The present study examines English loanwords appearing in a Korean television drama, Start-up, to understand how English is incorporated into Korean discourse in the settings of everyday life. Data analysis revealed that the drama contains a relatively high number of English loanwords presumably due to the protagonists' young age and the tech-based start-ups that it features. One of the distinct characteristics of English loanwords in their forms is the extensive use of ‘English-hada’ words and other types of words combining Korean and English elements. In addition, the use of English often extends beyond the word level to phrases or even sentences. The functions of English loanwords in the drama were found to fill a lexical gap in the Korean language, strengthen the sense of belonging and bonding among the members of a particular generation or group, create a humorous atmosphere, and symbolize professional competence and thus an elevated level of the speakers' social status.

Shim, Young-Sook. 2016. “A Study on Semantic Relation of English Loanwords with Their Corresponding Korean Words”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(3). 281~316. The premise underlying the Korean language “purification” by way of replacing loanwords with Korean existing words is that loanwords and their corresponding Korean words occupy nearly identical semantic domains and thus are interchangeable. Few studies, however, have been conducted to verify this premise. This study aims to investigate the semantic relation of English loanwords with their corresponding Korean words recommended for purification of the Korean language. From the database consisting of news articles in the economy section of Korean newspapers, six loanwords were chosen for an in-depth analysis. With Trends 21 Corpus and Naver being primary tools, the loanwords and their corresponding Korean words are analyzed in terms of frequency, co-occurrence, collocation, and usage. The findings show that the loanwords semantically relate to their corresponding Korean words in various ways, with the words across the pairs presenting varying degrees of semantic likeness, difference, and inclusion. Suggestions for further research are provided based on the findings.

Choi, Kyung-ae. 2012. A study on the unexpected phonological change in the English loanwords in Korean from Japanese. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 20(1). pp. 295-315. The purpose of this study is to inquire about sound change by tracing the transition of English loanwords in Korean, which came from Japan, from phonological and sociolinguistic perspectives. The Japanese-style English loanwords from an earlier period have been transformed into newly adjusted forms at a surprisingly rapid rate and many of them have shown unexpected sound changes which went against general Korean phonological rules. This shows that sound change is not necessarily expected to occur in accordance with language-specific phonological rules. It can occur through the political and sociological will of speakers against their native grammar at a surprisingly rapid rate.

Japanese has borrowed many words from English through contacts with English-speaking countries since the mid-19th century. The borrowed words have been integrated into the Japanese lexicon, observing phonological and morphological rules of Japanese. Among the types of loanwords from English, this research examines abbreviated English words in Japanese by classifying them into five categories: (i) consonantal abbreviations, (iil acronyms, (iil) initialism (iv) clipping, and (v) blending. Examination of the present data shows that more than half of the tokens are examples of clipped words, suggesting that clipping is the most frequently used method of abbreviating borrowed words into Japanese. lnitialism comes second in making abbreviated expressions, even applying to newly coined Japanese English (]E) words. After that, this study explores linguistic motivations which are responsible for the formation of abbreviations in Engli h loanwords. It shows that economy and distinctiveness/contrastiveness are two most important motivation for the formation of abbreviations of English loanwords in Japanese.