Konglish, Korean L2 learners’ unique interlanguage: Its definition, categories and lexical entries

Abstract

The term Konglish has been commonly used in Korea. The use of the term has been, however, limited to certain cases of false friends between Korean and English. The purpose of the present study is twofold. First, it provides a definition of the unique interlanguage of Korean learners of English, arising from their impoverished knowledge of English and influence from Korean so as to provide a wholistic concept of Konglish for future studies. In Part 1, Konglish phenomena are identified in their phonological, intercultural, conceptual, metaphorical, collocational, pragmatic, semantic, and grammatical aspects. Second, the present study provides empirical evidence for future studies deploying Konglish use in L2 production as a means of reflecting whether/how L1 knowledge is involved, in particular, as evidence of L1 activation. In order to provide the foundation for future studies, in Part 2, Korean beginners in English were recruited to perform picture-naming tasks. The results suggest that Konglish words are stored as L1 items in subjects’ L1 mental lexicon and accessed via the L1 entry in the production of English.