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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 25, No. 0, pp.1444-1467
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2025
Received 5 Sep 2025 Revised 24 Sep 2025 Accepted 25 Oct 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.25..202510.1444

한국 회사명에 나타난 영어 요소의 형태론적 연구

Eungyeong Kang
Associate Professor, English Studies major Sangmyung University 31 Sangmyungdae-gil, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do, 31066, Republic of Korea egkang@smu.ac.kr
A morphological analysis of English elements in Korean company names


© 2025 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study aims to describe and investigate the characteristics and extent of English elements in Korean company names. The names of newly listed companies on the Korea Exchange in 2000, 2010, 2020, and 2024 (total N = 392) were collected and a morphological analysis of their English or English-looking components was conducted. Results show that the proportion of new company names including English elements increased from roughly 71% in 2000 to over 90% by 2024. Morphological classification reveals that the majority of English elements are not full English words but rather clippings, blends, and especially abbreviations(initialisms) and acronyms. Moreover, many so-called “English” components are novel coinages created within Korean rather than borrowed directly from English. By tracing these morphological trends over twenty-four years, this study provides a morphological account of how English elements have been transformed and invented in the branding practices of Korean companies. The extensive use of initialisms and the adoption of acronymy are argued to suggest English word formation processes are productively incorporated into the Korean lexicon.

Keywords:

Korean company names, English elements, morphology, acronyms, pseudo-anglicisms

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