Parsons School of Design
BFA Communication Design
Thesis 2014

Konglish
Tiffany Kim

Born and raised in two different cultures, Korea and America, I was able to encounter bicultural conflicts. One of the conflict is Konglish, which is a local variety of English in Korea with its own phonological, syntactic, lexical, and semantic features. Foreigners cannot understand unless they learn it but Koreans can understand among themselves. It is an already-established culture in South Korea which started during the Cold War when South Korea was heavily influenced by the outside cultures, especially the Western culture. The use of Konglish in South Korea is a controversial issue where although it is one of the popular youth cultures, many scholars claims that it is not a correct use of neither Korean nor English, therefore it should be banned because it may result in loss of heritage and tradition. At the same time, some claims that Konglish can be a starting point of learning a new language for the Koreans, therefore it is an emerging culture that is leading to globalization. Thus, Konglish should be critically learned as a need to understand the local cultural knowledge, emphasize the use of standard American English, and traditional Korean. This will let the young Koreans to be more aware of the linguistic knowledge and open up for general use of language to be used in different situations by giving them the choice of using proper English or Konglish.

Sarah Alfulaij

Michael Anderson

Darwin Andrango

Leonardo Araujo

Atif Azam

Kyle Barber

Rachel Bernstein

Jillian Black

Matthew Boblet

Mallory Brennan

Joel Califa

Rosaurora Cardenas

Flora Chan

Hanna Chang

Julie Hanna Chea

Abby Wanyu Chen

Justin Cheung

Sherylene Chew

YunHee Choi

Mehr Chopra

Lu Chuang

YooMin Chun

Key Peum Chung

Haesoo Chung

Tyler Cohen

Vernicia Colon

Samantha Cooper

Gabriela d'Amato

Roderic David

Ambar Del Moral

Taryn Dooley

Anthony Duong

Patricia Encarnaciòn

Evelee Estevez

Virginia Leigh Farrell

Kean Ferin

Adam Fernandez

Enrique Ferreyros

Férvido Frías

Jane Gardner

Stephanie Gonzalez

Danielle Gorodenzik

Omar Greene

Gabrielle Guglielmelli

Elda Hadajian

Joy Han

Emma Hanson

Julio Hernandez

Jacob Hernandez

Chris Hong

Ann Yung Chu Hsieh

Xinle Jill Huang

Thanh Cong Huynh

Anthony Iciano

Wesley Johnson

Polina Kadkina

Byoungok Kim

Gena Kim

Lindsey Kim

Lucia Ji Won Kim

Tiffany Kim

Hyo Taek Kim

Esther Kim

Ga Hyun Kim

Jane Kim

Jae Young Kim

Daniella Krihely

Andrea Latimer

Seulbi Lee

Jina Lee

Yongmin Lee

JiYun Lee

Julie Lee

Jae Yong Lee

Iris Li

Joanne Chai Wen Lim

Octavio Llano

Rebecca Low

Andrea Fiorella Martinez

Odile Martínez-Santamari

Gerald Morin

Nadine Muhtadi

Phuong Nguyen

Brandon Nicolas

Seema Nisar

Grant Noel

Neal Oh

Solgil Oh

Valentina Pherson

Elli Pohl

Cody Pumper

Regina Puno

Shem Rajoon

Fabian Rastorfer

Bryan Ribeiro

Konstantinos Riginos

Sarah Rim

YoungHee Ryu

Sylvia Saborio

Joamir Salcedo

Camille Sacha Salvador

Emilio Sanchez

Katherine Santos

Joely Saravia

Amber Rose Seppi

Pauline Shin

Jennifer Shin

Anjana Singhwi

Renee Sluzhevsky

Meghan Smart

Noelle Smith

Chrystal Soegandhi

Wannina Somboonvechakarn

Albert Son

Suho Song

Charmaine Kwan Tung Sum

Natasha Sumant

Aija Suuta

Rachal Tai

Lisa Thieffry

Natashia Tjandra

Natasha Villarraga

Robert Vinluan

Francisco Vivar

Simone Wagner

Robert Waluszko

Kathleen Wang

Ashley Wayne

Boyun Yang

Kanny Yeung

Taylor Zanke

Frankie Zek

Sharon Zhang

Jody Zhou

Tiffany Zhu

Or Zubalsky