By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A Taiwanese majoring in Korean language lamented the growing use of incorrect Hanguel among Koreans, especially in cyberspace.
Hsu Yi Ling, 29, a graduate student for a doctorate degree in Korean literature at Seoul National University (SNU), points out that a growing number of Koreans try to make short, flamboyant and eye-catching sentences especially on the Internet rather than writing an article or a story, which can show off the beauty and superiority of Korean language.
She made the comment in an interview with The Korea Times ahead of Hangeul Day today.
``Most Korean-controlling blogs in cyberspace are usually filled with photos or simple and short but somewhat weird words expressing their instant emotion and feeling,'' she said. ``In the long run, this trend will cause significant damage to Korean literature.''
The Taiwanese agreed that ``hangeul'' is a very scientific and efficient language, compared with other languages , including Chinese.
``Hangeul has highly developed auxiliary verb and tense,'' she said. ``These two allow people to make richer and more sophisticated sentences than other languages.''
With the ``hallyu'' or Korean wave having swept Southeast Asian countries, the doctoral candidate expressed her hope of teaching Korean and Korean literature in her home country in the future.
``I would like to categorize the distorted Korean into a new genre of Korean literature,'' she said. ``Now, I don't think the distorted Korean would negatively affect people's ability to use correct Korean. Should the trend persist, however, it is possible in the future that many people would believe the wrong usage as correct.''
Quite a large number of Koreans who graduated from secondary schools may have experienced long and tedious Korean lessons, in which students mechanically memorize literary works and its principles in detail to obtain a high score in an examination.
``Whenever I tell people here that I am majoring in Korean literature, many of them are curious why I chose such a difficult subject as a major,'' she said.
In 1999, she attended Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul as an exchange student. Hsu earned a bachelor's degree in Korean history at SNU in 2003 and a master's degree in Korean language at Chinese Cultural University in Taiwan in 2005. Since 2004, she has studied Korean literature at SNU on a scholarship from the Korean government.
``To improve Korean and its literature, the current education curriculum should be revised to give more fun to students and create an atmosphere to stimulate interest in Korean language and literature,'' she told The Korea Times. ``Many Koreans seem to have a nightmarish experience of studying Korean and Korean literature during their school years. These unpleasant experiences make people hesitate to study Korean after graduating from school. And I think it is largely attributable to `hangeul' currently being used in a distorted fashion on the Internet.''
``It is quite rare to see a Korean showing keen interest in my major,'' she said.