Hakmun, Hangun?: A Sociolinguistic Investigation of the Typology and Characteristics of the Naming of Coloanal Treatment Hospitals and Clinics
This paper investigates the naming of coloanal treatment hospitals and clinics, examining their name types and the etymological origins of their names. The research data were collected from the Permanent Members Directory of the Korean Society of Coloproctology published in 2015. The major findings of the research are as follows: 1) The names of the hospitals and clinics were mostly composed of one or two component names. 2) Specialty treatment names and suggestive names were used much more often than location names, owners' names, and owners' college names, which were traditionally regularly used in the past. 3) Clipping transformations, letter transformations, and transformations to metaphoric/ambiguous expressions were often observed in the data in order not to violate the medical law which prohibits the use of body part names in the naming of hospitals and clinics. 4) Much more Chinese-Korean names were used than native Korean and foreign names. 5) Strong socioeconomic motivations are observed in the naming of coloanal treatment hospitals and clinics.