Introduction

The Republic of Korea (referred to hereafter as ‘Korea’ or ‘South Korea’) has changed in many ways since the end of the Korean War in 1953Footnote ¹ – which is a good starting point for the discussion that follows, as it helps to illustrate just how far Korea has come. In 1953, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world – it relied on foreign aid, most people lived in poverty, and few were literate (Miley, Reference Miley2023). Contrast that with the 1980s, when Korea had advanced to a middle-income country, having experienced rapid industrialization and being known as one of the ‘Asian Tigers’ (next to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan). It is clearly the case that Korea has become a thriving, modern, and vibrant country, well known for its food, film production and, of course, its music and TV dramas. Some of Korea’s cultural exports have been seen and heard on a global scale, such as the 2012 hit song Gangnam Style by Psy as well as the 2019 Academy Award winning film Parasite. At the time of writing, K-pop sensation BTS had won twelve Billboard Music Awards and earned twenty-six Guinness World Records (including most Twitter engagements; see BBC, 2018). It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that Korean language courses are more common now than ever before, with the Korea Foundation revealing that the number of global institutions offering Korean studies increased to over 1,300 in the decade following 2007 (see Korea Foundation, n.d.). And beyond Korea’s cultural exports, we should also consider its technological exports of items like cars, refrigerators, and phones, recognized with respective – and trusted – brands, such as Hyundai, LG, and Samsung. While Korean culture, from food to language, is widely recognized, one aspect is still less well understood: The ways in which Koreans have made the English language their own and how Korean Englishes have become a transnational phenomenon. This is what this Element seeks to address, and in doing so we will focus on the following key points:

• The Korean–English language contact setting and its outcomes are complex and dynamic;

• Korean English and Korean Englishes are more fitting terms to use as opposed to English in Korea and Konglish; following Lee and Jenks (Reference Lee, Jenks, Jenks and Lee2017), we use the plural form Korean Englishes to acknowledge the existence of subvariation but also draw on the singular Korean English as an umbrella term (akin to nomenclature in World Englishes research – cf. Singapore English, American English, South African English);

• While Konglish is a term largely used to refer to, as we do here, a lexical set (comprising a subset of English words used in Korea; see Section 3), Korean English goes beyond lexis and incorporates grammatical innovations – this in turn points to the nativization of a language variety;

• Korean English is not ‘bad’ English or a failed attempt to master the English language; thus, we are approaching Korean English as an English variety in its own right;

• There are numerous transnational aspects to consider, moving, for instance, from English words being used in Korea to Korean words taking prominence outside of Korea; indeed, Korean words are used by non-Koreans on a wide scale.

Before we present an overview of previous linguistic research on the forms and the variety status of Korean English, we first consider the origins of English in Korea, to better understand the journey it has taken from the end of the Korean War to the present day, including contemporary functions across society and language attitudes.

Historical Development of English in Korea

As mentioned, after the Korean War, Korea was economically devastated. What followed, however, was a period of rapid economic growth, dubbed the Miracle on the Han River (i.e., the river that runs through the Korean capital, Seoul). Government policies were of course a large part of this, involving the expansion of agriculture and energy industries, such as electronics, as well as the development of roads and railways. Moreover, the beginning of a global recognition of Korea was certainly helped by its hosting of the 1988 (Summer) Olympics, as well as co-hosting the 2002 World Cup and, most recently, the Korean Winter Olympics in 2018. Combined, we see a country that is recognized for its economic strength, technological development, and modernization, in addition to its involvement in international events, here sports. Throughout this period, from 1953 onwards, English has been establishing its presence in Korea, alongside more obvious developments tied to the economy and politics, changing the country from the so-called hermit kingdom to a well-established and modern nation (see Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger and Hickeyin press, for a more detailed overview of these historical developments in relation to English).

The first English school opened in Korea in 1883 (Nahm, Reference Nahm1993); however, English in Korea only gained a solid foothold with the stationing of US soldiers following the Korean War, with a sizeable US military presence still in Korea to this day. In fact, after World War II, South Korea was briefly under US Army rule, namely, from 1950 to 1953. This period is referred to as United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) and, importantly, this military government reinstated English education in Korean schools (which had been abolished during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945) (see Kim, Reference Kim2011), while also operating under English as its official language (Kim, Reference Kim2015). It is for these historical and political reasons that American English is the clear target variety in Korean English language education.

In the meantime, English has become firmly entrenched in the Korean education system and, since 1997, it has been a mandatory subject from 3rd grade elementary school onwards (Jung & Norton, Reference Jung, Norton and Tollefson2002: 247), with many Korean children starting voluntary English education even earlier, via kindergarten classes and private language education. English plays a central role in Korea’s university entrance exam, suneung, and is often essential for job attainment and promotion (independent of actual use at work). Despite the lack of home acquisition of English and even though

It is nevertheless difficult to find accurate statistics on how many South Korean people use English – and with which level of proficiency they do so. Education First’s English Proficiency Index (EPI) ranks South Korea number five in Asia, surpassed only by regional settings with an (English) postcolonial background, namely, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Hong Kong (Education First, n.d.). In order to fully grasp the role English plays in present-day Korean society, we next examine its functional range in more detail.

Functions of English in the South Korean Context

The most obvious function of English in South Korea is as a lingua franca between Koreans and foreigners – not only in tourism and business contexts but also in many academic settings. We already mentioned the importance of English in the Korean education system, but there is indeed a bit more to it than meets the eye. The possibility to engage in educational activities related to English in Korea are endless, from ‘English villages,’ which emulate life in a nonspecified ‘English’ town (Lee, Reference Lee2011a) to the many summer and winter schools, often referred to as English camps, as well as the countless private institutes all over Korea, known as hagwon, which provide additional academic tuition in various subjects beyond regular school, of which English is one of the most common. Institutions like the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy (KMLA) adopt English-only policies, with students expected to use English all day in class, from Monday to Saturday (Lee, Reference Lee, Bolton, Botha and Kirkpatrick2020). Many Korean universities offer English-only classes (see Kang, Reference Kang2012) as a means to contribute to internationalization strategies and to incorporate increasing numbers of foreign students, a move that has also been received critically (see, e.g., Cho, Reference Cho2012). English use on campus is not restricted to classroom activities: Thorkleson (Reference Thorkleson2005), for instance, examined the use of English in student news articles written by Korean university students and Baratta (Reference Baratta2021) reported on English clubs, which abound on Korean university campuses.

In the workplace, English usage is highly dependent on the context – for instance, depending on whether communication with foreign customers is necessary. We also do not want to downplay the role other languages, such as Japanese and Chinese, play in the Korean context. Nevertheless, it is English proficiency that is seen as crucial for job opportunities and for securing a high-value job in many cases in the first place. This in turn also rests to a high degree on university placement, which again depends on performance in suneung – the Korean university placement test (officially also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test or CSAT), in which English is one of six subjects. Taking this into consideration it might not be surprising that Koreans spend record amounts on private education in general (Park & Kang, Reference Park and Kang2024), with the largest share of this going to English education: On average, Korean households spend 248,000 won (more than $US 180) per month for private English education (Park & Kang, Reference Park and Kang2024). Not coincidentally then, the desire for English in Korea has been described as a sickness (cf. the notion of ‘English Fever’; see Park, J.-K., Reference Park2009), with some Korean mothers taking their children overseas to countries, such as the USA, Canada, or Singapore, so that their children can be immersed in an English-language setting temporarily, often while the fathers provide financial assistance from Korea. This phenomenon is referred to as gireogi appa (기러기 아빠, ‘wild goose dad’),Footnote ² a reference to wild geese and migration (cf. Lee, S. H., Reference Lee2019, Reference Lee2021).

However, there are also many other domains of English use across the country – outside of educational settings – and someone arriving in Korea for the first time might indeed be surprised at the wealth of English that can be encountered (amply documented by research; see the cited literature for only some examples). As one of Jamie Shinhee Lee’s elderly Korean study participants exclaimed: “Everywhere you go, you see English!” (Lee, Reference Lee2016). This includes national English-language newspapers, for example, The Korea Times and The Korea Herald (Jung & Min, Reference Jung and Min1999); code-switching to English on many TV dramas (Baratta, Reference Baratta2014), reality TV (Lee, Reference Lee, Rubdy and Alsagoff2013), and in TV commercials (Lee, Reference Lee2006); English used extensively as part of public signage and on shop fronts (Lawrence, Reference Lawrence2012; Tan & Tan, Reference Tan and Tan2015); English–Korean code-mixing in K-pop (Jin & Ryoo, Reference Jin and Ryoo2014; Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger, Schneider and Heyd2021a); and, of course, the many Koreans who use English in daily life (Lee, Reference Lee2016; Baratta, Reference Baratta2021), though admittedly the language of choice between Koreans in private communication, barring special circumstances, is usually Korean.

Beyond its ubiquity in K-pop, which has been described as “the public discursive space in which English use is most prevalent” (Lee, Reference Lee2004: 433; see also Section 5), English is also present in other media and pop culture products, such as movies and television, where it has been shown to have different functions. For instance, code-switching between Korean and English in Korean TV shows can be used to index a modern identity (see Baratta, Reference Baratta2014), while at the same time also contributing to a language ideology of self-deprecation (Park, J. S.-Y., Reference Park2009) by depicting Koreans (or specific groups of Koreans, such as the elderly) as having low English proficiencies (Park, Reference Park2003; Lee, Reference Lee2014).

Korean cinemas generally do not dub their movies and English-language productions (except for children’s movies) are thus usually shown in the original version (with subtitles). One must keep in mind, however, that Korea has a strong local film industry, and in 2023, for instance, of the top 20 most watched movies only eight were US/English-language productions (Korean Film Council, n.d.). Nevertheless, this translates into a considerable market share of English-language movies, providing further points of contact for spoken English in Korea. Last but not least, we can mention here how Korean movie productions have also registered ‘English’ as a topic of filmographic concern. A prime example can be found in the Korean movie “Please Teach Me English” (original title: 영어완전정복; Yeongeo Wanjeon Jeongbok) from 2004, which packages the notion of ‘English Fever’ in South Korea into a comic love story. Lee (Reference Lee, Lee and Moody2012: 129) has found that the movie indeed presents a “realistic portrayal of a wide range of emotions that are often believed to be evoked by the English language: fear, desperation and frustration, along with a sense of achievement and empowerment.”

Considering Korean advertising, we can identify a great deal of English usage, seen for example in slogans, such as “Excellence in Flight” (Korean Air), “Life’s Good” (LG), and “Do What You Can’t” (Samsung). Lee (Reference Lee2006) points to the creativity and word play involved with the language of advertising and reminds us once again that English as used in Korea is indeed sometimes primarily for domestic consumption, seen for example in a commercial for a moving bra (a local English form for push-up bra). Going beyond advertising, researchers such as Tan and Tan (Reference Tan and Tan2015) and Lawrence (Reference Lawrence2012) have examined the linguistic landscape in Korea and found abundant usage of English on (mainly unofficial) signage (e.g., in shop windows). Last but not least, we want to turn to the digital realm. While the internet is a multilingual space, it might be no surprise that, globally, English takes the largest share according to traffic analysis: 52.1 percent of web content is in English, with Korean content making up 0.8 percent (numbers from January 2024; Petrosyan, Reference Petrosyan2024). No doubt, Koreans do use and produce online content in Korean (e.g., on the Korean-exclusive online platform Naver), but certainly the internet in general and social media specifically provide manifold opportunities to engage with English(es) (see also Rüdiger, Leuckert & Leimgruber, in press). Nevertheless, research on Koreans’ online media consumption and production involving Englishes is scarce. In general, it is not difficult to find Korean English usage online though and as an illustrative example we provide a short look at Korean real estate websites.Footnote ³

Numerous real estate websites catering specifically to the Korean context are targeted at expats and thus operate in English. Looking for housing on sites such as Seoul HomesFootnote ⁴ or Seoul HousesFootnote ⁵ confronts English-speaking expats with a number of localized words related to the semantic field of housing. Among the housing types offered on Seoul Homes one finds, for instance, officetels (e.g., “Large lofty type officetel near Gangnam Stn. short term available”).Footnote ⁶ Other residential types referenced are villas and hanok houses. Clicking on an ad on Seoul Homes one might be informed that “discuss required.” Likewise, short-term visitors to Korea looking for accommodation on local English-language sites like GoshipagesFootnote ⁷ will find goshiwon and livingtels as potential options for shorter stays. While these terms are widely known to Koreans and expatriates residing in Korea and are amply documented in local English usage, others might have to resort to web searches to find out more. There are doubtlessly more arenas where English plays an important role in Koreans’ online life, some but not all of them related to communication with foreigners (as the one we just presented) – the detailed study of these remains an important desideratum for future research. Next, we present a short survey of language attitudes toward English in the Korean setting.

Attitudes Toward English in Korea

Public attitudes toward a particular variety of English, or other languages copresent with English in a specific setting, are an important aspect in World Englishes research. In the context of English in Korea, we have already mentioned the notion of ‘English Fever,’ which stands for the extreme desire ‘for English’ per se. The list of phenomena pertinent to English Fever in South Korea spans, among others, ‘linguistic’ (tongue) surgery for Korean children (a frenectomy), the aforementioned ‘wild geese parenting’ situations to enable early childhood study abroad, and the exceptionally high expenses dedicated to private English education in its various guises (see also Park, J.-K., Reference Park2009). It is no surprise then that attitudes toward English are not only positive. Joseph Sung-Yul Park (Reference Park2009) aptly summarized three prevailing, partially contradicting, language ideologies of English that can be found in South Korean society at large: (1) Externalization (English as a language of the ‘Other,’ i.e., non-Korean), (2) self-deprecation (Koreans as unable to use English proficiently), and (3) necessitation (English proficiency as a necessary skill in today’s globalized world). As this shows, language attitudes in Korea are by all means complex (and surprisingly underresearched, taking aside studies working with language professionals, such as teachers and translators; see Cho, Reference Cho2017). Due to its connection to expensive private English education and other educational opportunities, English has been described as a “class marker” in Korean society (Park & Abelmann, Reference Park and Abelmann2004: 646) and is considered essential for upward social mobility. Park and Abelmann (Reference Park and Abelmann2004: 666) described how there exist three ‘meanings’ of English in Korea, with English being seen as

1. (1) providing local opportunities (e.g., in school, university, and work)

2. (2) providing opportunities abroad (e.g., working abroad)

3. (3) “satisfy[ing] cosmopolitan strivings” (i.e., preservation and/or ascendency of social class).

This connection between English and socioeconomic status and opportunities has consistently been made by numerous researchers and persists to the present day (cf. Park, Reference Park, Wee, Lim and Goh2013; Choi, L., Reference Choi2021; Lee, C., Reference Lee2021).

Returning to educational contexts in general and to Korean English(es) specifically, Ahn (Reference Ahn2014: 196) points out that attitudes toward languages “are subject to change according to socio [sic], political and economic power shifts.” While Ahn’s study involving Korean and non-Korean English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers did involve a degree of reported confusion regarding what Korean English is and the belief that it is not a ‘real’ English, there were indeed positive responses. For example, some teachers explained that Korean English has “strong features” and “effectively expressed Korean culture” (Ahn, Reference Ahn2014: 214). This can potentially be related to the fact that a number of teacher education programs in Korea regard American English as only one example of the many Englishes (and cultures) that are used in the world, and not the sole variety to be propagated (Kang, Reference Kang and Matsuda2017). There are many TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) programs that feature World Englishes as part of the curriculum, thus avoiding the hegemonic grip that Inner Circle varieties have otherwise enjoyed. Language is a cultural conduit and thus, given the Korean cultural wave (see Section 5), the respect, even admiration, for Korean culture might extend to its variety of English too. While it is certainly the case that many Koreans, teachers and parents in particular, regard Inner Circle standards as the only legitimate variety of English, given its use in academic testing, it is probable that parts of the younger Korean generation, and certainly many global K-fans, regard Korean English wholly positively. There is evidence for such positivity in a study by Baratta (Reference Baratta2019), in which a young Korean man admonished attitudes that regard Korean English as not being ‘pure,’ citing all manner of linguistic influence on English in the first instance. Clearly, more research is needed to gather the current attitudes toward Korean English, gleaned from Koreans from all walks of life. Another research desideratum lies in a large-scale acceptability study of Korean English features, for instance, those pointed out in the next section.

Conclusion

Having thus covered a first introduction to Korea and its variety of English, the Element now continues with a focus on the forms and variety status of Korean English, focusing mainly on morpho-syntactic features. In Section 3, we turn to English loanwords in Korean and a term that is often used to refer to them, that is, Konglish. Drawing on large-scale corpus evidence, Section 4 expands on the opposite case, namely, Korean words used by English speakers around the world. Last but not least, Section 5 comes to truly transnational phenomena related to (pop) culture, such as K-pop, mukbang, and food.

Introduction

In this section, we survey the existing research on the forms of Korean English and the implications for variety status. We focus specifically on selected corpus-based or data-centered studies of written and spoken Korean English, which have pointed out several potentially nativized or nativizing forms (e.g., Shim, Reference Shim1999; Hadikin, Reference Hadikin2014; Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2019, Reference Rüdiger, Schneider and Heyd2021a; Leuckert & Rüdiger, Reference Leuckert and Rüdiger2020). Where relevant, we provide (yet unpublished) examples for features and patterns from the Spoken Korean English Corpus (SPOKE; Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger, Christ, Klenovšak, Sönning and Werner2016). We additionally draw on case studies from the Korean linguistic landscape and academic writing to further enrich our overview. We close this section with a brief discussion of the implications of research on the forms of Korean English for variety status and World Englishes modeling.

Written Forms of Korean English

We begin our overview with a look at written forms and in particular those found in educational material, namely, a school-based textbook, and Korean English newspapers. The former is based on the groundbreaking work by Shim (Reference Shim1999), who published one of the first empirical studies on Korean English. In her article, Shim examined forms of English in Korea using High School English I: Teacher’s Guide (Chang et al., Reference Chang, Park, Kim and Chang1989), which was in use from 1987 to 1995. According to Shim (Reference Shim1999: 250), the guide represents “the final product of the past 50 years of the codification of Korean English,” and is of particular relevance to us here as it (1) represents a codified form of Korean English as found in an official textbook used in schools, but also (2) constitutes part of the teaching material encountered by Korean English speakers who went to high school during that timeframe. This includes many of the speakers from SPOKE, the spoken Korean English corpus, which we will introduce and draw on later.Footnote ⁸ A more recent look at English textbooks used in Korean (middle) schools can be found in Kim and Lee (Reference Kim and Lee2023), though their focus is on matters of identity representation and not Korean English forms as such. Another current turn of events that needs to be mentioned here is the development of a ‘home-grown’ English proficiency test, the Test of English Proficiency (TEPS), produced by Seoul National University.Footnote ⁹ This points to potential first steps in distancing from the so-far exonormative orientation in language testing, though US-based tests like TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) are by far and large still the go-to option in the Korean setting (see Park, Reference Park2024).

The codified forms in the Korean English textbook attested by Shim (Reference Shim1999) range from lexico-semantics and pragmatics to morpho-syntax. We provide selected examples for the first two and then focus on morpho-syntax for the remainder of this section as this is the field that has received most attention in World Englishes research to date. Altogether the list of lexico-semantic Korean English forms spans eight items (all collected from the first chapter of the textbook alone) and includes items such as on life (used with the meaning of ‘alive’) and day by day (used with the meaning of ‘daily’) (Shim, Reference Shim1999: 251–252). The use of no wonder in conversation-initial position (instead of as a rejoinder to what has been said before) – for instance in “No wonder you can’t sleep well when you eat too much” (Shim, Reference Shim1999: 251) – might for some already be counted as part of the realm of pragmatics. Here, Shim (Reference Shim1999: 254–255), briefly, refers to phenomena related to formality, negative tags, and politeness. The morpho-syntactic features listed by Shim (Reference Shim1999: 252–254) are quite comprehensive and involve, among others, definite articles (i.e., non-differentiation between definite and indefinite articles, with a definite article being used as the default form when the noun is postmodified by a prepositional phrase or a relative clause), noncount nouns used as count nouns, unidiomatic verb collocations (e.g., talk together instead of talk with each other), interchangeable uses of the present and the present progressive as well as simple past and past perfect, and the lack of a distinction between real and unreal conditions in conditional sentences.

The second seminal study we want to mention here is by Jung and Min (Reference Jung and Min1999), who based their research on a corpus of 126 Korean English newspaper articles taken from The Korea Herald. They used this dataset to investigate selected modals and prepositions. In terms of frequency, they found that will is used with considerably higher frequency in the Korean English newspapers when compared to American English, British English, and Australian English data (53.6 vs. 27.0, 28.0, and 34.2 instances per 10,000 words; Jung & Min, Reference Jung and Min1999: 27). Would and shall, however, remain below the usage frequencies of the other varieties. Fine-grained semantic analysis revealed no clear differences in the meaning expressed with the modals (Jung & Min, Reference Jung and Min1999: 32–33), but in some cases the Korean English data patterned more closely with the American English data than the other varieties, which corresponds to the historically and politically conditioned status of American English as target and input variety in the Korean context (see Section 1). In terms of prepositions, Jung and Min (Reference Jung and Min1999) focused on the spatial meanings of in and at. There they found instances of the two prepositions swapped with each other as in (1) and (2) (both examples from Jung & Min, Reference Jung and Min1999: 34).

1. (1) An earlier meeting at Cheju set the stage for a renewed peace effort.

2. (2) The writer is a visiting professor of linguistics in Korea University.

The authors give two possible explanations for this: Errors made by the editorial team or substrate language influence from Korean. Due to limitations in corpus size,Footnote ¹⁰ they were unable to come up with a conclusive explanation. Nevertheless, their research provides early indications for the potential development of Korean English forms, which was taken up by spoken language research.

Spoken Forms of Korean English

We focus here, mainly, on results obtained from the Spoken Korean English corpus (aka SPOKE), which was collected by the first author in 2014. The SPOKE corpus was designed to specifically elicit conversational and informal data, following the ‘cuppa coffee approach’ (see Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger, Christ, Klenovšak, Sönning and Werner2016). The data collection captured the use of English by 115 Korean speakers (64 women and 51 men aged between 18 and 44 with an average of 27 years; 65 students, 42 employees, 4 students who also worked full time, and 4 unemployed persons) in 60 hours of recordings, subsequently orthographically transcribed to form the SPOKE corpus. Based on this corpus, Rüdiger (Reference Rüdiger2019) provided a detailed first exploration of spoken Korean English morpho-syntax centered around five parts of speech: Nouns, pronouns, articles, prepositions, and verbs. While some of the investigated features turned out to be unproductive (e.g., countable use of non-count nouns), others potentially form part of an emerging Korean English repertoire. Specifically, Rüdiger (Reference Rüdiger2019: 202) lists:

• – reduced plural redundancy on nouns after quantifiers, numerals, and in cases of context-given plurality

  1. (3) I have many dream (SPOKE_63m27)Footnote ¹¹

  1. (4) they had two daughter and they always had a party in their room (SPOKE_92f24)

  2. (5) I like movie mh I like SF and action (SPOKE_76m29)

• – minus-pronounsFootnote ¹² (mainly I in subject position, it in subject position, and it in object position)

  1. (6) Ø actually do lots of homeworks in major (SPOKE_61f21)

  2. (7) yah for him Ø was very easy (SPOKE_47f30)

  1. (8) it’s really good and I I recommend Ø (SPOKE_33f26)

• – nonconventional use of definite articles (plus- and minus-) with selected nouns and expressions

  1. (9) when will you leave the Korea? (SPOKE_117m22)

  1. (10) some of my close friends were like from (.) Ø United States and Australia (SPOKE_17f24)

• – minus-indefinite articles with selected nouns and expressions

  1. (11) I hope (laughs) uh go to Bali with within Ø few years I think (SPOKE_36m28)

• – minus-prepositions (in particular after verbs of motion; most often concerning the preposition to)

  1. (12) so like Easter holiday and Christmas holiday I could go Ø Italy and London (SPOKE_25f27)

• – plus-prepositions as part of innovative prepositional verbs or in combination with adverbs

  1. (13) it’s very dark so that many babies are just falling in a sleep (SPOKE_3f29)

• – minus-copular verbs (in particular when followed by adjectives)

  1. (14) and coffee Ø also very cheap over there (SPOKE_44f27)

• – minus-lexical verbs in the infinitive, at times due to innovative conversion processes

  1. (15) many people can’t tennis (SPOKE_76m29).

Subsequent work based on SPOKE has delved into information-structure and discourse-pragmatic features, with Leuckert and Rüdiger (Reference Leuckert and Rüdiger2020), for instance, showing that topicalization frequencies in Korean English (see [16]) are similar to British and American English data, but left-dislocation (see [17]) is much more frequent – that is, four times as frequent as in American English data.

1. (16) lots of alcohol they have (SPOKE_94f28) (cf. they have lots of alcohol)

2. (17) so (2) with that money my husband and me we will enjoy our life (SPOKE_3f29)

In addition, discourse-pragmatic like (see [18] and [19]) was established as part of the Korean English repertoire, including quotative use (see [20]) (Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2021b).

1. (18) so like after learning for a year I thought oh English literature is actually really fun (SPOKE_55f19)

2. (19) they don’t generally play like alternative rock or I mean quite soft rock (SPOKE_51m26)

3. (20) I was like (.) do you know where Taiwan is? and he was like yah taegukFootnote ¹³ (SPOKE_68f22)

This finding is particularly relevant as

Beyond SPOKE, other corpus-based work taking a World Englishes perspective on spoken Korean English is scarce. Hadikin’s (Reference Hadikin2014) corpus-based study on collocations is a welcome exception. Specifically, Hadikin focused on three short lexical strings (do you know, but you know, and and you know) and showed how frequencies and usage patterns by the Korean English speakers differed from British English reference corpora to a degree which he takes as “evidence supporting the idea that Korean English is a variety in its own right” (Hadikin, Reference Hadikin2014: 178). Specifically, his results show that Koreans (living either in South Korea or the UK) tend to use but you know far more than the British speakers, specifically with the function to buy “more time for online speech processing” (Hadikin, Reference Hadikin2014: 76).

It is important to point out that features identified as part of nontraditional varieties of English (i.e., Outer and Expanding Circle Englishes) – and this includes the ones we mentioned in this section – are not necessarily used by all speakers and writers of said variety (Mesthrie & Bhatt, Reference Mesthrie and Bhatt2008), neither are they usually exclusive to a specific variety (which is aptly demonstrated in the Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English, which shows the regional spread of specific features; see Kortmann, Lunkenheimer & Ehret, Reference Kortmann, Lunkenheimer and Ehret2020). This suggests that the features presented thus far form part of a Korean English feature pool (cf. Mufwene, Reference Mufwene2001; Percillier, Reference Percillier2016; Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2019), which can be drawn on depending on factors like context, individual speaker, setting, conversational partner, and so on. While we cannot provide details of use for every feature that we presented, in the following, we want to consider one selected morpho-syntactic feature more closely, namely, plus-definite articles.

Case Study: Plus-Definite Articles in Korean English

We have singled out plus-definite articles in Korean English for our case study as it is a feature mentioned already in Shim’s (Reference Shim1999) work on codified forms in an English textbook used in Korea. In addition, articles occur highly frequently across text types in English and are thus particularly suitable for this kind of case study approach (where we only look at a limited number of data points). We illustrate the use of plus-definite articles across three domains of use: Spoken Korean English, the linguistic landscape, and academic writing. These usage contexts present different modes (spoken vs. written), levels of formality (informal vs. formal), and publicity (private vs. public). While Korean has a range of determiners at its disposal (e.g., 저, jeo, ‘that’), this does not include articles – neither definite nor indefinite.

Evidence from Written Language – Linguistic Landscape

Our first example of a plus-definite article from the linguistic landscape in Korea is provided in Figure 1. The picture was taken by the second author in July 2023, during a trip to Seoul, and was found on the subway.

Figure 1 Subway sign in Seoul – ‘Seat for the pregnant woman.’

For this kind of public signage, that identifies a seat which is reserved for pregnant women, one might expect to find a construction such as ‘seat for pregnant women.’ In Figure 1, however, we see the use of a singular noun in combination with a definite article (“seat for the pregnant woman”).Footnote ¹⁴ While the use of a plus-definite article could be interpreted as a form of hypercorrection, it can also be claimed that the definite article serves communicative functions, such as adding emphasis and to draw further attention to the recipient of the focus – here, the pregnant woman who is the intended user of the reserved subway seat.

The next sign we want to present was displayed at Lotte World, an amusement park in Korea. The sign in question can be found as a photograph on an online blog (Story of Mandy, 2010). It shows the bilingual logo of “Kiddie Land” and is titled “Stroller Custody”Footnote ¹⁵ (both in English and Korean). It then displays the following text in English (the same information is also presented in Korean but is not reproduced here):

Please place the valuables in our custody.

LOTTE WORLD does not take a responsibility for the valuables lost due to guests’ negligence.

Once again, we have a public sign which makes use of a plus-definite article (cf. please place Ø valuables in our custody). We are interested here in the two cases of “the valuables,” which would identify a certain specific and/or previously identified group of valuables. Of course, the expression “your valuables” could also be used, without identifying a specific collection of valuables. But by using the plus-definite article, the referent is being specified to identifiable valuables per se, from jewelry to purses to bags, when in fact the intended referent is surely ‘valuables in general/of all kinds’ (placed within the stroller). Granted, we can also see the use of a zero article in reference to “guests’ negligence” (and not, the guests’ negligence), so not all possible instances on this sign do indeed use a plus-definite article. This might further suggest that plus-definite articles are potentially used when in conjunction, as outlined by Shim (Reference Shim1999), with a prepositional phrase (i.e., “in our custody”) or when postmodified otherwise (i.e., “lost due to guests’ negligence”).Footnote ¹⁶

While it is easy to find more examples of plus-definite articles on signs in the South Korean landscape in our personal archives and online, we finally want to point out that the two signs which we picked for discussion here are found in public spaces which involve extremely high numbers of visitors, such as the Seoul subway or Lotte World amusement park.Footnote ¹⁷ This means that this usage is extraordinarily visible and salient. However, this should by no means be taken as a claim that all public signage in Korea displays this specific feature.

Variety Status and World Englishes Modeling

So, how do our and others’ research on form inform variety status? Broadly speaking, variety status rests on a number of factors, among them historical and political aspects, language policies, speaker demographics and spread (see, e.g., Bamgbose, Reference Bamgbose1998), attitudes and functions, and, importantly, a certain predictability and systematicity in terms of the respective variety’s linguistic features (see, e.g., Kachru, Reference Kachru1983). Eventually, these forms and features are codified, for example, in dictionaries and grammar books. As Baratta (Reference Baratta2019, Reference Baratta2021, Reference Baratta2022) has argued, beyond the traditional and ‘official’ means of codification just mentioned, there also exist additional possibilities for ‘lay’ codification, for example, online dictionaries and glossaries – and in particular these abound for the Korean context (see Baratta, Reference Baratta2021, for a detailed overview and examples).

It is a crucial question in World Englishes research how to identify an innovation of a form in a variety of English before its codification – when it could as well be an idiosyncratic usage or an error. Differences from L1 linguistic norms “have traditionally been characterized as ‘errors’ demonstrating incomplete mastery of English” (Meriläinen, Reference Meriläinen2017: 762). When looking more closely, however, the question of ‘error’ vs. ‘innovation’ is often determined by matters of variety status: L1 speakers innovate, whereas LX speakers (i.e., speakers from regions without an Anglophone postcolonial background and where English is not an official language) produce errors (and before Kachru’s influential work, this was the same for postcolonial Englishes). This has recently been challenged for a number of settings, among them Cyprus (Buschfeld, Reference Buschfeld2013), the Netherlands (Edwards, Reference Edwards2016), and South Korea (Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2019). Theoretically, once a feature in a language has become widely used and accepted, it can be considered an innovation, regardless of its origins and in which variety type it is used (Li, Reference Li and Kirkpatrick2010; Rosen, Reference Rosen2016; Baratta, Reference Baratta2021). We recognize that this is a long-standing debate in the field of World Englishes (and refer the interested reader to Li and He, Reference Li, He and Kirkpatrick2021, for further discussion). In any case, however, in-depth research on linguistic forms and patterns is one of the cornerstones of World Englishes research and as this section has shown can also productively be applied to the output by Korean English users.

Considering the status of Korean English in models of World Englishes, we briefly want to mention and summarize the application of three models commonly employed by World Englishes scholars: Kachru’s (Reference Kachru, Quirk and Widdowson1985) Concentric Circles Model, Schneider’s (Reference Schneider2003, Reference Schneider2007) Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes, and Buschfeld and Kautzsch’s (Reference Buschfeld and Kautzsch2017) Intra- and Extraterritorial Forces (EIF) Model.Footnote ²¹ Following the three-partite categorization instituted by Kachru (Reference Kachru, Quirk and Widdowson1985) into Inner Circle (English as a Native Language, ENL), Outer Circle (English as a Second Language, ESL), and Expanding Circle (English as a Foreign Language, EFL), South Korea is clearly classified into the Expanding Circle. Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes (henceforth Dynamic Model) is generally considered inapplicable to the Korean context, as one of the preconditions for its application (i.e., colonialism by an English-speaking force) is not fulfilled. Buschfeld and Kautzsch (Reference Buschfeld and Kautzsch2017), however, modified the Dynamic Model to cover both postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes and first attempts to apply the EIF Model to South Korea point toward a potential categorization of the variety between Phases 2 (Stabilization) and 3 (Nativization) (see Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger, Buschfeld and Kautzsch2020a: 171). This also rests on the identification of potential linguistic features which have been nativized in the Korean context (as we have outlined in this section). While a complete overview of the extra- and intraterritorial forces is beyond the scope of this work, Rüdiger (Reference Rüdiger, Buschfeld and Kautzsch2020a) lists the US interim military government after World War II and the extreme orientation in the society toward English (also known as ‘English Fever’; see Section 1) as particularly important factors. Pop culture and tourism were also mentioned as being of special importance in the Korean context; thus, already alluding to the significance of transnational aspects, which is the main factor we want to expand on in this volume.

Conclusion

In this section, we introduced previous research on the forms of Korean English, with a main focus on (a) morpho-syntax (as this is what most research has concentrated on so far) and (b) studies conducted from a World Englishes perspective. We acknowledge the existence of a vast literature on Koreans as foreign language learners of English from the field of second language acquisition but, at the same time, emphatically want to propose a (certainly not novel) perspective taking Koreans as legitimate users of English and consider the way they use English as more than an accumulation of ‘errors’ in need of ‘rectification.’ There also exists a number of works which present forms of Korean English more anecdotally which we have not reviewed here but which may provide valuable starting points for further research (e.g., Galloway & Rose, Reference Galloway and Rose2015: 135–136; Takeshita, Reference Takeshita and Kirkpatrick2010). In our case study on plus-definite articles, we have traced the occurrence of this feature across modes (spoken vs. written) and genres (informal conversations, public signs, and academic writing). Last but not least, we surveyed the implications that research on forms of Korean English has for variety status and World Englishes modeling. Overall, this part of the Element has set the stage for the sections to come, which draw more extensively on original research and explore Korean–English language contact and its transnational aspects in more detail.

Introduction

Another outcome of the language contact setting in South Korea (beyond the nativized forms of Korean English described in Section 2) is the proliferation of English loanwords integrated into Korean. Often, these lexical items undergo semantic and/or phonological shift and adaptation, which can be perceived as a ‘mixing’ of both Korean and English into what is known as Konglish. Interestingly, the term Konglish has also been used with many other meanings, for instance, to refer to nonstandard forms of English as used by Koreans (often pejoratively considered ‘broken English’) (see the references in “What About Konglish” following later in this section, in particular Kent, Reference Kent1999; Hadikin, Reference Hadikin2014: 7; and Park, Reference Park2021). In this section, we introduce different types of English loanwords and how they have been creatively appropriated by Koreans for their own purposes. English loanwords with a unique Korean flavor illustrate the agency and creativity exhibited by Koreans when it comes to integrating English lexical material into their use of Korean. In addition, we draw on questionnaire and interview data to illustrate what Koreans think about the term Konglish and how they report using Konglish forms themselves.

English Loanwords in Korean

The trajectories, functions, and uses of English loanwords have been examined by linguists for various Asian languages. In some contexts, such as the Japanese one, English loanwords have been described as particularly pervasive (see, e.g., Moody & Matsumoto, Reference Moody, Matsumoto, Lee and Moody2012; Scherling, Reference Scherling2012). In South Korea, English loanwords have also flourished, which might have been (and continues to be) facilitated by the high status of English in the Korean language ecology (cf. Park, J.-K., Reference Park2009; Song, Reference Song2012: 14; Lee, Reference Lee2016). This has resulted, among other things, in an increasing Anglicization of the Korean context (Kim, S., Reference Kim2024; Kim, Reference Kim2021), as visible, for instance, in the linguistic landscape of Korea (Lawrence, Reference Lawrence2012; Tan & Tan, Reference Tan and Tan2015; Kim, S., Reference Kim2022) but also in the Korean language itself.

In general, the Korean lexicon is of a tripartite nature: Words are either native Korean, Sino-Korean (mainly as a result of historical borrowing processes from Chinese, cf. Sohn, Reference Sohn and Sohn2006: 44), or have been borrowed from other languages. According to Sohn (Reference Sohn and Sohn2006: 44), the ratios for modern Korean vocabulary are roughly as follows: 65 percent Sino-Korean, 30 percent native Korean, and 5 percent loanwords from other languages. Loanwords from other languages also include borrowings from non-English, mainly from languages in Asia or Europe (e.g., 아르바이트, areubaiteu, from German Arbeit, meaning ‘part-time work’; 바캉스, bakangseu, from French vacance, meaning ‘(a particular type of) vacation’; 돈까스, donkkaseu, from Japanese tonkatsu, a Japanese pork cutlet). However, most loanwords stem from English: “[T]he total number of current loan words [in Korean] is estimated at over 20,000, of which English occupies over 90%” (Sohn, Reference Sohn1999: 118). Some English loanwords were transmitted to Korean not directly from (a variety of) English but via Japanese,Footnote ²² mainly during the Japanese colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 (Kang, Kenstowicz & Ito, Reference Kang, Kenstowicz and Ito2008: 300). This special type of loanword is sometimes referred to as hybrid Anglo-Japanese loanword (Tranter, Reference Tranter1997). In the meantime, the use of English loanwords is on the rise. Surveying corpus data consisting of articles from Korean women’s magazines from 1970 to 2015, Oh and Son (Reference Oh and Son2024: 428) report a “gradual and rapid increase in the usage of loanwords over time.” Even though their investigation included words from other (European) languages (they mention, for example, French and German), this seems to predominantly refer to English-origin items. Similarly, Heekyung Choi (Reference Choi2021) found an increase in the use of English loanwords when comparing news magazine article datasets from 1991/1992 to 2011/2012.

The tripartite make-up of the Korean vocabulary also allows for the existence of lexical doublets or triplets, namely, two or three words of different origin which refer to the same semantic concept (see Table 1 for some examples).

When a Korean term already exists, the borrowing of a synonymous English loanword can influence the meaning of the Korean counterpart. In this case, the Korean lexical item can be replaced by the loanword, exist in equal distribution with the English loanword, become narrower in meaning, or its meaning can be restricted to only objects or concepts of traditional Korean design and origin (Tyson, Reference Tyson1993: 33). As an example for replacement of a Korean item by an English loanword, Tyson (Reference Tyson1993: 33) mentions 카펫 (kapet, ‘carpet’), which replaced the synonymous Korean term 양탄자 (yangtanja, ‘carpet’).

English loanwords and Korean items which exist in equal distribution are words which have “almost exactly the same meaning” and both words sound “no more or less appropriate to most Korean speakers” (Tyson, Reference Tyson1993: 33), as in the case of 장화 (janghwa, ‘boots’) and the English loanword 부츠 (bucheu, ‘boots’). Instead of existing synonymously, the Korean term can also become restricted in meaning. This can be illustrated with 전산기 (jeonsangi, ‘computing machine, calculating machine’), which used to refer to every kind of computing machine but became narrower in meaning when the English loanword 컴퓨터 (keompyuteo, ‘computer’) was introduced. Nowadays, 전산기 (jeonsangi) usually refers to a calculator specifically. Frequently, the Korean term refers to concepts or objects which are considered traditionally Korean whereas the English loanword is used to refer to the westernized counterpart. The Korean term 여관 (yeogwan), for example, refers to Korean-style hotels whereas the English loanword 호텔 (hotel) designates (originally) Western-style lodging.

There are also cases where lexical doublets exist because a Korean word is introduced to accompany or replace an English loanword that was originally borrowed to fill a lexical gap. This is usually related to efforts to ‘purify’ the Korean language. Eun-Yong Kim (Reference Kim2022), for instance, reports on the efforts of the Language Purification Committee (말다듬기 위원회, maldadeumgi wiwonhoe), which proposes and promotes ‘replacement words’ for popular foreign terms in South Korea. For example, 플리마켓 (peullimaket, ‘flea market’) is to be replaced with 벼룩 시장 (byeoruk sijang) and 골든타임 (goldeuntaim, ‘golden time’)Footnote ²³ with 황금 시간 (hwanggeum sigan) (examples from Kim, E.-Y., Reference Kim2022). However, drawing on large-scale diachronic corpora of Korean, Eun-Yong Kim (Reference Kim2022: 141) found that these artificially introduced replacement words are not successful in replacing the English loanwords, which shows that matters of language codification ultimately go beyond institutional efforts and are in need of acceptance by the people who use the language (Baratta, Reference Baratta2021).

Generally, loanwords from English (and any other language) must conform to Korean syllable construction and pronunciation rules. This often results in vowel epenthesis at the end of syllables (Cho & Park, Reference Cho and Park2006: 241), as, for example, found in 스트라이크 (seuteuraikeu, ‘strike’), where the consonant cluster [st] that cannot be realized in Korean is resolved by inserting the epenthetic vowel [ɨ] (ᅳ) after [s] (ᄉ) and before [t] (ᄐ) (and the same happens again to resolve [tr]). Other adaptive processes include the splitting of English diphthongs [aɪ], [aʊ], and [ɔɪ] into two syllables (Nam & Southard, Reference Nam and Southard1994: 267) (also observable in seuteuraikeu, ‘strike’) and the replacement of consonant sounds which are absent in Korean phonology, such as the dental fricatives [ð] and [θ], the labiodental fricatives [v] and [f], and the alveolar fricative [z], by the “corresponding stop or [plain or glottalized] fricative sounds” (Sohn, Reference Sohn1999: 117). Some examples for the replacement of fricatives in loanwords from English in Korean can be found in 소파 (sopa, ‘sofa’), 퀴즈 (kwijeu, ‘quiz’), and 바이올린 (baiollin, ‘violin’). These changes in pronunciation present a contrast to the original English and make the words easily recognizable as ‘Koreanized.’

Additionally, English loanwords in Korean can be categorized based on the amount of semantic and morphological change involved in their adaptation (see, e.g., Kent, Reference Kent1999; Kim, Reference Kim2012).Footnote ²⁴ This can range from no change (beyond the adaptation of spelling and pronunciation outlined previously), also known as direct loans, to changes such as semantic shift, creative compounding, mixed-code combinations, and clipping (see Kim, Reference Kim2012). An overview of the different loanword types plus examples can be found in the following list. While the list only presents rather clear-cut cases, there are also possibilities for some categories to combine or overlap. For example, the Korean word 아파트 (apateu, lit. ‘apart’) illustrates a combination of clipping (apartment > apart) and semantic shift (English: ‘apartment/flat’; Korean: ‘a complete apartment building’).

1. (a) direct

   • 오렌지 (orenji; from English orange [fruit])

   • 이메일 (imeil; from English email)

   • 와인 (wain; from English wine)

2. (b) semantic shift

   • 탤런트 (taelleonteu; from English talent = ‘celebrity’)

   • 빌라 (billa; from English villa = ‘apartment unit’)

   • 스탠드 (seutaendeu; from English stand = ‘lamp’)

3. (c) creative compounding

   • 아이 쇼핑 (ai syoping; from English eye shopping = ‘window shopping’)

   • 백미러 (baekmireo; from English back mirror = ‘rearview mirror’)

4. (d) mixed-code combinations

   • 안전 벨트 (anjeon belteu; Korean word for ‘safety’ + English belt = ‘safety belt’)

   • 감자 칩 (gamja chip; Korean word for ‘potato’ + English chip = ‘potato chip’)

5. (e) clipping

   • 셀카 (selka; clipping of English self-camera to sel-ka = ‘selfie’)

   • 매스 컴 (maeseu keom; clipping of English mass communication to mass com = ‘media’)

Regarding semantic change, Tyson (Reference Tyson1993: 32) observed three possible processes for English loanwords in Korea: Semantic narrowing (also known as restriction), semantic widening (also known as extension), and semantic transfer (also known as semantic shift). Semantic narrowing can, for example, be found in the lexical item 미팅 (miting, ‘meeting’) (this and all following examples from Tyson, Reference Tyson1993: 32). Whereas the OED defines meeting as the general “act or an instance of assembling or coming together for social, business, or other purposes; the action of encountering a person or persons” (OED, n.d. ‘meeting’), the English loanword in Korean denotes a ‘blind date’ (so a specific type of coming together only) and has therefore been restricted in meaning. Semantic widening refers to the opposite process. The English term service, when used as the loanword 서비스 (seobiseu, lit. ‘service’), acquires the extended meaning of “anything offered free of charge” (Tyson, Reference Tyson1993: 32). Semantic transfer often results in a meaning which is still related to the original lexical field. While 매니큐어 (maenikyueo, lit. ‘manicure’), for example, refers to fingernail polish and not to the “cosmetic treatment and care of the hands and fingernails; an instance of such treatment, esp. by a manicurist; the state of the hands and fingernails resulting from this treatment” (OED, n.d. ‘manicure’), we can easily file both meanings into the same semantic field.

The loanwords which draw on semantic creativity (i.e., those involving semantic shift and/or creative compounding) are not only the ones usually picked up on in the press and lay discoursesFootnote ²⁵ but can also be considered most interesting for World Englishes researchers as they illustrate processes of linguistic adaptation and agency. A few additional, well-known, examples are:

• - 커닝 (keoning, lit. ‘cunning,’ ‘cheating (in a test)’)

• - 핸드폰 (haendeupon, lit. ‘handphone,’ ‘mobile phone’)

• - 원샷 (wonsyat, lit. ‘one shot,’ ‘bottom’s up!’)

• - 노트 (noteu, lit. ‘note,’ ‘notebook’)

• - 화이트 (hwaiteu, lit. ‘white,’ ‘correction fluid’)

In some cases, these items have been derogatively designated as ‘pseudo-loanwords’ (Kent, Reference Kent1999) or even ‘misused’ English words (Ahn, 2000; cited in Duffy, Reference Duffy2003: 36). However, they play an important role for the expression of cultural identity and speakers’ linguistic agency, and, according to Lee (Reference Lee1986: 198), they “deliver the Korean feeling and carry the weight of Korean experience with an altered form and meaning to suit to new Korean surroundings.” Another word that is at times used for these specific lexical items is Konglish (see Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2018: 188), and it is this term that we will turn to next.

What About Konglish?

The term Konglish (a blend of the words Korean and English), as also introduced at the beginning of this Element, has been used with various meanings, one of them (i.e., Korean English loanwords involving semantic change and linguistic creativity) has just been introduced. But what exactly is understood as Konglish differs. Originally, the term seems to implicate a form of code-mixing and forms part of a general pattern to designate ‘language blending’: Japlish stands for Japanese + English, Chinglish for Chinese + English, and Denglish for Deutsch (‘German’) + English. Taking a closer look at the term Chinglish, we can observe it being used with a clearly negative connotation (see Qiang & Wolff, Reference Qiang and Wolff2003). Eaves (Reference Eaves2011) explicitly differentiates between three clearly related but nevertheless distinct terms: Chinese English (a learner variety of English), China English (a new, emerging variety of World Englishes), and Chinglish (the English mistakes in translation or expression found in the Chinese linguistic landscape). Accordingly, Schneider (Reference Schneider2014: 19) reports a division introduced by Chinese scholars between China English, which is largely evaluated positively and accepted, and Chinglish (or Chinese English) which “refer[s] to an interlanguage, often with pejorative connotations.” This is also reflected by Henry (Reference Henry2010) who believes that Chinglish, “a perceived incorrect or deformed version of Standard English” (669), is a “particular metadiscursive construction rather than a clearly defined linguistic variant” (686).

For the South Korean context, a similar plethora of terms exists, among them Konglish, Korean English, Koreanized English, and English in Korea. In particular Konglish is used throughout the literature with various meanings, which we want to unravel in the following.

1. (1) Konglish as Koreanized English Variety

   Some scholars use Konglish to refer to a Koreanized variety of English. Jamie Shinhee Lee (Reference Lee2014: 35), for example, describes Konglish as “‘Korean-style’ English” and Sangsup Lee (Reference Lee1989: 36) asserts that Konglish stands for Korean English which shows substrate language influence from Korean.

2. (2) Konglish as Learner English

   Other scholars use Konglish to refer to a learner variety of English as used by Korean speakers (see, e.g., Honna, Reference Honna, Kachru, Kachru and Nelson2006: 124, who states that Konglish is “a coinage that refers to patterns of English Korean students tend to employ”). Emphasis here lies on the ‘learner aspect’ and the subsequent classification of nonstandard forms as errors.

3. (3) Konglish as Mixture of Substrate Language Influence and Interlanguage Effects

   Park (Reference Park2010: 200–201) concedes that there is no exact definition of Konglish and states that it “is generally assumed to refer to the ‘broken’ English that arises from interference from Korean and a superficial training in English.” In other words, Konglish is seen as the result of the substrate language influence of Korean and learners’ mistakes. Lawrence (Reference Lawrence2012) takes a similar position in seeing a relation of Konglish to interlanguage effects as well as substrate language influence. He supports the notion that it is difficult to define but adds that it is “a spoken, not codified, language” which is “often defined via vocabulary, sometimes via grammar, sometimes via pronunciation, and sometimes simply classed as ‘bad English’” (Lawrence, Reference Lawrence2012: 72).

4. (4) Konglish as Lexical Set

   Kent (Reference Kent1999: 198) uses Konglish to refer to the “loan terminology stemming from English, [sic] and European languages” used in South Korea. This is also the usage which we have adopted, with the additional reference to semantic and/or phonetic change.

5. (5) Konglish as a Cultural Practice

   More recently, Park (Reference Park2021: 138) has conceptualized Konglish as a cultural practice, “in which Koreans draw upon whatever resource available to them in making communicative action, and through which Koreans conceptualize their position in the global world.”

In our own writing (including the present manuscript), we use the term Konglish in the sense of (4) (‘Konglish as a Lexical Set’; with particular reference to words which have undergone semantic and/or phonetic change). In contrast, Korean English refers to the variety of English used by South Koreans, that is, subsuming variation on all linguistic levels. This includes lexical variation and could, theoretically, also involve the use of Konglish words. However, as there is no evidence for this so farFootnote ²⁶ we continue to use Konglish as defined in (4).

The differing conceptualization and perception of KonglishFootnote ²⁷ by scholars leaves the question open as to what Korean people themselves understand under the term Konglish, and how they report using it. To this end, the first author conducted two small-scale studies based on in-depth interviews (with 14 participants, mainly on definitions of Konglish) and online questionnaires (with 74 participants, mainly on attitudes and on usage).Footnote ²⁸ The attitude results are reported on in Rüdiger (Reference Rüdiger2018), but here we want to draw on the unpublished self-reported usage and interview data. More information, particularly on the questionnaire data, can be found in Rüdiger (Reference Rüdiger2018).

When asked to define Konglish, not surprisingly, all interview participants referred to the fact that Konglish is based on both English and Korean, saying, for example, that it is “Korean and English together” (given by a female English education student) or a “combined language like with English and Korean” (as uttered by a female student of French literature and psychology). For most of the participants (i.e., 9 out of 14), Konglish operated exclusively on the lexical level, echoing our application of the term. More specifically, they explained that Konglish refers to English words that are used when speaking Korean and which have undergone semantic change. Three participants additionally mentioned pronunciation as a relevant factor in Konglish (i.e., the fact that Korean syllable structure and other pronunciation rules need to be followed when borrowing words from English; see the beginning of this section). Two participants mentioned that Konglish also works on other linguistic levels besides lexis (such as pragmatics). While arguably a small sample, it seems as if Korean speakers themselves do conceptualize Konglish primarily as relating to lexical resources, specifically English loanwords which have undergone mainly semantic (but also phonological) changes to adapt to the Korean linguistic and cultural system. Meaning (4) and (5) from the list (‘Konglish as a Lexical Set’ and ‘Konglish as Cultural Practice’) thus seem to be most relevant to the speakers themselves.

The questionnaire which was subsequently administered (to a different subject group) therefore specifically focused on Konglish as a lexical resource. Among other questions, participants were prompted to state whether they would use Konglish words when speaking to their grandparents, their parents, and teachers or professors. The questionnaire allowed only three options as answers (“yes,” “no,” and “don’t know”), but participants also had the possibility to leave an optional comment (which was used by around half of the respondents). An overview of the responses can be found in Table 2.

While self-reported data potentially tells us more about what participants think they do, rather than what they actually do, this allowed for the elicitation of interesting meta-linguistic statements, revealing participants’ ideas and conceptualizations of Konglish.

Conclusion

English loanwords not only testify to processes of Anglicization in the Korean setting, but they also demonstrate Korean speakers’ agency and creativity, in particular when semantic shift is concerned. While these loanwords are met with ‘mixed feelings’ (see Rüdiger, Reference Rüdiger2018), they are also valued for their Koreanness and for forming part of a cultural practice (see Park, Reference Park2021, on Konglish as a cultural practice). As for the often pejoratively used term Konglish, it turns out that for the Koreans surveyed in this section, this refers to a lexical set of Koreanized English words, which are not necessarily seen negatively. They are mainly reported as being used independently of status of interlocutor, rather depending on the formality of the situation and the individual’s preferences. In true transnational fashion, Konglish words can also be re-borrowed into and used in English, and in fact, this has happened with several terms (even on an institutionalized level involving the Oxford English Dictionary) – we will come to this in the next section along with other Korean lexical phenomena in English.

Introduction

In this section, we turn to the other side of the coin of Korean–English language contact, namely, the influence which Korean has had on the use of English worldwide. This contrasts with the previous section which looked at English loanwords used in Korean, as we now consider the use of Korean words by English speakers around the globe. Facilitated by the extreme success of Korean pop culture products (known as hallyu the ‘Korean Wave’, cf., e.g., Marinescu, Reference Marinescu2014; Lee & Nornes, Reference Lee and Nornes2015; Jin, Yoon & Min, Reference Jin, Yoon and Min2021; see also Section 5), the Korean language has left significant lexical traces on English. This is for example attested by the inclusion of numerous Korean loanwords in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which in 2021 added twenty-six new words of Korean origin (Salazar, Reference Salazarn.d.). Notably, these words go beyond food items and physical cultural artefacts and also include, for example, terms of address (e.g., oppa, noona) and discourse markers and interjections (e.g., daebak, fighting). In this section, we use two corpora, namely, the Global Web-based English Corpus (GloWbE) and the News on the Web Corpus (NOW), to investigate the spread of Korean vocabulary in Inner and Outer Circle Englishes. In addition, we present a study on the use of the K-prefix, which is most famously found in K-pop but which has become very productive. Drawing on NOW, we show that this item not only evokes the success of K-pop but has become an iconic means for creating references to the Korean context.

Korean Words and the Oxford English Dictionary

Using the advanced search function of the OED returns forty-one entries with ‘Korean’ as language of origin. The announcement on the OED blog (Salazar, Reference Salazarn.d.) lists an additional six items which are not returned with the search function, four of which are realistically to be classified as words related to Korea and Korean phenomena, but not necessarily as Korean loanwords (i.e., the prefix K-, K-drama, Konglish, and Korean wave, which we do not include here; the K-prefix is treated in detail in the last part of this section). Table 3 lists all of the forty-three Korean loanwords which can be found in the OED, thematically subcategorized into ‘food and drink’ (fourteen items; note that Kiaer, Reference Kiaer2021, only listed five items in this category), ‘address terms’ (three items), ‘sports’ (three items), ‘literature, music, and pop culture’ (six items), and ‘other’ (seventeen items). While we focus in this section on their status as loanwords into English (as given in the OED), they can be found used in other languages too (for instance, Kimchi is also an entry in the German Duden; cf. Duden, Reference Dudenn.d. ‘Kimchi’). Note that the OED does not limit the usage of the loanwords to a specific variety of English. This means they are considered part of a general English ‘word stock’ and not restricted to a specific variety – such as American English or Australian English, or indeed Korean English, a variety of English where these items are, of course, also used.

The first years of attestation in the OED show that the adoption of Korean loanwords into English is by no means a recent phenomenon – with the oldest item (ri, a unit of length) attested as early as 1817. Taking a closer look at the four example attestations for kimchi in the OED, we see that while earlier examples typographically marked kimchi as a foreign word by enclosing it in single quotation marks (see [a]) or setting it in italics (see [b]) and explaining its meaning in the text (“a peculiar kind of pickle resembling sauer kraut” in [a] and “an unbelievably ‘hot’ pickle” in [b]), this is not the case for the latter attestations given in (c) and (d).

1. (a) There is a peculiar kind of pickle resembling sauer kraut which goes by the name of ‘kimchi’.

   1888, Gospel in All Lands August 366/2

2. (b) A unique part of the diet and important for its vitamin content is kimchi, an unbelievably ‘hot’ pickle.

   1966, S. McCune, Korea iv. 33

3. (c) Signature dishes: pork and kimchi pancake.

   2014, 48 Hours 27 February 59/3

4. (d) Recently receiving some homemade kimchi from a friend, I knew what I wanted to do with it … It may not sound right, but a gooey grilled cheese is the perfect pairing for spicy, garlicky kimchi.

   2019, Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner 25 September b3/1

   (all examples from OED, n.d. ‘kimchi’; bold emphasis added)

We also want to briefly point to five vocabulary items from Table 3 that are particularly relevant in illustrating Korean–English language contact and the mutual influences between the two languages: chimaek, PC bang, fighting, trot, and skinship. All five items include English-language elements (with fighting, trot, and skinship classifiable as Konglish words, as they are originally English loanwords into Korean which have undergone semantic change):

• chimaek is a blend of English chicken and Korean 맥주, maekju (‘beer’) and refers to a popular meal consisting of fried chicken served with beer (note that the English loanword 치킨, chikin ‘chicken’ in Korea means ‘fried chicken’)

• PC bang is a compound of English PC and Korean 방, bang (‘room’) and designates a kind of internet café (often used for playing video games)

• fighting is originally an English word which was borrowed into Korean (화이팅; hwaiting),Footnote ³² which was subsequently reborrowed (with changed grammatical status and meaning) back into English as an interjection “expressing encouragement, incitement, or support” (OED, n.d. ‘fighting’)

• trot is a clipping of the English word foxtrot and refers to a specifically Korean genre of music (influenced by American, European, and Japanese popular music styles; cf. OED, n.d. ‘trot’)

• skinship is a blend of the words skin and kinship; the OED defines it as “touching or close physical contact between parent and child or (esp. in later use) between lovers or friends, used to express affection or strengthen an emotional bond” (OED, n.d. ‘skinship’).Footnote ³³

In the following, we want to go beyond dictionary evidence and investigate the spread of Korean words in two English-language corpora: The Global Web-based English Corpus and the News on the Web Corpus.

Korean Words in Inner and Outer Circle Englishes

The Global Web-based English Corpus (GloWbE) consists of 1.9 billion words of (largely informal) online material, such as websites and blogs published in twenty English-language speaking countries (GloWbE, Reference GloWbEn.d.). This includes the six Inner Circle contexts (i.e., United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand) and fourteen Outer Circle contexts (i.e., India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Jamaica). More information on the corpus can be found in Davies and Fuchs (Reference Davies and Fuchs2015). It should be mentioned here that the corpus data were collected at the end of 2012 and thus can only give us a glimpse at how Korean words were employed by internet users in the 2000s and very early 2010s. While some Korean pop culture products were already popular by then, this remained a somewhat niche interest, with the Korean Wave gaining much more ground in the late 2010s (consider, for example, that the immensely popular song Gangnam Style by artist Psy was released in October 2012; the Korean boyband sensation BTS debuted in 2013; see also Section 5 on the spread of Korean pop culture around the world). We therefore supplement the GloWbE data with the News on the Web Corpus (NOW; cf. NOW, n.d.), which has the disadvantage of covering a different genre (online news reports) but as a monitor corpus provides up-to-date information (in our case from 2010 to mid-April 2024, which was the time when we conducted our corpus searches). In addition, while a form of institutionalized discourse, it is interesting to survey the use of Korean words in English-language media as these texts can be considered multipliers for the use of specific lexical items. NOW also provides the same regional distinctions as the GloWbE corpus, and thus makes it ideal as a further point of reference for our study. At the time of conducting the corpus queries, NOW was 18.9 billion words in size. As we will illustrate, differences in the results from GloWbE and NOW can potentially be related to the timeframe and genres covered by each corpus – with, for instance, news media picking up on different aspects and topics than blogs and websites.

We consider here most of the items which were added in the 2021 K-update to the OED: aegyo, banchan, bulgogi, chimaek, daebak, dongchimi, galbi, hallyu, hanbok, japchae, kimbap, manhwa, mukbang, noona, oppa, PC bang, samgyeopsal, skinship, and Tang Soo Do. We excluded fighting and trot due to the necessity to manually disambiguate them from their other meanings, which, combined with their high frequency (fighting in GloWbE n = 116,371, in NOW n = 1,283,074; trot in GloWbE n = 3,157, in NOW n = 26,520), was not feasible for our purposes. Unni had to be excluded as it overlapped largely with its use as a (non-Korean) first name. The K-prefix is investigated in detail in the next part of this section. We did not take spelling variation into account (e.g., kimbap vs. kimbab, mukbang vs. meokbang, galbi vs. kalbi) but searched for the spelling given in the OED only. Additional lemmas and compounded forms were searched for using wildcards (e.g., aegyo*). All wildcard search results were manually disambiguated to exclude false hits. Proper names that included the search term and had a relationship to Korea were retained (e.g., Hallyumart, which is a business selling K-pop outfits).

For reasons of space, we report the results in two separate tables: Table 4 for GloWbE and Table 5 for NOW. Frequencies are given for the exact word form, with additional lemmas and compounded forms given in a separate column (i.e., lemma and compound form frequencies are not included in the total raw frequency). The top 3 regional users column gives the raw frequency of the lexical item in the respective context, the frequency per million words, and the percentage of all uses in the corpus. The order is determined by the frequency per million words (pmw). In case of equal pmw, the variety with higher raw frequency is listed first (cases of equal pmw and raw frequency are listed jointly).

Nearly all of the 2021 Korean loanword additions to the OED that were searched for in GloWbE were found, with the exception of chimaek and mukbang. The main users according to GloWbE are located in Asia, with Singapore and the Philippines usually found in the top 3. Hong Kong and Malaysia also play important roles, but there are also other contexts which feature in the top 3s, such as the USA (for aegyo and Tang Soo Do) and South Africa (for galbi). Other top 3 regional users are located, for instance, in Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, India, and Nigeria, but this is mainly the case for low frequency items (e.g., dongchimi, a kind of radish kimchi, with a total frequency of three). The item with the highest frequency (n = 772) is the address term oppa (which traditionally is used by younger women to address male interactants who are older than themselves but as a Korean loanword in English also has the meaning of “[a]n attractive South Korean man, esp. a famous or popular actor or singer”; OED, n.d. ‘oppa’; cf. also Section 5).

As the last column shows, even in the older GloWbE data, some of the Korean items were used following English morphological rules, showing integration into the matrix language. This can be seen in the pluralization of nouns by adding the suffix -s, as found, for example, in banchans, noonas, oppas, manhwas, hanboks, and PC bangs. Agyeos is a particularly interesting case as it first undergoes conversion (from adjective to verb) to be then fitted with a third person present tense indicative suffix -s (see [1] and [2]). All three of these cases stem from the Singapore component (from two different web addresses) and seem to be thematically related to Korean dramas.

1. (1) Soo Yeon aegyos him and puts her head on his shoulder. (GloWbE, Singapore: General)Footnote ³⁴

2. (2) She’s more disappointed in Tae-joon than Hanna who aegyos, Don’t be so hard on Oppa! (GloWbE, Singapore: General)

In a few cases, we find Korean morphological marking used on the loanword, for example, -deul, the Korean plural marker, on oppadeul (see [3] where this refers to the members of a K-pop boyband), -neun, the Korean topic marker on oppaneun (see [4] where this is part of a lengthy explanation of the Korean lyrics in Psy’s hit song Gangnam Style), and -nim, a Korean honorific suffix (roughly translatable as ‘Mr./Mrs./Ms.’) on oppanim (for an overview of the Korean morphological system and general information on Korean language structures, see Yeon & Brown, Reference Yeon and Brown2011).

1. (3) I’m speechless Ya! why they were / are very very unfair with oppadeul??? (GloWbE, Malaysia: General)

2. (4) In Korean colloquialism, “??????? (Oppan Gangnam style)” may be translated as “I love the Gangnam style” or literally translated as “Your big brother is Gangnam Style”. The Korean word?? (oppa) means “a female’s elder brother” but can be also used as a first-, second- or third-person masculine pronoun to designate a male who is elder or older than a female. Based on more recent cultural norms, the term has typically been used to refer to a boyfriend or male spouse. It is used as a first-person pronoun in this phrase.?? (oppan) is an abbreviation of??? (oppaneun).? is a topic marker, which in this case means the implied subject of the sentence is the singer (??). The verb “to be” is omitted, as is often the case in such short Korean sentences. Thus the literal translation of “Oppan Gangnam style” is “Your big brother is Gangnam Style”. (GloWbE, Malaysia: Blog)Footnote ³⁵

Example (4) is an interesting example of a meta-linguistic discussion of Korean language lyrics (presumably written by a non-Korean), and appeared on the blog section of a plastic surgery clinic in Malaysia (which also discussed the singer’s look and hypothesized on previous plastic surgery procedures). Likewise, Locher (Reference Locher2020) found meta-comments in her work on fan-subtitling of Korean dramas (also known as K-drama). Regarding relational work encoded in the Korean language, specifically address terms, the fan translators commonly subtitle in a way that “retains a Korean flavor [i.e., transliterating the original Korean word(s) and adding a short explanation in brackets] and over time, the audience is able to pick up some of the more common address terms” (Locher, Reference Locher2020: 151). Khedun-Burgoine (Reference Khedun-Burgoine2022: 278) showed that “the use of Korean words played an important role in the construction of fan identities” in K-pop fan communities (although also problematized by some community members as cultural appropriation). These specific communities of practice related to Korean pop culture (as demonstrated by Locher’s work on K-drama and Khedun-Burgoine’s work on K-pop) thus seem to contribute to the spread of Korean vocabulary items in English settings, particularly in the digital sphere. This demonstrates how language change can be initiated by small, purpose-driven communities, eventually reaching dimensions of use that are picked up by others and documented by institutions such as the Oxford English Dictionary.

Some of the items productively combine with other free and bound morphemes, often (but not always) in hyphenated form. For aegyo, for example, this includes free morpheme plus free morpheme compounds such as aegyo-free, aegyo-light, aegyo-filled, and free morpheme plus bound morpheme derivations such as aegyo-tastic, aegyo-ish, aegyo-fied, and aegyo-y; see (5) and (6) for two examples in context.

1. (5) There’s also a good amount of aegyo-filled solo shots, which don’t completely feel out of place but are definitely dispensable (GloWbE, United States: Blog)

2. (6) Sunny is not that pleasant. not that ‘aegyo-ish’ too in real life. (GloWbE, Malaysia: Blog)

Other additional lemmas seem to be typical of computer-mediated discourse generally (see e.g., Darics, Reference Darics2013), such as reduplication (e.g., oppaoppa) or letter repetition (e.g., daebakkk, oppaaaaaa). Altogether, the frequency numbers and the morphological productivity of the Korean loanwords in GloWbE suggest that these terms were already part of the lexical repertoire of specific internet spaces (often but not exclusively related to Korea-themed fandoms) at the time the corpus was collected (pre-2012).

Now, we turn to a survey of the use of the same lexical items in NOW, a monitor corpus of online news. The geographical contexts covered are the same as in GloWbE; however, the data is up-to-date (to the day before the corpus searches were conducted; i.e., several days in mid-April 2024). Additionally, the material in NOW stems from online newspapers, a more institutionalized form of writing than many of the blogs and websites covered in GloWbE (it should be noted, however, that NOW data also includes material from the comment sections underneath the online news reports).

In NOW, all items were retrievable (see Table 5), including chimaek and mukbang which were absent from GloWbE (see Table 4). This indicates that all items have made it to mainstream usage, in the sense that online news outlets report on them, using the respective Korean terminology. This may be followed by an explanation (and sometimes set apart as a foreign term using single or double quotation marks or italic formatting) (as in [7] from the Bangalore Mirror), or the terms might be used as in example (8) from the Los Angeles Times, without any further marking or explanation.

1. (7) Popular livestreaming platforms Douyin and Kuaishou said they would shut down accounts of people who gorge themselves on excessive levels of food, sometimes until they vomit – a viral video practice known as “mukbang” (NOW, 20-08-13 IN)

2. (8) If you spend any time on TikTok, you’re familiar with the Korean corn dog – it’s a mukbang favorite. Like its American counterpart, the hot dogs are coated in batter and fried on a stick. (NOW, 20-12-29 US)

In some cases, the whole article may be dedicated to a Korean phenomenon, such as a 2020 New York Times article on Korean side dishes titled “A Spread Worthy of Royalty” which led with “Banchan, the small dishes that often accompany a Korean meal, should be treasured in their own right” (Kim, Reference Kim2020). These thematically dedicated articles often lead to a high frequency of Korean loanwords within a single article, as evidenced in excerpt (9), taken from the New York Times article on banchan.

1. (9) The key is in planning ahead. Banchan-style home cooking is cumulative, which is to say, you might make one or two dishes at a time and keep leftovers in the fridge. The point is that you’re amassing a store of banchan so that, come dinnertime, all that’s left to do is steam the rice and take out your stash. Some banchan can be eaten as soon as you make them. But others are meant to be eaten later, stemming from historic methods of preservation. On the Korean Peninsula, food often had to be preserved, especially with salt, to last through the long, grueling winters. That’s why fermentation is central to many banchan, like kimchi, pickles and jeotgal, or salted seafood (NOW, 20-09-28 US; emphasis added)

Besides three instances of banchan, this short excerpt also includes one instance of a compound (banchan-style), and two other food words from Korean: kimchi (also found in the OED) and jeotgal (not found in the OED). While the former (kimchi) is apparently assumed to be familiar to the reader and is not further explained (corresponding to its status of inclusion in the OED), the latter (jeotgal) is followed by a short explanation (“salted seafood”).

While we found 54 lemma types (for 17-word forms) in GloWbE, this number was much higher for the NOW data, where 96 lemma types were identified (for 19-word forms). Surveying the top 3 lists of each table (and Figures 2 and 3 that include all uses, not just the top 3), we can also see that a larger range of regional contexts are represented in NOW (e.g., Ghana, which did not feature in the top 3s of GloWbE) and while Asian countries (mainly Singapore and the Philippines) still predominate the lists, other contexts can be found much more often too. This can of course be related to matters of differences in corpus (and subcorpus) size and corpus design, but it is also an important indicator that discourses featuring Korean loanwords have become more widespread and are also frequently picked up by the media.

Figure 2 Frequency per million words for aegyo|banchan|bulgogi|chimaek|daebak|dongchimi|galbi|hallyu|hanbok| japchae|kimbap|manhwa|mukbang|noona|oppa|samgyeopsal|skinship in GloWbE by country.

Figure 3 Frequency per million words for aegyo|banchan|bulgogi|chimaek|daebak|dongchimi|galbi|hallyu|hanbok| japchae|kimbap|manhwa|mukbang|noona|oppa|samgyeopsal|skinship in NOW by country.

Finally, due to the status of NOW as a monitor corpus, we can trace the use of Korean loanwords in the corpus over time. Figure 4 shows this development for our words of interest from 2010 (the earliest year available) to 2023 (the last full year for which data was available at the time of conducting the corpus queries).Footnote ³⁶

Figure 4 Frequency per million words for aegyo|banchan|bulgogi|chimaek|daebak|dongchimi|galbi|hallyu|hanbok| japchae|kimbap|manhwa|mukbang|noona|oppa|samgyeopsal|skinship in NOW by year.

In general, we can observe an upward trend for the usage frequency of Korean loanwords in English online news article discourse, which corresponds with their codification in the OED and attests to the words’ acceptance by actual language users and the still growing popularity of Korean culture in the Anglophone sphere. References to Korean culture can be conveniently expressed via the prefix K-, which we turn to next.

The K-prefix

The K-prefix constitutes a shortening of Korea(n) and is found attached to nouns to designate a relationship “to South Korea and its (popular) culture” (OED, n.d. ‘K-combining form’). The OED added the prefix in its 2021-update, which included many of the Korean loanwords given at the beginning of this section in Table 3. The OED lists two resulting forms, K-pop and K-drama, noting that the former is the one recorded earlier. The example attestations in the OED (earliest from 1999), however, already hint at the productivity of the prefix as we find that they contain (in addition to K-pop and K-drama) the forms K-wave, K-food, K-beauty, K-culture, and K-style. Khedun-Burgoine and Kiaer (Reference Khedun-Burgoine and Kiaer2023) have recently reported on the spread of Korean culture, with the K-prefix representing to many an instantly recognizable shorthand for Korean cultural products of many kinds. Note that the prefix is variably written with an upper or lowercase letter (maintaining the original spelling of Korea(n) or disregarding it), an interesting variation, which is beyond our interest here though (our searches included both upper and lowercase spelling and do not differentiate between the two; all instances given here are spelled with an uppercase <K>).

Searching for K-prefixed items in NOW returns 233,486 tokens and 4,107 types. This of course subsumes numerous items which begin with k-/K- but are unrelated to the Korean context (e.g., K-12 [from kindergarten to grade 12] n = 43,498; K-9 [reference to police dogs; cf. canine] n = 14,891). We therefore manually examined up to the first twenty concordance lines of each K-prefixed word that occurred more than twenty times in NOW to determine whether the word was an item of interest (with the K-standing in for Korea or Korean) or not.Footnote ³⁷ For instance, while K-Stew (n = 208) could conceivably index a Korean food item, this is instead a reference to the US-American actress Kristen Stewart. Of the 370 types with a frequency of at least 20, 54 types thus remained, which we sorted into Table 6 (all numbers from mid-April 2024).

In addition to the items listed in Table 6, which were predominantly relatable to our target K-prefix, a number of other words showed a range of alternative uses alongside clear usages of the target prefix, attesting to the multiple semantic resolutions of K-, which can also stand, for example, for Kasikorn in K-Bank (a Thai bank) or for Kakatiya in K-hub (which references the Kakatiya University Entrepreneurship, Incubation and Career Hubs). These items further subsume, for example, K-series (which can refer to Korean TV series or a Honda car series), K-love (which references either a TV series related to Korea from the Philippines or a US-American Christian radio station), and K-dog (which can refer to a Korean-style hot dog but also has various other uses as a nickname for people and animals). The full list of these items with multiple semantic resolution is: K-series (n = 1,365), K-love (n = 230), K-star (n = 191), K-style (n = 101), K-factor (n = 99), K-sports (n = 98), K-band (n = 83), K-startup (n = 79), K-team (n = 52), K-plus (n = 39), K-pub (n = 33), K-girls (n = 31), K-stars (n = 29), K-group (n = 28), K-dog (n = 25), K-hub (n = 24), K-serials (n = 24), K-community (n = 23), K-bank (n = 21), and K-glass (n = 21).

As Table 6 and this list demonstrate, many K-words can be related to phenomena of Korean pop culture, among them the items with the highest frequencies of use, namely, K-pop and K-drama/s, but also lower frequency items such as K-music, K-entertainment, K-actor, and K-romance. We also find K- used to index the inherent Korean-ness of events (such as K-con, K-Global, or K-Festa), companies (e.g., K-Water), and food items (K-dog, K-bbq, K-food). This also extends to the branding of more abstract concepts or procedures, such as the Korean form of quarantining during the Covid-19 pandemic, see (10).

1. (10) The South Korean economy was one of the least affected by the pandemic. The government was so proud of its success in fighting infections that it coined a name for it: K-Quarantine. (NOW, 21-07-28 US)

In some cases, K-terms can be found clustered together in very close proximity. This is demonstrated in examples (11) and (12) and can evoke negative connotations of ‘flooding’ or ‘excess’ (see, e.g. [12]), where the text continues to describe these phenomena as “a global popular-culture invasion” by South Korea.

1. (11) And it’s not only K-beauty but K-food, K-pop, K-drama have also gained traction in India. (NOW, 24-01-05 NG)

2. (12) Whether it’s K-pop, K-dramas, K-movies, K-beauty, K-games, or K-reality, they’re part of a global popular-culture invasion by a South Korea that is about one third larger than Tasmania but with 100 times the Apple Isle’s population density. (NOW, 23-03-31 AU)

This clustering seems to facilitate creative uses of the K-prefix, as done in example (13) from a 2024 article in the Indian newspaper The Economic Times, which not only uses the well-known and OED-listed K-pop and K-dramas but also K-colleges, K-noodles, and K-ool, a creative (but maybe somewhat strenuous) play on the word cool.

1. (13) K-colleges may well be the latest addition to the list of K-ool things comprising K-pop, K-dramas and K-noodles, with Indian students increasingly considering South Korea for higher education, according to consultants. (NOW, 24-03-24 IN)

Indeed, looking for collocates (+/-4) of K-pop (as the K-item with the highest frequency in NOW) that also begin with K- returns 1,650 instances in NOW. The eighty-four different K-collocate types include high-frequency items, such as K-pop itself (n = 504), but also lower- and low-frequency items, including K-beau, K-diplomacy, K-language (school), and K-hole (“… delve into the K-pop K-hole”; NOW, 17-11-24 US). A clear reference to K-pop (or the K-prefix in general of course) seems to license the ad hoc coinage of new K-items, as we have also done in this section, for example, in ‘K-collocate’ and ‘K-word.’ The transparency of K-prefixation is aptly demonstrated in example (14), which expands on the use of the prefix (i.e., “things with ‘K’ stuck on them”) and the global Korean Wave.

1. (14) Aware of the growing global popularity of K-content, led by multiple Oscar winner Parasite and Netflix’s global phenomenon Squid Game, Lee says BIFF organisers nevertheless have no thought of leaning into this new and stronger wave of popularity.

   “We are being very careful about [words like] ‘K-culture’ and ‘K-contents’ and things with ‘K’ stuck on them,” says Lee. (NOW, 22-10-04 IE)

Last but not least, as can already be seen in Table 6, at least one K-item has become itself a productive base for further word formation processes: K-pop (see K-pop-inspired in Table 6). Searching for different word forms of K-pop in NOW returns eighty-nine different types. Many of these, among them K-pop-inspired (n = 71), are the result of compounding. Other examples include K-pop-related (n = 28), K-pop-idol-turned-actor (n = 8), K-pop-fandom (n = 2), and K-pop-stanning (n = 1). In addition, K-pop also serves as basis for derivation, as demonstrated by items like K-popper (n = 13), K-pop-esque (n = 5), K-pop-y (n = 3), and K-pop-ish (n = 2). As we can see in examples (15) and (16), it is also occasionally used as a verb or participle, with K-popping occurring five times and K-popped twice in NOW.

1. (15) “Whereas our cheerleaders are sort of K-popped out,” my friend texted me. (NOW, 18-02-08 US)

2. (16) I mean, it’s just dance, dance, dance. They are K-Popping fools. (NOW, 18-02-09 CA)

While not exclusively relatable to the Korean context, the K-prefix has become iconic for its indexing of Korean-ness and has certainly caught on in the branding of products as being from or related to South Korea. The K-branding strategy is not only amply used by companies but also openly embraced by the Korean government, as can be seen, for example, in the governmental K-move campaign, an overseas employment training program for Korean youths (see HRDK, n.d.). This fits in with the Korean government’s endeavors to support the K-pop industry in recognition of the economic potential it holds for the country. As one of the latest instantiations, this involved the announcement that a visa for K-pop fans will be introduced in 2024: The Hallyu or K-culture training visa (Kelleher, Reference Kelleher2024). Word formation with K- has truly become embraced by South Korean actors and beyond; and as former first lady of South Korea Kim Jung-sook stated in a press release: “We feel proud of our Koreanness when we see words with that added ‘K-’” (quoted in Dunbar, Reference Dunbar2023: n.p.).

Conclusion

From kimchi to mukbang, Korean loanwords in English constitute part of the mutual influences between English and Korean in dynamic and thriving contact settings, not only in South Korea and the USA but also across English varieties around the world. Riding to a certain degree on the ‘Korean Wave’ and the global success of Korean pop cultural products, Korean words have made a sustained impact on the English lexicon, as also observed in institutionalized form in the Oxford English Dictionary. In this section, we used the Global Web-based English Corpus (GloWbE) and the News on the Web Corpus (NOW) to reveal usage frequencies and productivity of word-formation patterns related to Korean lexis used in English writing, which in the future could be supplemented with spoken language observations. The K-prefix, in particular, has become a truly transnational phenomenon, clearly indexing Korean-ness in South Korea and throughout the English-speaking sphere – from Singapore and Philippine English to American and British English and beyond. To what extent the K-prefix has made inroads in other languages (such as German, Chinese, or Japanese) remains to be investigated.

Introduction

South Korea’s global appeal currently rests to a large degree on the proliferation of Korean pop culture products around the world. This includes, among others, music, TV shows and movies, fashion, and food. In this section, we take a closer look at the stellar success of Korean culture exports (i.e., the Korean Wave, hallyu) and their relationship to matters of language. K-pop lyrics, as we show in a small corpus-based study, abundantly and creatively draw on both Korean and English as essential linguistic resources for global success. We also discuss the use of language by K-pop fans. In the second part of the section, we turn to the delectable matter of food in (1) general food-themed videos and (2) mukbang (i.e., performances of eating), which has evolved into the global genre of ‘eating shows.’ Our English-language instantiations of mukbang, that is, eating shows, abundantly draw on references to Korean culture and language in order to establish their grounding in the mukbang tradition. This occurs via code-switches (both in the videos themselves and their textual descriptions) but also the consumption of Korean food items and explicit references to Korean culture, society, and alimentary traditions. Korea’s cultural exports thus contribute to the further entanglement of Korean and English.

Hallyu, the Korean Cultural Wave

Korean cultural exports became so popular that they were designated with their own term, hallyu (한류), the Korean Wave (a word by now so firmly entrenched in English that it can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary; see Section 4). The origins of hallyu can be traced to the mid-1990s onwards, when Korean TV dramas and popular music gained popularity in other Asian countries such as China and Japan. From there, fan bases developed beyond Asia, including South America, the Middle East, and Europe (see the contributions in Marinescu, Reference Marinescu2014). Moreover, the dissemination of all things Korean is assured via social media, from YouTube to online chatting (see, e.g., Lee & Nornes, Reference Lee and Nornes2015; Jin, Yoon & Min, Reference Jin, Yoon and Min2021).

While Korean TV dramas and music might well have ignited the spark for an interest in Korean culture, hallyu extends far beyond TV and music at this point in time. Individuals who develop an interest in Korea may not necessarily be initiated into Korean culture via K-pop or TV dramas – their interest may indeed be based on using Korean skincare products, developing a friendship with a Korean student who is studying outside Korea, or rooting for the Korean footballer Son Heung-min, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur. The popularity of Korean food is yet another example of how Korean culture, beyond K-drama, has spread (see the later discussion on food, restaurants, and mukbang). As a final example for the reach of Korean culture we refer to reports on multiple overseas orders placed for the traditional Korean clothing known as hanbok, after BTS singer Jungkook was seen shopping for such an outfit (Gibson, Reference Gibson, Lee and Botto2020).

As a consequence of this widespread cultural interest, hallyu has also contributed to an increase in people learning Korean (see Section 1) as well as an increase in Korea-bound tourism (see Lee & How, Reference Lee and How2021). In fact, according to GoWithGuide (Reference GoWithGuide2024: n.p.), “over 17.5 million visitors arrived in South Korea in 2019, which is 14% higher than the previous year.”Footnote ³⁸ Ultimately, hallyu can be considered to have profound linguistic impact as individuals with an interest in Korea may find themselves becoming more acquainted with the language, seen with the inclusion of Korean words in the OED (see Section 4), or indeed learning the language in preparation for a visit to Korea, or to connect with the global community of K-pop or K-drama fans (see Khedun-Burgoine, Reference Khedun-Burgoine2022; Locher, Reference Locher2020).

Lee (Reference Lee, Chua and Iwabuchi2008: 175) describes hallyu as “a highly complex and multi-layered formation that is composed of real, imagined, and hybrid cultural practices, a diverse range of lived experiences, and sets of powerful discourses which exist at national, translocal, and transnational levels.” This quote captures the scope of hallyu, at once a national phenomenon, yet clearly extending to a global audience. Furthermore, the reference to hybridity in the quote can be seen in how Korean culture has been appropriated by non-Koreans, or perhaps interpreted, as we will exemplify shortly. Nye (Reference Nye2004) discusses soft power, explaining that such “rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others” (4), also referring to it succinctly as “attractive power” (6), which we can apply to the Korean context. Overall, there is clearly an attraction toward Korea for many that accompanies their viewing of Korean dramas, such as the recently acclaimed Squid Game, or following their favorite K-pop singers or, indeed, learning the language for a hoped-for future in Korea. The attraction can further be seen on a more concrete level, involving, for example, the physically attractive leads seen in Korean TV dramas or within the realm of K-pop, which often further contributes to the popularity of these pop culture products around the world. With both Korean and Korean English (as well as other varieties of English; see Lee, Reference Lee2007, Reference Lee2011b) being used, for instance, in K-pop, K-pop (and K-culture) fans around the world then use and change Korean and Korean English, with innovations at times extending beyond the K-pop and K-culture sphere. An example for this can be found in how the Korean word oppa is now used by K-pop fans to refer to an attractive, young male singer, an example of the aforementioned hybridity of hallyu, in which a Korean word has been appropriated by non-Koreans and undergone semantic shift as a result (see Ahn, Reference Ahn2019). The 2021 K-update by the OED (see Section 4) has added oppa to the dictionary, including both the original Korean sense (i.e., “a girl’s or woman’s elder brother. Also as a respectful form of address or term of endearment, and in extended use with reference to an older male friend or boyfriend”) as well as the ‘new’ English sense (i.e., “An attractive South Korean man, esp. a famous or popular actor or singer”) (see OED, n.d. ‘oppa’).

A further means to understand the global proliferation of Korean culture is based on the spread of concrete manifestations of Korean culture per se. For example, the second author lives in Manchester, having arrived in 2002. At that time, there was just one Korean restaurant – Koreana – which opened in 1985, as well as a Korean snack shop. But conducting an internet search for Korean restaurants in Manchester in 2024, nine venues come up (e.g., Koreana, Ban di Bul, and Annyeong). Some might be more fast food oriented or takeaway establishments, but all nonetheless clearly serve Korean food. Moreover, recently the Korean grocery store chain Oseyo opened in Manchester, selling all manner of Korean goods, from green tea to children’s snacks. Oseyo is the largest UK retailer of Korean goods, with the Manchester branch its eleventh store opening in the UK (Pellant, Reference Pellant2023). Even more recently, KSTARS opened in Manchester, selling K-pop merchandise. From the example of this one city alone, we can thus see how, over a twenty-year period, Korean culture – including food, K-pop merchandise, noraebang (karaoke), Korean beauty products, and even Korean classes at the University of Manchester – has become more prominent.

The spread of Korean culinary culture does not only meet the demands for this particular cuisine but also involves Korean culture indirectly. In some places, Korean masks are placed on the restaurant walls and Korean music – traditional and K-pop – is played. Restaurant names themselves also contribute to the spread of culture through language. For example, 안녕 (annyeong), of the eponymous restaurant in Manchester, is an informal way to greet people in Korea. The London-based Korean restaurant Arirang owes its name to a famous Korean folk song (아리랑), with the song popular in both North and South Korea and included as part of Korea’s intangible cultural assets by the South Korean Cultural Heritage Administration. Though these examples might seem negligible to some, in as much as many restaurant patrons may not consider the cultural relevance or significance of the name of the establishment, they nonetheless can act for some as a means to engage with the culture more fully.

We will delve further into the culinary world of Korea shortly, but we hope that the discussion so far has shown that it would be somewhat superficial to rest one’s understanding of hallyu on Korean music and drama alone, though this has mostly been the instigator for the Korean cultural wave as we know it. It is also entirely plausible that someone has a keen passion for Korean culture, which does not extend to Korean pop culture at all but instead rests on classic literature, architecture, and the likes. Recently, Gibson (Reference Gibson, Lee and Botto2020) has discussed how the soft power of Korea has started to involve Korean celebrities’ involvement within diplomatic events and political negotiations, thus putting a literal face on the subject. Gibson cautions Korea, however, as to how it might best apply such instances of its soft power, explaining that “anything South Korean stars do or say—such as waving a Taiwanese flag, supporting Korean claims to islands also claimed by Japan, or even just honoring South Korean and American sacrifices during the Korean War—can turn into foreign policy disputes” (Reference Gibson, Lee and Botto2020: n.p.). This is something for the Korean government, which has started to draw extensively on the power of K-culture for economic gain of the country (see Section 4), to perhaps consider for the foreseeable future. For the remaining section, however, we want to have a closer look at K-pop and K-food (as instantiated by online food displays and mukbang).

Conclusion

To summarize, we have discussed the global influence that Korea enjoys, if not commands, as part of its continuing cultural wave, seen in this section with a focus on K-pop and mukbang in particular. While entanglements of Korean and English language use are essential for both phenomena, this is decidedly more so the case in K-pop, where our study has shown a stellar rise of English use in the last fifteen years. Global eating shows ride the Korean wave by capitalizing on the popularity of mukbang, observable in the format of the genre but again also via linguistic means and cultural references. On an even more tangible level, the awareness of all things Korean is seen with, as one example, the proliferation of Korean goods establishments, such as Oseyo, which also sells Korean utensils and beauty products (e.g., face masks) in addition to many food items, often while K-pop videos and music can be seen and heard on a TV screen. Thus, a discussion of Korean Englishes is arguably incomplete without an inclusion of the ways in which Korean culture has spread globally, and the implications this has for the Korean language also being spread. K-pop, K-fashion, and K-food thus all contribute to the entanglements of Korean and English, further complicating an already complex language contact situation and, as a result, Korean Englishes emerge as a multi-contextual entity which can be realized in multiple ways.