JUDGMENTS ON INTELLIGIBILITY TOWARDS KOREANACCENTED ENGLISH THROUGH THE SELECTED RUNNING MAN’S VIDEOS

Abstract

English is now internationally used by every country around the world as their wish along with “the multiple cultural visions, discourse, and linguistic experimentation” and this phenomenon is named by Kachru (in Kachru, B. B, Kachru, Y, and Nelson, C. L., Eds., 2006:465) as the World Englishes. Consequently, the local features of English both in spoken and written form (e.g. pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary), as a result of English variations, occur not only in Asia but also in Africa. However, several cases of English variations (e.g. in India) are still being stereotyped if the speaker’s accent differs from the so-called native speakers. On the one hand, the paradigm of intelligibility appears as a consideration to the multilingual speakers who have different mother tongue and speak with different accent of English. Korean-accented English (KorE) as a variety of English, which occurs in many kinds of Korean TV programs (e.g. K-dramas, K-movies, and K-variety shows), has interested to be analyzed because of its K-pop culture’s popularization. Therefore, Running Man, one of K-variety shows which is informed as the most popular (most likely among students) variety show in Korea and across Asia, becomes the foremost reason to be analyzed in this study. The goals of this study are (i) to figure out the patterns of sound replacement of KorE, (ii) to analyze whether the KorE through the selected Running Man’s videos would be intelligible or unintelligible to the viewers, and (iii) to find out the respondents or viewers’ perceptual judgment of intelligibility and attitude towards the KorE in relation to the pronunciation English words by the Running Man’s players – whether they tolerate or deny the KorE. The research is conducted in two phases: working with the selected Running Man’s videos and working with the participants. 10 words in the selected Running Man’s videos are transcribed using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). As much as 23 participants of English Department, Faculty of Letters the academic year of 2010 are willing to participate in this research by watching the edited Running Man’s videos, giving their perceptual judgment and attitude towards KorE by answering the questionnaires. The results show that there are 5 the patterns of sound replacement of KorE, namely addition of vowel [ə], liquids consonant adaptation, stopping, voicing replacement, and vowel deviation as the results of the Running Man players’ pronunciation. In addition, the pronunciation of KorE is, generally not completely, unintelligible. The results prove that only 2 out of 10 words which can be successfully intelligible for the students. After all, the students’ attitude towards intelligibility of the KorE confirms a denial of the KorE since the results are mostly in negative view and mainly in personal integrity category (such as speed, anxiety, determination, and honesty) which displays the speakers’ quality of pronouncing the English words. Even, several students still ensue the so-called “standard pronunciation” while giving their comments on the Running Man players’ vocal performance. These findings note that not all of the acoustic features of pronunciation can be positively accepted and become the new norm in World Englishes, except when those features occur in many places around the world and can successfully be recognized by the students in spite of the substitution process.