A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH LOANWORD ADAPTATIONIN KOREAN AND VIETNAMESE: FOCUSING ON MEDIA-RELATED VOCABULARY

Abstract

This article conducts a contrastive study of the adaptation mechanisms of English-derived media terminology in Korean and Vietnamese, with reference to the typological characteristics of the two languages. The findings show that Korean, as an agglutinative language, follows Hangulization rules relatively systematically and often adapts English loanwords through syllabification in order to preserve certain consonantal elements of the source forms. By contrast, Vietnamese, as an isolating language, tends to accommodate these terms within its monosyllabic lexical structure and tonal system. Based on an analysis of 50 representative terms, the study identifies several potential difficulties for Vietnamese learners of Korean, such as difficulties in distinguishing phonemes that do not correspond directly across the languages and the transfer of Vietnamese tonal habits when pronouncing Korean loanwords. On this basis, the authors propose an instructional framework  based on an “English–Vietnamese–Korean contrastive triangle” model and recommend developing a contrastive reference tool for English-derived terminology in Korean and Vietnamese to support Korean language learners in Vietnam.