course of Korea’s long historical contact with a number of Chinese 
  23       dynasties,  Chinese  characters  and  morphemes,  in  particular,  have  been  extensively  and 
  24       continuously borrowed and used to coin new Korean words whenever the need presented itself. 
  25       It  has  been  estimated  that  Sino-Korean  vocabulary contributes to around 50-60 percent of 
  26       contemporary Korean vocabulary (Kiaer, 2014; Koh & King, 2014; Sohn, 1999; Song, 2005). 
  27
  28       However,  the  resemblance  between  Korean  and  Chinese  is  due  to  the  vast  amount  of 
  29       borrowings from Chinese, not to any genetic affinity (Song, 2005).  
  30        
  31       2.1 | The influence of Chinese and Japanese 
  32
  33        
  34                  th
  35       Before the 19  century, when Western cultural influences began to surface in Korea, China had 
  36       long been a major influence on Korean cultural and political life. In fact, Chinese culture had 
  37       deeply  permeated  into  all  facets  of  Korean  life,  including  the  language,  in  which  Chinese 
  38       characters  were  used  to  convey  meanings  or  to  transcribe  Korean  sounds.  An  enormous 
  39       number of Sinitic morphemes, for example, were directly or indirectly borrowed into Korean, 
  40       creating a Sino-Korean vocabulary called Han-ja-eo. In addition to importing Chinese words into 
  41       Korean,  new  Sino-Korean  words,  independent  of  Chinese,  were  created  from  Chinese 
  42       characters and elements. Sino-Korean words are composed of Chinese characters but written in 
  43
  44                                7
           Han-geul (the Korean alphabet).  The pronunciation of Chinese characters used in Sino-Korean 
  45       words is different from their pronunciation in Chinese, as they are produced in a Koreanized 
  46       approximation of Chinese. However, arguably, the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters 
  47       actually retains affinities to Middle Chinese, especially the pronunciation of the eighth century 
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  49       Tang Dynasty in China, with a number of independent vowel and consonant changes as well as 
  50       the loss of tones (Sohn, 1999).  
  51          In addition, even after the invention of the Korean alphabet, Han-geul, in 1446, it has been a 
  52       continuous and expedient practice to use both Chinese characters and Han-geul for official 
  53       documents in particular. The mixed use of these two scripts has been continuously promoted, 
  54
  55       largely because it is believed to more clearly show the meaning and etymologies of words (I. 
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