IntroductionThe Republic of South Korea is located in East Asia on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, bordering the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea. A demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel marks the border between South and North Korea, which was created in the 1953 armistice at the end of the Korean War (1950-1953). Japan occupied Korea from 1905 until the United States defeated Japan at the end of World War II (1945). Koreans celebrate their liberation from Japan every year on August 15th. Despite the conclusion of the Korean War, tensions remain high between the democratic South and the communist North.
South Korea experienced incredible economic and industrial growth towards the end of the twentieth century, and today 82.5 percent of the population lives in urban areas. The vast majority of South Korea's 49,115,196 people identify ethnically as Korean, although around 20,000 Chinese live on the peninsula. Korean is the national language, but all students attend compulsory English education. 43 percent of Koreans do not follow any religion, while 31.6 percent are Christian and 24.2 percent are Buddhist. South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, began her five-year term in February 2013, and chose the current prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn, in June 2015. Nina Rondoni, Winter 2016 |
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Attitudes Towards English in South Korea
Despite the popularity of English in South Korea, attitudes towards the English language remain mixed. During the Korean War (1950-1953) the English language became associated with wealth, prestige, and power do to the heavy presence of the United States. This legacy has continued into the twenty-first century, and English remains the most prevalent foreign language in South Korea. In 2014 a poll reported that 50 percent of Koreans under forty understand basic English, with 10 percent claiming to speak it fluently ("The Future of English in Korea," The Diplomat). Many Koreans favor the original pronunciation approach to learning English; they attempt to pronounce English consonants and vowels as closely to Standard American English as possible. However, because Korean lacks many of the fricatives present in English, gaining native-speaker fluency in American English is nearly impossible . In his article "The Korean Linguistic Landscape," C. Bruce Lawrence writes that, "...some policy makers feel that Korea needs to adopt English as an official language, others have argued that this would bring about the decline of the Korean language and destruction of national identity" (71). The Seoul Development Institutes suggests the Korean government should try to increase cultural popularity and flexibility of English rather than adopt it as an official language.