Do some preliminary research on what interests you about the target culture and describe how this topic relates to language. Do you need any special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge to engage this topic? If so, have you included objectives in your learning plan to engage this topic?
**This journal post is intended to help you formulate foundational preparation (scaffolding) for your final presentation.**
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Since I'm interested in learning Hebrew as a part of my journey with Judaism, I'd like to do my final presentation on Passover, the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar. I'll be including the story of Pesach as well as some of the ceremony surrounding the Passover seder, which will include a decent amount of vocabulary. I'll otherwise be engaging with this topic through readings of the leading up to Passover as well as attending the Passover seder from UR Hillel, where I'll present a small prayer reading in Hebrew.
My introduction to Korean language and culture began because of pop culture media and for better or worse is still largely fueled by this. Though it may not be the most accurate means of assessing or learning about a culture it does provide introductory information and a gateway to more submerged levels of the cultural iceberg.
The media phenomenon I am most drawn to at the moment is the representation of homosexual and otherwise non heteronormative relationships in Korean pop culture media. In the last five years alone, the landscape for what relationships of all types look like on screen has transformed drastically. Traditional gender roles, character complexity, and commentary on social issues such as class disparities, gender violence, and sexism. In this bolder landscape an increase in queer characters has also become more prominent and I am interested to see how the representation of these characters have transformed with the industry. I will focus on movies, television series, and music videos released in 2005-2021 and compare trends in plot, character tropes and development, and public reception.
I will need to become familiar with film and television vocabulary as well as key words used to describe characters and plots. I look forward to expanding my vocabulary and acquiring an overview of Korean culture through this lens.
I agree with that Korea media culture has improved in its attempts to represent non traditional gender roles, and homosexual relationships in general. One I can name is Itaewon Class, and I remembered the show accurately depicted the negative connotation the mass population had against homosexual relations, and how such connotations were not good. There were more kdramas, but I can't name them off the top of my head. I think they still have much more work to do, but I hope they keep making advancements.
Something that interests me about Korean is their slang. During my time in Korea, I noticed that Koreans use one letter of the alphabet to represent certain words just as we do in the states. For example, when we text we replace words/phrases like you, right now, be right back, are, laugh out loud, and why with u, rn, brb, r, lol, and y. In Korea, they do the same thing but with what feels like every word. I think this has a lot to do with the “Pali-pali” (빨리빨리) culture. Back when I was in Korea, this made communicating in games very difficult sometimes. Koreans tended to usually only use the text chat option as most played from PC방 (room). These rooms tended to get really crowded and as a result very loud. You would hear some very colorful language during your time there. One of my favorite slangs I learned was ㄱㄱㅂ or pronounced as 까비 (ggabi) which I just learned that it derives from the word아깝다as a colloquial form of the term. 아깝다 means what a shame but ggabi is I believe a little more specific as it is usually used after trying to do something dumb/funny and failing. There are also more common slangs such as ㅋㅋㅋ which is basically laughter and ㅎㅎㅎ which is a weaker laugh. ㄱㅅ, short for 감사 (gamsa) meaning “thank you”. ㄴㄴ, short for 노노 meaning “no no”. ㅁㄹ, short for 몰라 (molla) meaning “I don’t know.” The list goes on and on.
I don’t believe you need to know anything specific or special to learn these terms. It is very similar to English where the sound from just the letter of the alphabet is very similar to the word/phrase.
I haven’t specifically included this in my objective learning plan but I did mention learning how to text which I believe will involve slang as I learn to text to others in a more casual manner.
Something that interests me about Korean is honorifics, which are are words that are used to express respect (nouns, verbs, verb endings, pronouns, etc.). Honorific terms are unique titles, phrases, and verbs used in Korean to refer to those who are older or higher up in the social order than you. They can be utilized while chatting to and discussing elder family members, such as an older brother or sister, or an older person you meet on a regular basis. They're employed in the hierarchy to indicate respect and distance. There are different kinds of honorifics such as nouns, pronouns, family titles, verbs, and suffixes.
There is conjugation involved in honorifics, specifically, adding 요 to the end of sentences signifies formality.
For suffixes, 님 (nim) is a high-level honorific used to show respect to someone, usually used with names and titles. For pronouns, instead of saying 나 (na), you say 저 (jeo) when referring to “I”. For nouns, you would want to use 생신 (saengsin) instead of 생일 (saengil) for “birthday”.
In my learning plan, I will dedicate a period of time to only speaking formally.
Hi Aliya,
I enjoyed learning about the honorifics as well! They weren't too difficult for me to learn because in Chinese culture, honorifics are used in everyday conversations as well. Therefore, I just think of it as learning new words to mean the same in Chinese. I think one concept that I still have trouble with is formality. I can recognize when I read sentences if the sentence is formal, but it's harder for me to come up for sentences with varying degrees of formality.
I am interested in learning about the work-life culture in Korea. As a business major, I am interested in learning about the dynamics between employees, co-workers, and bosses, particularly in a business/corporate setting. I think South Korea’s business culture will be very different from what I am accustomed to here in America. I am still unfamiliar with Korean business-lingo so I think I will have to focus on learning new vocabulary in order to engage in this topic. I already have plans to learn about Korean work-life/business culture by watching a Korean movie or drama that focuses on this topic. I think that by watching these, I’ll be able to pick learn new jargon while simultaneously learning about Korea’s work-life culture. I also plan to watch YouTube videos that teach how to properly use this lingo in a business conversation. I think this will be interesting and beneficial for me as someone planning to join the corporate world.
I also find this aspect of Korean Culture quite interesting and compelling. From what I have heard, Korea has quite a tough work culture so it would be interesting to see how it differs from the work culture here in the states. I think it would be interesting and very educational to see a final cultural presentation on this type of research.
One interest I have in the target culture is the hip-hop community within Korea. In particular, there are variety shows called “Show Me the Money” (쇼미더머니) and “High School Rapper” (고등래퍼) that I consistently keep up with. There are more shows centered around hip-hop in Korea, but these are the more prominent ones, especially Show Me the Money. Many of these shows follow a competition based design, where contestants must compete against each other, resulting in a few competitors at the end.
I think in any culture, music can be one representation of the culmination of that culture’s language. In order to apply tones, harmony, and all the musical elements, the language’s pitch/intonation, etc. must be understood. And when it comes to rapping, this is even more the case. Rapping can be delivered in various forms nowadays, like mumbling or screaming. Ad-libs are most commonly used in hip hop, and can be nonsensical to someone who doesn’t understand the cultural/linguistic context. There are many genres of rap, like boom bap or trap, which lead to irregular vocalization patterns relative to how the language is supposed to be conversed. And then there are rappers who just rap really fast. While music may be the universal language, I think it takes a higher level of comprehension/skill to be able to comprehend music, especially rap, than to just listen to someone speak.
It’s a bit embarrassing, but when I watch these Korean shows and the contestants perform, I don’t really pay as much attention to the lyrics as I do to the beat/melody. The lyrics are hard to keep up with because of the speed, and there is a lot of slang/word play used. In order to increase my comprehension skills, I have already listed in my learning plan my intent to listen to podcasts/radio shows, one of these being a youtube channel called HIPHOPLE, which has/had several series focused on Korean Hip Hop that I have listened to/watched. I hope to expand my pool of resources that I can use to improve, so that I won’t be limited to just listening/audio.
I personally also have so much trouble following songs/rap because of how fast they speak Korean. The slang and slurring of words are just so hard to get a grasp of especially when it's so fast pace where I barely even have time to read the lyrics.
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