E305/505 Korean Language and Culture

Guidelines for Essay 2 (Due April 15, Wed)

• You will choose a topic among the ones that are covered in class between Week 6 and Week 10, and write a 3-5 pages double-spaced typewritten essay. The possbile topics are:
  • Kinship terms if you did not choose this topic for your essay 1
  • Sound symbolism 
  • Slang expressions
  • Personal Names
  • Greetings
  • Proverbs 
  • Cultral values and ideas (Kalton 1979, and Sohn 1986)




• Submit both a hard copy (in class) and an electronic file (saved as MSWord document and put it in your BoxFolder

• The essay should present your own crtical thinking and analysis rather than summary of the lecture or reading material.


• Keep in mind that you address issues from the two perspectives, a universal or cross-cultural perspective and a culture-specific perspective.

You should compare Korean with another language and culture. How are they similar and/or different? What makes the similarities and differences between the two cultures?


• Support your ideas/discussion with specific examples of language use/practices from Korean and other languages.
  
  
• Use whatever sources and resources you can get. Make sure you cite your sources properly.
Make sure you specify the year of publication and if possible page numbers: E.g. White (1987: 245-7)


• The essay shoud address the following:
  • General issues you are going to deal with
  • Previous analyses or general assumption made about the issues you are dealin gwith
  • Specify specifically what phenomena you will be looking at.
  • Present your critical thinking or analysis, with specific examples of language use or practices in the language and culture you are dealing with.
  • Cultural and/or social implications of your finding/analysis
  • Interlingual Word Play, Cultural Borrowings, and Social Critique in 21st-century South Korea (Guest lecture by Prof. Susan Hwang)

 

•  There must be something I should learn from your essay.