Browsing by Author "Nyman, Iina Alexandra"

More and more words are being borrowed into English, owing to multilingualism, English as a Lingua Franca, and contact between people from different backgrounds (Kiaer, 2018, pp. 20, 25). A recent statement from the Oxford English Dictionary (2021) indicates increased borrowing from Korean to English. This development has been facilitated by the Korean Wave, online communication, and global subcultures (Kiaer, 2018, pp. 25-27). In recent years there has been an increase in academic interest in Korean borrowings (e.g., Ahn, 2021a; Khedun-Burgoine & Kiaer, 2022; You, Kiaer & Ahn, 2020). This study examines Korean borrowings in the context of online news, using frequency data from the News on the Web corpus (Davies, 2016-). The specific borrowings under study are taekwondo, kimchi, hallyu, chaebol, gochujang, soju, bulgogi, bibimbap, hanbok, Juche, oppa, mukbang, banchan, galbi, kimbap, manhwa, noona and hangul. The purpose of the study is to gain insight into what the overall frequency trajectories of the 18 borrowings are like from 2010 to 2021, and what the geographical distribution of the use of taekwondo, kimchi, hallyu, chaebol and gochujang is like in 2010 and 2021. The results show tendencies for overall increase from 2010 to 2021, and higher-frequency periods in 2012-2013 and 2020-2021. The trajectories indicate significant fluctuation in the use of Korean borrowings. Geographically, the highest frequencies occurred in Southeast Asian countries, while African countries had the lowest frequencies. In 2010 the use of Korean borrowings was observed in 1-11 countries. By 2021, the number of countries with perceptible use of the borrowings increased by seven to eleven, depending on the specific borrowing, indicating a significantly wider geographical spread of Korean culture.