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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I’m almost certain there would also be a geographic element— assuming differences in language attitudes between cities and more rural areas. There are also certain regional languages that are more widely used, for example Bahasa Jawa, that I can imagine are more used by young people.
Anecdotally, the post-secondary students that I’ve spoken to who are living in a mid-sized city in central Java find that Ngoko Javanese is spoken widely with townspeople and acquaintances whereas in-group they’re more likely to speak Bahasa Indonesia. One woman who is Sundanese notes that Bahasa Jawa is difficult for her to use, but is not so much an issue with her friends and in academic contexts (where Bahasa Indonesia is primarily spoken).
Despite the rapid evolution of linguistic policy and norms in Indonesia, there is little research done on generational differences. It’s always difficult for me to narrow down a specific research question, but I think attitudes would be a great place to start.
If I were to receive a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean language and culture, I would research the different dialects along with their customs variations. Though there are overarching values that hold a country together and are thus promoted by its citizens, there are still unique cultural characteristics within the country that pertain to certain areas. For instance, in the United States, “Southern food” consists of foods like cornbread and mac and cheese; however, places like Florida and Texas also have a lot of latin influence as they are known enclaves for latino communities. Additionally, each state has its own set of laws which further creates a divide in what is deemed “normal” for Americans. After having visited three different regions in Mexico, I have noticed that the accents range a lot depending on where you are along with their vocabulary/phrases, the state foods are distinct, and their traditional music also vary.
This is why I am intrigued to see how the dialects differ throughout South Korea and what external factors have most influenced the customs of provinces. I would visit the 8 different provinces and Jeju Island to study what the language patterns are and compare my cultural findings with what Geert Hofstede Analysis tool reflects. I did not fully agree with their resource in its accuracy regarding Mexico so I am interested to see how well it depicts South Korea culture/customs. I would use phonological and morphological analysis to break down the dialects and attempt to trace it back to a common root if it does.
If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study on Korean, I would investigate the different dialects that exist in the Korean peninsula. This is a broad topic that could be tackled in many ways, and that could cover a large amount of material. I would begin by broadly looking at the differences between North and South Korean ways of speaking. I would like to learn about how the Korean language has evolved differently in both countries since the Korean War. For example, Korean in South Korea includes a significant number of English words. I would imagine that North Korea diverged in this regard.
I would also like to look at the different dialects within Korea. One way to explore this would be to use the international phonetic alphabet to record in writing the differences between dialects in Korea. One dialect that I know deviates significantly from standard Korean is the Jeju dialect. This makes intuitive sense given that Jeju is an island. I would like to observe the differences between dialects, and if possible, how they came to be.
Please find attached my discussion post 10
Discussion post 10.pdf
If I were to conduct a study on linguistics and culture in Korea, I would be on the topic of its surrounding influences like Japan, China, and the US. The Korean Peninsula has been occupied by various Outsiders over its existence. the occupation of the foreigners must have had an impact on the languages and customs of Korea therefore changing its natural course that the language would have progressed with out any outside influence. First I would get started by learning about the history of the Korean language. In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that Korean is one of the youngest languages and the country originally followed the Mandarin Chinese system until it created its new own phonetic language system. Learning about the history, I could see the influences of past countries on the current language today and gain a better understanding of how it's modernized language incorporates all of the outside influences it has sustained. I would tie my linguistic studies to the family languages concept and how the Korean language is similar and dissimilar to its neighboring languages and cultures. For example, the European languages all most likely have the same origin but their modern versions today reflect very strong similarities like in French comment English comma spanish, German. This is similar with dialects in South America comparing those in Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, etc. Another aspect of Queen I think is interesting is that when it must use English words, it just creates the closest English sounding word ord but with Korean letters. Heart = 하트. So another aspect I would be interested in studying is how the Korean language adapts it's system to fit words from foreign languages.
Thank you very much for sharing this. It was very interesting to learn that Korean is one of the youngest languages and the country initially borrowed the Mandarin Chinese system. Also, I think finding the similarities and dissimilarities between Korean and other languages in the area can be a very interesting angle of the project.
If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korean language and culture, I would investigate the origins of the Korean language and dive further into this debate of what language family Korean belongs to. I find it interesting that although the Korean language itself is very straight-forward and logical in its character and writing system, there is uncertainty surrounding the true origins and influences of the language. The debate around the language family of Korean is whether Korean is a language isolate and considered its own “Koreanic” language family, or if it could be a part of the Altaic language family, which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. I think studying outside influences on the Korean language and culture in general would also be an interesting topic to add onto this since Korea has a history with many cross-cultural interactions. I would get started by looking into anthropological evidence of language origins as we learned in class such as the history of the nation, movement of people, and interactions with other nations. Geographically, Korea has had a lot of historic interactions with China, Japan, and Mongolia. However, it would also be interesting to do a more modern study on the influences of U.S. and western culture on Korean culture and language. In class, we discussed how linguists track the past, present, and future of a language and those concepts would also be included into this study. In the future, I suspect western culture will continue to permeate Korean culture and it would be interesting to perform a projection on that based on current data. Our discussions about words, grammar, and syntax would also appear as a study of changes in syntax over time. Comparing this information to cross-cultural interactions that are occurring may provide insight into what is influencing the ever evolving Korean language and culture.
If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of my target language and culture, I would investigate ethnic diversity within Hungary as a whole, and Budapest in particular. What makes me choose this topic is the fact that Hungary has a very long and challenging history of conquests, wars, and etc. From my previous discussion posts and cultural blogs, we already know it is generally believed that Hungary came into existence when the Magyars, a Finno-Ugric people, began occupying the middle land of the Danube River in the late 9th century. One hundred years later the first king - Stephen I, founded the Hungarian state and integrated the country into the European Christian nations. However, it was just the beginning of the development of the Hungarian state. Since then a lot of nations tried to occupy the territory, a lot of groups of different backgrounds and ethnicities tried to settle down on the Hungarian land. Countries and nations known now as Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, and others definitely played a role in creating such a diverse culture as it is in Hungary right now. All of these nations gave some part of their customs, traditions, and culture to the Hungarian people who respectfully kept it and added their unique features.
I believe that Hungarian culture is a melting pot of a lot of other cultures and traditions from other European countries. It is one of the reasons why I am conducting my final research project about how Hungarian people celebrate Easter. The whole concept of Easter is most probably similar in Hungary as in other European countries, however, I want to learn more about specific Hungarian traditions, activities they do on this day. I believe that culture most definitely affects language. Hungarian language is the top-4 hardest languages in the whole world, maybe it is because of its such a diverse culture…
My potential linguistic study about the diversity of my target language and culture, I would start by digging deeper in the history of Hungary, and come up with the list of countries, nations that had the most impact. Then I would look closely at the Hungarian holidays, national celebrations and see what was borrowed from which country. Then I would proceed with the same steps investigating the Hungarian language. Also, I think it would be very interesting to incorporate the topics of dialect, language trees that we have studied in class this semester. Learning about the cultural diversity of Hungary helps me to succeed in learning the language as well. I believe that these two are tightly connected.