Orthographic Representation and Resyllabification of English Loan Words in Korean

Abstract

This study examines the orthographic representation of approximately two hundred English words borrowed into Korean. Because English and Korean have different phonemic systems, obvious differences between the Korean borrowing and its English counterpart were expected. Substitutions of one phoneme for another, however, must take into account not only which particular Korean phoneme is substituted for an identical or similar English phoneme, but also the syllable structures of the two languages. That is, new words coming into Korean always obey Korean syllable structure conditions (KSSC). When the syllable structure of an English word conflicts with that of Korean, native speakers intuitively reject the word or make it conform to KSSC. Thus, the psychological reality of the syllable appears especially clearly in borrowing.

Keywords

syllable structure Korean loan words

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