Korean lexicology is characterized by many foreign elements that have gradually become integral components of the language. For many centuries, Korea was politically and culturally subordinate to the cultural influence of China. As a consequence, the first wave of these “linguistic borrowings” was almost entirely Chinese and was realized through the use of Chinese written characters. These characters were actually used as a means to represent Korean phonology, as the Korean language lacked its own writing system. Chinese characters were also the essential elements which permitted the enlargement of the Korean lexicography and brought to Korean a large quantity of new words which were lacking in the language. Later, during the 19th Century, the Japanese of the Meiji Period produced a large number of new terms which were then borrowed by both Korea and China. A second phase of borrowing began in the middle of the 1950s when the United States intervened on the side of the United Nations during the Korean War (1950-53).
This research proposal attempts to explore language borrowing in a more thorough and systematic way expound theories on languages borrowing, with the intention to confirm some hypotheses and make some improvements in some aspects. A deep analysis of language borrowing between English and Chinese, and Korean on each kind of borrowing activity will be studied from the perspective of a historical survey, channels of borrowing, classification study and assimilation analysis.
Finally, this study examines attempts to moderate the overexposure to English lexicology, which the language spoken in South Korea is currently facing. Contrary to appearances and perceived notions, we see that the Chinese language and its writing system are returning to the forefront of language borrowing. Despite what the language purists of North and South Korea may wish, it cannot be said that Chinese language borrowings are a thing of the distant past.
Development of orthography for a language without a long-established tradition of writing is often interleaved with societal and political goals, rather than serving as pedagogical or communication tools (Anderson 1983, Schieffelin and Doucet 1998, Thomas 2007). This complexity is compounded when the language historically had its own writing system which was later replaced by an entirely different system. This is the case for Balinese, which has adopted the Roman alphabet in the past century. In this study, I claim that use of a single grapheme {e} in certain contexts now demarcates three competing indices: 1) being a speaker of Balinese; 2) being a speaker of Indonesian; and 3) being a participant in global-level interaction.
The grapheme {e} represents two different Balinese phonemes: a front mid unrounded vowel (taleng) and a schwa (pepet):
(1)
sane (taleng) relativizer
tegeh (pepet) ‘tall’
Furthermore, the phoneme /a/ becomes pepet-like either prefix- or word-finally (represented as [A]), even though the grapheme remains as {a}:
(2)
/gatra/ > [ga.trA] gatra ‘news’
/ma-gatra/ > [mA.ga.trA] magatra ‘to be newsworthy’
However, Balinese speakers have recently been using <e> to represent pepet-like [A] in precisely these contexts, which results in spellings such as gatre and megatre. This convention, although not officially recognized by scholars of Balinese, is especially prevalent in Internet-based fora such as chat and discussion boards. I suggest here that this use of <e> is an effort to reformulate a Balinese identity which reflects the contemporary conflict of simultaneously belonging to Bali, Indonesia, and the world stage.
This paper explores four-syllable expressions in Vietnamese—common sayings like “Nhin mieng dai khach” (Stop eating, treat guests), which stresses the importance of hospitality, and “Trong nghia khinh tai" (Respect righteousness, despise wealth), which sums up the moral code of a Confucian gentleman. Vietnamese scholars have collected and catalogued these expressions, of which there are thousands, but to my knowledge no one has described the role they play in various types of Vietnamese discourse, including conversation, literary works, and scholarly writing. Giving examples from various types of discourse, I will attempt to show how speakers and writers use these expressions to convey much in a few words and to make their discourse aesthetically pleasing. These expressions, I shall argue, can be used like shorthand to evoke beliefs and attitudes and cultural and historical movements—even entire ideologies. “Tam tong tu duc” (Three submissions, four virtues) indicates a patriarchal Confucian past; “Chong my cuu nuoc” (Oppose Americans, save the country) sums up the most recent phase of a long resistance to foreign rule; and “Con ong chau cha” (Children of grandfathers and fathers), a common expression in contemporary Vietnamese discourse, refers to a system in which the relatives of the powerful receive special privileges. After describing how Vietnamese use four-syllable expressions in communication, I will conclude with some remarks about their value for students of Vietnamese language and culture.
This study aims to examine the concepts and properties of spoken language in Korean. In a field of teaching Korean as a second language, the importance of pragmatic ability has been expanding as well as grammatical or conversational skills. To analyze the pragmatic features of Korean language, for example, hesitation, discourse markers, etc., close analysis of spoken language is inevitable. In contrast to this tendency, however, previous researches have mostly focused on grammatical differences between spoken language and written language (e.g., Kim 2004 and Jeon 2006). In addition, comparing real dialogues with corresponded script has not been tried yet.
In this study, therefore, the features of spoken language will be explored in two ways. The first comparison will be made between spoken language and written language by analyzing TV debate dialogues with TV debate scripts. A second comparison will then be made between spoken language and semi-spoken language through analyzing scripted dialogues in TV drama and the TV drama scripts themselves.
These materials are analyzed not only grammatically, but also pragmatically: 1) we analyze ellipsis, addition, abbreviation, and replacement of grammatical units in between dialogues and scripts. 2) we analyze ellipsis, addition, abbreviation, and replacement of discourse markers in between dialogues and scripts.
From these, we can confirm the concept and features of spoken language distinguished from written language and semi-spoken language. Even though, this study is based on Korean language, the features of spoken language are common across all languages. This study can also shed light on the field of teaching languages.
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