외래 고유명사 줄임말의 유형과 사용 효과

Types and Effects of the Abbreviations of Foreign Proper Nouns

This study examines the types and usage of abbreviations of foreign proper nouns used in media articles based on a basic understanding of Korean abbreviations, and seeks to identify the effects of their use. Abbreviations of foreign proper nouns are widely used for reasons of economy, ease of identification, and to facilitate the provision of information. There are two types of abbreviations. Romanized abbreviations are characterized by strong economy and identifiability but have difficulty conveying meaning, and they also distinguish the social classes of speakers by their knowledge of loan words or understanding of foreign languages, thereby threatening to undermine social integration. In contrast, abbreviations translated into Korean have the advantage of easily conveying meaning and not hindering language accessibility, but they are weak in identifiability and their number remains exceedingly small. The reason for the excessive use of Romanized abbreviations by the government and media seems to be that no provision for Korean translation abbreviations was made earlier. It is necessary to create and publicize Korean abbreviations widely, as well as create good Korean translation terms with the introduction of foreign proper nouns into Korean.