Topic > The Influence of the English Language on the Korean Language

In today's Korean society, there have been many controversies regarding the influence of the English language on the Korean language. There has been a lot of contact between the two languages ​​as it embraces English-sized Korean and deals with bilingual creativity involving Korean-English mixing. South Koreans have become accustomed to using some words or phrases that may sound Korean but sound distinctly English. These words or phrases are a hybrid of two languages ​​called “Konglish”. The rise of this phenomenon has become serious and has spread within Korean society to the point that people believe they are losing their native language. The Konglish phenomenon has impacted Korean society by degrading the culture of native speakers and forcing the English language to become a dominant force within society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin with, after the dominance of the English language in Korean society, there have been growing tensions over whether or not the English language should merge with the Korean language. According to Ran Park, a graphic designer, she said that when she returned to her hometown, she noticed a change in her local language. The hybrid between English and Korean was being used, and she said that “people started using the words as if they were Korean.” The meaning of this statement is to show how one's culture is important to society while mixing one's universal language with the local one can shatter the sentence or words. However, the involvement of the English language has established some loanwords in the Korean language that ultimately cause mistranslations and made-up sentences that incorporate English words but are not easily understood by native English speakers. Konglish loanwords such as "telephone" are derived from "cell phone", which raises the idea that Konglish is leading to confusion of both English and Korean. Aside from this, the rise of the English phenomenon has led to an issue among the youth population regarding the importance of English education. Since the English language is universal, Korean society believes that English education should be a requirement in schools. South Korea recently banned the teaching of English to first and second graders because they are not yet able to understand a new language, and recent statistics show that students' knowledge of the Korean language declines when exposed to English at an early age. With this in mind, it gives society the impression of how the government tries to prohibit the excessive use of English as they want to prioritize learning Hangul. Not to mention, due to the inequality between rich and poor in South Korea, it only makes sense for the richest to have access to English education. This would ultimately lead to society having a large divide between those who have more English proficiency and those who don't. Meanwhile, the Korean language follows strict rules, especially the rules of the highly phonetic Korean alphabet called “Hangul”. Konglish has a negative effect on Hangul, as it destroys the traditional values ​​of a South Korean and people have not realized this phenomenon which leads to the loss of the native language. Due to the long history of Japanese colonization of Korea, South Koreans are very proud of their culture and language as they refuse to repeat what happened in the past when they were stripped of their citizenship. On the other hand, the media world has allowed Konglish to become a source of communication for the public, and people have started to believe that this phenomenon.