The War of Languages: Korean versus English

언어 전쟁 : 한국어 대 영어

Globalization and informatization today mean the world wide spread of the information made by America, the American mode of thinking, the American way of life, and the English language based on the world wide information network led by America. Under this worldly currents, all He Korean wish to learn English. Now English turns to be the essential means to survival in Korea. In this article, we try to interpret this blindly pursuit of English from the point of view of the war of languages. For this purpose, we begin to examine the position of English in the world from the perspective of linguistic imperialism. Next, we review the linguistic reality of South Korea penetrated by English from the perspective of officialization of English in Korea. Finally, we propose to modernize and informatiz Korean to fight against the penetration of English into Korean culture. It depends on the success or failure of the development of the computer system operated by Korean.