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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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 Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 5:38 pm Post subject: How could we make real progress against Konglish? |
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I know this is farting against the wind, but. . .
This culture is ubiquitously enamoured with cheap t-shirts littered with absurd English. The culture is completely unaware that it is so silly.
Would you tell a friend if they had a booger on their nose?
How could we unite against Konglish? Hold a mass protest in Seoul? Draw Media attention to it? Really, I like Koreans, but I am embarrassed for them sometimes.
I bet some creative people out there could make a comic film, that could make it into the Korean popular media, and stir something up.
Any good finds lately? |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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bobbyhanlon
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Location: 서울
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:15 am Post subject: |
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| why would anyone want to stop konglish? it provides us with endless entertainment. bravo your dongdaemun t-shirts, bravo your just one ten minutes, bravo your digital exciting. i love it! |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| I don't care if my students use Konglish when they're speaking Korean. I just let them know that it's part of Korean, not English. Plenty of the kids have no problem understanding that concept. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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I get it about the entertainment. But sometimes, when I feel that I-wanna-get-the-hell-out-of-here feeling, the over-long cheap t-shirt which says "The And Four Three to One is Happy Juicy" just makes me crazy!
It is funny, sometimes. But, sometimes sad, when, for example, a housewife is wearing, "Did you cum twice, too? I feel dirty. I need a tongue bath." No kidding! |
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santafly
Joined: 20 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Tell them to stop looking stuff up on Naver and buy a real dictionary |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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I disagree with the Panglish theory: far more likely is the emergence of various widely differing Englishes. The 9% native speakers will be aided by a substantial portion of sophisticated and perhaps even snobbish L2 speakers in enforcing an 'authentic' English grammar and syntax. Talk to L2 English majors and L2 individuals who are not merely proficient in English but comfortable conversing within English. They can pick out their favorite English. This becomes more so as you ascend the corporate/professional ladder.
I posit what is more likely is that there is a slowly unifying professional English. English as Common will certainly have regional aspects. But there will always be self-induced pressure and incentive to speak English correctly at the top. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:12 am Post subject: |
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Bravo your life.  |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| Actually I think Koreans at least lack the confidence or the competence to give Konglish the necessary impetus. They know it's crap and they can't express themselves in English. Indians may have thier own brand(s) of non-standard English but they have at least developed them to a high degree of expressiveness. There's a difference between saying things in your own way or idiom and incoherence. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:22 am Post subject: |
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Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and Romanian all came from ancient Latin. So I don't think it's so far fetched that English could spawn a few "Panglish" like languages. Excuse me, "Panglishee". |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 6:20 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
I disagree with the Panglish theory: far more likely is the emergence of various widely differing Englishes. The 9% native speakers will be aided by a substantial portion of sophisticated and perhaps even snobbish L2 speakers in enforcing an 'authentic' English grammar and syntax. Talk to L2 English majors and L2 individuals who are not merely proficient in English but comfortable conversing within English. They can pick out their favorite English. This becomes more so as you ascend the corporate/professional ladder.
I posit what is more likely is that there is a slowly unifying professional English. English as Common will certainly have regional aspects. But there will always be self-induced pressure and incentive to speak English correctly at the top. |
Even the most sophisticated L2 speaker though is inclined to make small mistakes. A lot of small countries like Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and so on have news sites in English and there are always a few errors here and there but they don't care to fix them, since they get the point across without having to be perfect, and as L2 speakers they don't really care that much anyway.
The first thing usually to go are simple things like words that aren't incorrect but just sound awkward to a native speaker. Words and phrases that aren't incorrect but don't quite fit like saying 'please sit' all the time instead of 'would you like to take a seat', or 'the flag of America' for 'the US flag'.
Here's an example of what these news reports often look like:
http://www.today.az/news/politics/45350.html
As an L2 speaker though I can get all the information on Azerbaijan through the site and don't really care that it looks weird here and there. I can then send it to my friend who also speaks English as an L2, he can use it to research something for a report in his own language...and us native English speakers never even enter into the equation. The only time that happens is when I'll have to meet a real native English speaker.
As the percentage of native English speakers goes down there'll be less and less of that, until it gets to the point that our endless demands for correct English will become an annoyance. They get along with their own (97% of the time correct) English, so what's the big deal? There's a tipping point where speaking 100% correct English goes from being super cool to being dated and stodgy. We haven't reached that point yet but I think it'll happen, assuming that English remains the preferred L2 of the world. If another language steps in to fill that role then we get to keep English the way it is.
Of course, given enough effort we could possibly work against the tide but it's possible that a group of people using English as an L2 could start to standardize their own version of the language (like what happened with Afrikaans), and depending on how powerful they are other people might start to learn that. The most likely place for this to happen is India, I think.
Edit: I just reread what you wrote and realized I didn't notice this:
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| far more likely is the emergence of various widely differing Englishes. |
Yes, I guess I agree with you then. Since there already are a ton of differing Englishes it makes sense that we'll have more in the future. |
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seoulsucker
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: The Land of the Hesitant Cutoff
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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A lot of younger students just don't know any better. How many times have you had to convince a student that "토스트" is actually an English word?
They've been brought up under the myth that Korean is a perfect, scientific language that can be arranged to produce or mimic the sounds of all other languages. Let's all start by tilting at that windmill.  |
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