Linguistic Differences in Headlines: Comparison Between Korean and American Newspapers

Abstract

This study aims to compare the linguistic differences between Korean and American newspaper headlines. To provide a precise comparison between Korean and English headlines, this study analyzed Korean and American newspaper headlines dealing with the same issues. It first collected Korean and English online newspaper headlines from Maeil Business Newspaper (Maeil), News Peppermint (NPP), and New York Times (NYT), and then classified them according to three categories: politics, social and economy, and culture. I have collected 79 headlines under 36 different issues: 15 issues in politics, 16 issues in social and economy, and 5 issues in cultural category. The data has two or three Korean and English headlines for each issue. I have found some interesting linguistic differences and patterns of the language usage between Korean and English headlines: (1) the difference in frequencies of using quotations stands out as being more important in the political category, and (2) the difference in using metaphorical expressions is more remarkable in the social and economic category. Lastly, no significant difference was found in the cultural category.