English Loanwords in Titles of Korean Songs and Movies

Abstract

English has been widely used in Korea. English expressions have been written in English, but more often English words have been transcribed into Korean as pronounced in English. English words used in Korean songs, singers’ names, and movie titles were analyzed to explore the impact of English on the Korean language. In order to track the changes in usage over time, data in 2008 and 2018 were collected. The results of this study indicate that K-pop, which targets a relatively younger population, has used a comparatively high percentage of English words, while films targeting a wider range of age groups less frequently used them in titles, instead transliterating English expressions into Korean. Titles of Korean films showed a relatively lower percentage of English usage, but foreign film titles, especially American ones, transliterated not only English words but also sentences. The results of this study indicate that English and transliteration have become much more widely used in Korea than they used to be over the past decade.