Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T15:04:49.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Americano, latte, or English

What do menu languages in Korean coffee shops tell us about the meaning of English today?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2020

Michael Chesnut  and
Nathaniel Ming Curran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Across the world, in many places in which English is not widely spoken, English text often appears on posters, storefronts, billboards, street signs, warning signs, menus, and many other forms of publicly visible written texts. English is often featured alongside one or more additional languages. These signs are typically seen as unremarkable by passersby looking to buy goods, for information regarding prohibited activity, or even just for a comfortable coffee shop. An increasingly robust scholarly literature has examined these signs since the publication of Landry and Bourhis' (1997) foundational study which popularized the term linguistic landscape. Linguistic landscape scholarship now includes large-scale quantitative examinations of publicly visible signs in cities such as Tokyo (Backhaus, 2007), smaller-scale examinations of the written language within individual workplaces in a single building (Hanauer, 2010), studies on mobile linguistic landscapes such as shopping bags (Alomoush, 2019) and many other studies conducted in widely varying locations with widely varying foci (McKiernan, 2019; Yuan, 2019).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 38 - 51
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alomoush, O. 2019. ‘Is English on mobile linguistic landscape resources no longer viewed as a linguistic threat to Arabic in Jordan? Exploring functions of English on printed shopping bags in Jordan.’ English Today, 1–8. doi:10.1017/S0266078419000282Google Scholar
Backhaus, P. 2007. Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Bak, S. 2005. ‘From strange bitter concoction to romantic necessity: The social history of coffee drinking in South Korea.’ Korea Journal, 45(2), 37–59.Google Scholar
Cho, J. 2020. ‘English fever and American dreams: The impact of Orientalism on the evolution of English in Korean society.’ English Today, 1–6. doi:10.1017/S026607841900052XGoogle Scholar
Choi, J., Tatar, B. & Kim, J. 2019. ‘Bilingual signs at an “English only” Korean university: Place-making and “global” space in higher education.’ International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1–4. doi:10.1080/13670050.2019.1610353Google Scholar
Curran, N. 2018. ‘Learned through labour: The discursive production of English speakers in South Korea: A case study of Koreans with high spoken proficiency and low test scores.’ English Today, 34(3), 30–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanauer, D. I. 2010. ‘Laboratory identity: A linguistic landscape analysis of personalized space within a microbiology laboratory.’ Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 7(2–3), 152–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korea Herald. 2018. ‘S. Korea's coffee market tops W10tr in 2017.’ Online at <http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180218000032> (Accessed August 27, 2019) (Accessed August 27, 2019)' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Korea+Herald.+2018.+‘S.+Korea's+coffee+market+tops+W10tr+in+2017.’+Online+at++(Accessed+August+27,+2019)>Google Scholar
Landry, R. & Bourhis, R. Y. 1997. ‘Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study.’ Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1), 23–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, C. B. 2012. ‘The Korean English linguistic landscape.’ World Englishes, 31(1), 70–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, J. & Kim, H. 2016. ‘Coffee wars: South Korea's cafe boom nears saturation point.’ Reuters. Online at <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-coffee/coffee-wars-south-koreas-cafe-boom-nears-saturation-point-idUSKCN0X12GF> (Accessed August 17, 2019). (Accessed August 17, 2019).' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lee,+J.+&+Kim,+H.+2016.+‘Coffee+wars:+South+Korea's+cafe+boom+nears+saturation+point.’+Reuters.+Online+at++(Accessed+August+17,+2019).>Google Scholar
Lee, J. S. 2006. ‘Linguistic constructions of modernity: English mixing in Korean television commercials.’ Language in Society, 35(1), 59–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, J. S. 2019. ‘Multilingual advertising in the linguistic landscape of Seoul.’ World Englishes, 38(3), 500–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKiernan, T. 2019. ‘The linguistic landscape of a Malaysian border town: How English language is allowed to thrive outside of the law.’ English Today, 1–12. doi:10.1017/S0266078419000506Google Scholar
Park, J. K. 2009. ‘“English fever” in South Korea: Its history and symptoms.’ English Today, 25(1), 50–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, S. J. & Abelmann, N. 2004. ‘Class and cosmopolitan striving: Mothers’ management of English education in South Korea.’ Anthropological Quarterly, 77(4), 645–72. doi:10.1353/anq.2004.0063.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, E. H. & Yang, J. S. 2015. ‘A sociolinguistic analysis of a commercial district in Seoul: A linguistic landscape approach.’ 사회언어학 [The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea], 23(2), 37–63.Google Scholar
Song, J. E. R. 2014. ‘The soybean paste girl: The cultural and gender politics of coffee consumption in contemporary South Korea.’ Journal of Korean Studies, 19(2), 429–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, S. X. W. & Tan, Y. Y. 2015. ‘Examining the functions and identities associated with English and Korean in South Korea: A linguistic landscape study.’ Asian Englishes, 17(1), 59–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandenbroucke, M. 2016. ‘Socio-economic stratification of English in globalized landscapes: A market-oriented perspective.’ Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(1), 86–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vlack, S. 2011. ‘English in the South Korean linguistic landscape: Varied patterns of use and status.’ 언어 [Korean Journal of Linguistics], 36(2), 559–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuan, M. 2019. ‘Submission and resistance in the English linguistic landscape of Chaoshan: Identity negotiation through English translation in two Chinese cities.’ English Today, 35(2), 20–28. doi:10.1017/S0266078418000214CrossRefGoogle Scholar