Evaluating English Loanwords and Their Usage for Professional Translation, Focusing on News Texts

• Published in: International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology(IJACT) Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 161 - 166
• Main Author: Bokyung Noh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 국제문화기술진흥원 30.06.2024
• Subjects: 과학기술학; Korean; Translation; Lingua Franca; English Loanwords; Lexicons in News Texts
• ISSN: 2288-7202; 2288-7318
• DOI: 10.17703/IJACT.2024.12.2.161

As globalization has accelerated, the use of English loanwords is increasing in South Korea. In this paper, we have analyzed news stories from four Korean quality newspapers-Chosun Ilbo, Dong-A Ilbo, KyungHyang Sinmun, and Chung-Ang Ilbo to investigate the usage of English loanwords in news texts. Thirty-eight news stories on life, politics, business and IT were collected from the four newspapers and then analyzed based on the five types of loanwords-Direct, Mixed Code Combination, Clipping and Neologism and Double Notation, partly following Lee’s and Rudiger’s classification. As a result, the followings were revealed: first, the use of the category Direct was overwhelming the others with 90%, indicating that English loanwords were not translated from its source language and introduced into Korean directly with little modification; second, the use of English loanwords was significantly higher in the sections of business and IT than in other sectors, implying that English loanwords function in a similar way as a lingua franca does within those fields. Furthermore, the linguistic trends can provide a basic guide for translators to make an informed decision between the use of English loanwords and its translated Korean version in English-into Korean translation.