Due by 5pm on Sunday, April 10: Discussion Post #10 on the Ning
Imagine that you have received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of your target language and culture. How would you get started, and what would you investigate? How would different structural components presented in class appear in your work?
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If I were given a grant to study Hebrew linguistics, I believe I'd like to do a deep dive into the development of modern Hebrew as a first language. People have only been speaking Modern Hebrew as a first language for about 100 years, but those have been 100 years of intense globalization and industry. While all languages experienced intense change during this time, Hebrew might've had to catch on a tad quicker than most, having been out of commission as a primary language for a few hundred years. Borrowed words are what I find most interesting in this case, and seeing what words were adapted to fit new meanings. For example, you have the word "פלאפון" meaning "cell phone" is pronounced "pell - eh - fon", which sounds a lot like the English word "telephone".
If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of my target language, I would do research on Korean cuisine and its origins. I would first need to learn more about the history about Korean cuisine and where inspiration came from and how it ties into Korean culture. Korea's history spans thousands of years, beginning with the earliest documented pottery makers around 8,000 BC and continuing through the emergence of city-states and kingdoms from scattered tribal communities and nomadic barbarians to modern-day civilization. Korean cuisine is a distinctive feature of their culture. The first is that food is inextricably linked to Korea's environment, which includes the country's location, topography, and climate. Korea is a peninsula with a climate similar to that of the United States' north central region: cold winters, mild summers, and lengthy, beautiful autumns. Korea features several microclimates because the terrain is largely made up of mountains and stretches from the North Asian mainland to milder oceans in the south. Rice, beans, and vegetables are grown in the valleys, while mushrooms and a variety of wild plants, such as bracken and bellflower, are picked or farmed in the mountains. Each region has its own set of foods that are specific to its climate.
Different structural components presented in class would appear in my work from the idea of language trees and how lanuages/cultures relate to each other. According to Hidden Korea, the revolutionary changes in foreign cuisines that occurred after 1500 A.D. have also had a significant impact on Korean cuisine. The conquest of the Americas by Europeans resulted in the global diffusion of new crops. Chile is the best example for Korea. It originated in Central and South America and was brought to the rest of the world by Portuguese and Spanish traders. Without chiles, Indian and Southeast Asian cuisines would be unthinkable. Korean isn't either. Chile paste is a must-have on all Korean tables and in a variety of dishes. Although many people associate Korean food with "heat," chile sauces are not used liberally in every dish, but rather as flavor enhancers.
I would definitely try and do my research in South Korea because I am a believer in the need to be immersed. This would also give me a lot more access to a lot more material and fewer errors/losses through translation. Korea is a relatively young language and I would like to investigate its development. It's just amazing to me that a King just decided to create a whole new language. I couldn't imagine this being done today. There must have been issues with the language and amendments made throughout the years. I'd like to track that progression along with how variations (dialects) were developed throughout the country, especially between the North, South (Seoul), Jeju, and Busan. Syntax is probably one of the biggest components that will appear in my work as I can't imagine King Sejong was able to create the syntax known in Korea today just like that. It must have taken years and years to refine and tune to the way it is now. Context is another structural component that will be investigated as different regions use different tones or pitch along with body language while speaking.
I also find it fascinating how King Sejong was able to come up with such a simple and intuitive alphabet that has really thrived and is continuing to spread as a widely-used language through the global hallyu wave.
It is pretty crazy that a king was able to create a language that has been able to actually work/maintain itself, albeit the many changes over the years. I feel like if I created a language, there would be so many errors and contradictions, that it would quickly die out.
If I were to conduct a linguistic study on the South Korean language and culture, I would be interested to learn more about the influence of Confucianism on honorifics. Confucianist values place importance on respect for authority and those who have higher status than you. I think this aspect of culture has largely shaped the grammar structure in the Korean language, especially with the use of suffixes. I think it would be interesting to learn how this has developed and changed over time with the history of Confucianism in South Korea. To get started with this linguistic study, I would start by investigating the history of Confucianism, researching where it originated and how it spread to Korea. I think that researching this history would be important for understanding the Korean language as it is today.
I really like this idea. Honorifics is something that is not present in every language, so when I was learning Korean it was really new to me. When I was speaking English, I never had to think about which proper phrases to use based on who I'm addressing. It's also interesting to understand the impacts of Confucianism and its effects on language transformation.
A linguistic study I would conduct would be to find the aspects of Korean influenced by culture. As this is pretty vague, one aspect I could focus on is how the collectivist nature of Korean culture influences its grammar, namely possession. In English, when referring to your own individual possession, we tend to use “my _”,. In Korean, however, many times the possessive term “our _” is used instead when referring to “my _”. “우리” \ɵli\ means “our”, and if I were to refer to “my parents” and “my house” whilst talking to another person, I could say “우리 부모님” (our parents) and “우리 집” (our house), and it would be completely acceptable. The cause for this stems from Korea’s collectivist culture - the idea is that everything is shared. Of course, this is not quite the case now, but the traditional confucian ideals are clearly deeply embedded in the language, and it remains today. Another aspect I could talk about is the difference between formal and informal Korean which also stems from confucianism. As age-based hierarchy and ancestor worship is deemed highly important, there is a difference in language when addressing someone of higher age or authority. In English, we may incorporate more formal tones and vocabulary in certain scenarios, but the majority of the words used would remain the same. In Korean, suffixes are added to lots of words to reflect respect and formality. Overall, with both these aspects, I would be discussing number, mood, and affixes.
I think this type of research would be very interesting and I would be interested to do something similar with Hebrew. As I learned while working on my final cultural research project, a lot of the slang used in Israel has been influenced by the culture Israel has surrounding mandatory participation in the Israeli Defense Force. Maybe there is a similar link in Korea with Korean Culture and if so it would be very interesting to see the research on that.
When I was younger I was never taught this idea of collectivist culture as I lived in America. So, while speaking Korean I would say 준이 (my name) + 는 + .... I was essentially speaking in third person.
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