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영어

This research explores how English words were borrowed, integrated, and translated into Korean
in the period of the late-19th and early-20th centuries as a study of contact linguistics. It first examines types of loanwords in terms of semantics, applying the semantic theory of Saussure. Examination of the foreign language data in that period shows that English loanwords are divided into two broad types: (i) indirect borrowing via Chinese or Japanese, and (ii) direct borrowing and adopting into Korean. Indirect borrowing was done by adopting loanwords already translated into Chinese or Japanese. Such loanwords were pronounced in Korean-Chinese reading. Direct borrowing was done by transcribing directly English words into Korean. This study shows some characteristics of English loanwords in the late-19th and early-20th centuries: (i) discrepancy between Korean and English due to different phonological systems, (ii) phonetic transcription, (iii) inconsistency and variations in transcription, (iv) spelling transcription, and (v) mixed
transcription of British and American Englishes. Finally, this research shows that such problems are not limited to the loanwords in the late-19th and early-20th centuries but they are persistent in traslating and adopting recently borrowed English words into Korean.