1. Introduction
With the change of linguistic, cultural and ethnic landscapes, multilingual, multicultural and multi-ethnic realities are increasing globally. In the case of the UK, the 2011 Census showed that the Asian or Asian British ethnic group category had one of the largest increases since 2001, with a third of the foreign-born population of the UK (2.4 million) now identifying as Asian British (Office for National Statistics, 2013). It is not surprising then, given the aforementioned demographic situation, to see many Asian-origin words in the English language. East Asian words are now entering into the English lexicon with unprecedented speed as a consequence of increased contact between East Asia and the English-speaking world.
Most people do not make a black-and-white distinction between native words and foreign words, and use these words as part of their daily communication repertoire. Previous studies on attitudes towards loanwords were centred on the views of linguists and lexicographers about the inclusion of loanwords in English-language dictionaries or databases. Few studies have been conducted to investigate lay people's attitudes towards the inclusion of loanwords in the English language. This project aims to address the gap in the research by investigating the attitudes of British university students toward the presence of East Asian words in the English language. The study methodology incorporated questionnaire surveys and follow-up interviews. The research was conducted from a qualitative angle, based around inductive thematic analysis of participants' responses. In the following sections, we present a brief review of studies based on attitudes towards language and linguists' attitudes towards loanwords in English. This is followed by a discussion about the trajectory of East Asian origin words in English. The study scope was limited to those words originating from the Japanese, Chinese or Korean languages.Footnote 1 This decision was taken because these are the East Asian languages that have provided by far the most borrowings into English to date, with other East Asian languages having only a more limited impact. (For example, in the the Oxford English Dictionary [henceforth OED], there are 533 entries of Japanese language origin, whereas there are only 13 entries of Mongolian language origin.)
2. Attitude to language
Attitude is generally understood as an evaluative orientation for which various definitions have been suggested. One of the most citied frameworks used in attitudinal studies in language is a tripartite model suggested by Agheyisi and Fishman (Reference Agheyisi and Fishman1970) which categorises attitudes into three components: i) cognitive, ii) affective and iii) conative behaviour. The cognitive component of attitude is based on the notion that individuals are not born with attitudes, but particular attitudes are learned through socialization, causing an individual to think and react positively or negatively towards an object. It is often interchangeably and synonymously described as opinion. The affective component concerns a person's feelings, ‘a gut reaction towards an object’, which has been the major area of focus for attitudinal studies of language (Breckler, Reference Breckler1984). The third component of attitude, behaviour, has also been referred to as a ‘readiness for action’ (Baker, Reference Baker1992; Bohner & Wänke, Reference Bohner and Wänke2002). It is a predisposition of a person to act in certain ways. Although there has been a great deal of controversy regarding the precise role of attitudes in a person's behaviour, it has, to some extent, been agreed that attitudes can be influential factors on people's behaviour (Bohner & Wänke, Reference Bohner and Wänke2002). Although these three components of attitudes have gathered a reasonable degree of consensus, it has also been argued that these components should be seen more in terms of causes and triggers of attitudes (Clore & Schnall, Reference Clore, Schnall, Albarracin, Johnson and Zanna2005). Despite differing theories, the concept of the three components of attitude has been widely employed and adapted in language studies (Ahn, Reference Ahn2017; Garrett, Reference Garrett2010). It is, however, important to note that there is difficulty in eliciting or categorizing one component of attitude with another due to their close interconnectedness and the extent to which they could possibly contradict each other.
3. Linguists' attitudes towards loanwords in English
Negative attitudes towards foreign words entering the English language have been noted early on as is suggested by the following statement: ‘encroachment of alien words not only hinders understanding and solidarity among speakers, but also threatens the purity of a language by taking away its uniqueness and limiting its ability to create new words using its own linguistic sources' (Urquieta, Reference Urquieta1973: 114, cited by Munoz–Basols & Salazar, Reference Munoz–Basols and Salazar2016). When considering lexical borrowings from Asian languages, as Cannon (Reference Cannon1981, Reference Cannon1990) noted, the situation was worse. Scholars generally discarded the impact of Chinese and Japanese and did not accept words from these languages as part of the English vocabulary. One of the most influential books on borrowings in the English language, Serjeantson's (Reference Serjeantson1935) History of Foreign Words in English, included only 27 words from Chinese and 20 words from Japanese respectively. The impact of the loanwords from both China and Japan was also negatively discussed (Nist, Reference Nist1966; Pyles, Reference Pyles1971; Williams, Reference Williams1975).
However, Cannon (Reference Cannon1981: 190) advocated that these studies are in great need of updating and emphasised the growing prominence of Chinese and Japanese words in English. The increasing trend of Japanese and Chinese borrowing into English has been extensively studied by Cannon (Reference Cannon1981, Reference Cannon1987, Reference Cannon1988, Reference Cannon1990, Reference Cannon1995), Cannon and Warren (Reference Cannon and Warren1996), Moody (Reference Moody1996) and Yang (Reference Yang2009). For example, Cannon (Reference Cannon1981) argued that at least 587 Japanese words were recorded in standard dictionaries and that 116 words had been naturalised and widely used, suggesting Japanese was the second major non-Indo-European supplier of loans into English. He also argued that ‘Japanese loans are rapidly moving into the common international vocabulary; [ … they are] now the third leading supplier of loans to English’ (Cannon, Reference Cannon1981: 204). Regarding borrowings from Chinese into English, four major studies are worthy of review including Cannon (Reference Cannon1988), Moody (Reference Moody1996), Yang (Reference Yang2009) and Zhong (Reference Zhong2018). These studies emphasised the growing importance of Chinese borrowing into English reflecting the nature of contact between Chinese and English speakers. Cannon's study (Reference Cannon1988) provided a foundational list of borrowed words from Chinese, which has been re-categorised and updated by Moody (Reference Moody1996) and Yang (Reference Yang2009). These two studies also noted which semantic fields were represented by particular source languages. In the most recent study, Zhong (Reference Zhong2018) also argues that increased awareness and acceptance of Chinese English words by English speakers is particularly evident in words for traditional Chinese objects and concepts.
More recently, the linguist and lexicographer Ogilvie (Reference Ogilvie2013) provided a comprehensive study into the attitudes of the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) towards loanwords. This study included James Murray and Robert Burchfield's commitment to including ‘foreign’ words in the dictionary. Murray views words of the world as part of the English language as seen in his following statement: ‘hardly any word from a foreign language looks odd or out of place among our home words' (cited in Ogilvie, Reference Ogilvie2013: 53). Burchfield, who worked on the four-volume supplement to the OEE, included the largest number of loanwords in the OED. Although other OED editors such as Bradley, Onions, and Craigie had less positive attitudes towards the inclusion of foreign words, Ogilvie (Reference Ogilvie2013) noted that the early editors of OED were largely committed to including words from other parts of the world.
4. East Asian origin words (EAW) in English
4.1 History
Europeans started having direct contact with Japan in the 16th century, mainly through trade and missions, causing various expressions describing Japanese culture to enter European languages such as English. Despite examples from earlier periods, word migration between East Asia and the Anglophone world began to fully manifest itself in the late 19th century. Most early arrivals were traditional, culture-specific words with strong local and regional flavours. The number of Japanese-origin words entering the OED since then has been continuously increasing, reaching its peak between 1850 and 1949 (Durkin, Reference Durkin2014: 398). As of today, the OED has 508 entries for words originating in Japanese. The westernisation and modernisation projects of the Meiji restoration period played an important role in the first influx of Japanese words into English as well as in the first generation of English words entering Japanese (Irwin, Reference Irwin2011). Many well known words were introduced around this time, such as: kimono (1886); tsunami (1897); Kabuki (1899); haiku (1899); -san (1878); and sushi (1893). Most of the words that entered were nouns (apart from -san which is listed as a suffix in the OED) and about 40 of the words introduced at this time were culinary terms.
There are currently 508 entries for Japanese-origin words and 242 entries for Chinese-origin words in the OED. It is noticeable that before 1850, there were 86 Chinese words and 85 Japanese words in the OED. The gap between the number of Chinese-origin and Japanese-origin words began to widen in the 1850s, as Japan had closer contact with Europe (especially through westernisation and modernisation projects of the Meiji Restoration). Many words that entered from this period, for instance, zen, yin, yang, or tofu are considered as Japanese words in the OED, but share Sinitic origin and exist in other East Asian languages such as Chinese and Korean. Hence, they are better understood as EAW.
In the past, East Asian languages were generally recipients of English words. Nowadays, they play an active role in making and exporting words into World Englishes (WE). This became possible following a great improvement in the general understanding of English in the region, with English words now firmly established as infrastructure words in East Asia (Kiaer, Reference Kiaer2014). East Asians often make English words in the form of often creatively assembled compounds or hybrid words with mixture of Anglo and Sino elements. These words were largely used locally in the past, but now they are going global (Kiaer & Bordilovskaya, Reference Kiaer and Bordilovskaya2017). This process is particularly boosted by increased global trade and branding alongside social media, the majority of which are used in English worldwide. The internationalization of the English language has diversified the routes through which EAW enter into English. For instance, many K-pop or J-pop related words enter the English language not through its US and UK varieties, but through Southeast Asian varieties of the language (Kiaer, Reference Kiaer2018).
4.2 Variation
It is not straightforward to romanize EAW. Although a number of romanization methods existed even from quite an early stage, it was still possible to regulate early arrivals through a dominant method of romanization. Nowadays, however, it is becoming much more difficult to impose any ‘standard’ romanization method. Register-sensitive variations have started to increase rapidly. This is particularly the case in online communication and social media, where people are much freer to romanize and determine words on their own terms. It often takes a while for newspapers to treat foreign import words without special treatment such as italicization or capitalization, whereas in social media, people need not follow these rules strictly. Kiaer (Reference Kiaer2018) argues that the terms like loan words or borrowing are not sufficient to describe the Asian-born words living in English due to their complex translingual life trajectory. East Asian-born words living in English do not live, and cannot live, as the same words they were in their language of birth, instead gaining new forms, meanings, and identities. For instance, sake means ‘rice wine’ in WE but in Japanese it could be understood as ‘alcohol’ in general.
5. Methodology
Our investigation consisted of two parts: a survey and follow-up semi-structured interviews. All 100 participants are British university students. The survey questions and interviews were informed by the three components of attitude, i.e. cognitive, affective, and behavioural, as defined by Garrett (Reference Garrett2010). It is important to note, however, that due to the interrelationships between the three components of attitude, it was unrealistic and unnecessary to design the questions to elicit single components of participants' attitudes. Therefore, the questions were designed to elicit participants' overall attitudes. Nevertheless, if certain questions elicited a particular component of attitudes or a participant response revealed a distinctive component, analyses were conducted and outcomes included in the results. As the study adopted a qualitative approach, oriented around inductive thematic analysis of participants' responses, there was no predetermined hypothesis about how EAW would be received. Instead, we used open questions to allow participants to describe their views in their own words, identifying the important major themes after the full dataset had been collected. This omission of hypotheses is an accepted practice for an inductive thematic analysis of subjective interview responses.
The scope of the investigation was limited to English words that originated in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean (South Korean dialect). These languages are invariably included in the category of ‘East Asian languages'. The term ‘East Asia’ is not only a geographical term but also refers to a cultural sphere influenced by Chinese character writing. While this sense of the term ‘East Asia’ has indeed been applied to countries like Mongolia or North Korea in the past, the speech of these regions has so far had a fairly minimal impact upon the English language. Similarly, while there is indeed linguistic diversity within a country, minority languages such as Ainu have not loaned many words to English. This is likely because these languages have fewer speakers, are limited to a smaller geographic area, and are more peripheral to the main economic centres in comparison to the majority languages. Our investigation therefore focused solely on Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (South Korean dialect) as the three East Asian languages that have been the greatest sources of loanwords into the English language. Through this, we aimed to increase the ability to generalise our results as much as possible while also limiting our scope to a practical breadth.
5.1 Survey
The first part of the investigation, which received 100 responses, consisted of a survey in the form of an online questionnaire featuring both closed and open questions. The questionnaire was anonymous, and respondents were asked to answer questions individually, without reference to dictionaries or exchanging opinions with others. The first section of the questionnaire focused on the language user's background, including gender, age, and proficiency in East Asian languages. The second section provided respondents with a list of 110 EAW. In order to maximize the generalisability of the results, the words included not only phonetic borrowings but also ‘loan translations’, or ‘calques’. Loan translations are a subset of loanword in which the sounds of the original language are not reflected but instead each word is translated literally into the Target Language. For example, participants were presented with the term ‘dragon boat’ (a type of traditional Chinese watercraft), a literal translation from Chinese 龙舟(龍舟), in which the first character means ‘dragon’ and the second means ‘boat’. Respondents were asked to indicate how familiar they were with all terms by choosing one of four options, from ‘never heard of this word / have no idea of its meaning’ to ‘very familiar, know which language it is from and a lot of other related information about it’. The words in the questionnaire were mostly extracted from the OED, and covered a variety of semantic categories, such as food (e.g. kimchi, dim sum, sushi), art (e.g. origami, yangchin), culture (e.g. spring festival), nature (e.g. typhoon) and human relations/activities (e.g. sensei, guanxi). Using the same list of words, section three focused on the behavioural component of attitudes, including frequency of use. Respondents were asked to indicate how often they used the words by choosing one of the following four options: i) never, ii) more often in spoken language than written language, iii) more often in written language than spoken language, iv) very often in both written and spoken language. The last section investigated other aspects of British university students' attitudes towards EAW in English. It included questions about students' attitudes toward the pronunciation of the words, their way of dealing with these words, and their perception of other people's use of these words. At the end of the questionnaire, respondents were given the chance to add any comments about the use of EAW in the English language.
5.2 Interviews
The second part of the investigation was in the form of an oral interview, where ten participants were interviewed individually for 20 to 30 minutes. Each interview was conducted inside a lecture room at the students' university and was sound recorded. The interview was composed of six parts, and the questions were informed by the three components of attitude (Garrett, Reference Garrett2010). The combined dataset collected through all interviews was then subjected to thematic analysis. The first part of the interview determined the general demographic background of the participant and their experience of East Asian languages. The second section contained questions about the participant's awareness of EAW, related to the cognitive component of attitude. Interviewees were asked what EAW they were aware of and to describe/explain these words. The third part of the interview aimed to examine the behavioural component of the participant's attitude to using EAW in their spoken English. For example, interviewees were asked in the case of direct English equivalents (e.g. ‘cherry blossom’ and ‘sakura’), if they would prefer to use the English word or the EAW. This part of the interview also asked about the participant's interest in learning more EAW and how they felt about pronouncing these words. In the fourth section, interviewees were invited to give their opinions and feelings on the number of EAW present in the English language, not only as speakers, but also as listeners. The next section of the interview examined the participant's understanding of circumstantial factors, such as their opinions about appropriate situations in which to use EAW and the types of people who would be most likely to use words. The participant was also asked if they had been criticised or praised in the past for using EAW. In the final part of the interview, the participant was asked to compare their use of EAW to those from other languages, especially European languages such as French, Italian or German. The interview concluded with an open question, inviting students to give any additional comments that were relevant to EAW in English in general.
6. Results
This section presents the results in seven categories: i) familiar words; ii) acceptance; iii) desire to learn; iv) understanding; v) usage: how and why; vi) comparison with the words from European languages; and vii) pronunciation.
6.1 Familiar and frequently used EAW: Karaoke, Tea, and Origami
In the survey, students were asked how familiar they were with a list of words. They were given four options ranging from ‘never heard this word’ to ‘very familiar’, as mentioned in the methodology section. The top 15 most familiar words are shown in Figure 1. The most familiar word was karaoke, with 70.24% of students indicating they were very familiar with the term and knew the language of origin and related information. This was followed by tea (69.88%), origami (69.88%), sushi (67.47%), and karate (63.10%). It was noted that 13 out of the top 15 words were categorised Japanese origin words by OED. The only word of Chinese origin in the top 15 words was ‘tea’, and the only word of Korean origin was ‘Samsung’, which is a proper noun. (Because there are also proper noun entries in the OED, we did not exclude proper noun in this study.)
Figure 1. The top 15 most familiar English words of East Asian origin
In terms of semantic category, the most frequently used and widely known words were those in the ‘culture’ and ‘food’ categories, from both the realms of traditional (e.g. samurai), and modern pop culture (e.g. anime). The least familiar and least used words were terms that have little social impact, such as kaishu (a style of handwriting). In the follow-up interviews, the most familiar words were again similar to those chosen in the survey, such as sushi, karaoke, and samurai. Other familiar words mentioned spontaneously during the interview were ones relating to cuisine (ramen, sake, tofu), electronics manufacturers (Toshiba, Mitsubishi), martial arts styles (taekwondo), and miscellaneous words like tsunami and kamikaze. Japanese words once again dominated, with just one student mentioning the Chinese origin word kung-fu and two students mentioning Chinese phrases such as ni hao. Korean origin words were represented only by the terms taekwondo and soju. When presented with the written list or prompted by the interviewer, a greater number of words were recognised. For example, many students spoke about anime or manga later in their interviews. In addition, whilst practically all students confirmed their familiarity with the word tea, no student thought that this was an East Asian origin word.
Nearly all the items most readily recognised as EAW came from Japanese. However, many of the readily recognisable Japanese origin words were originally borrowed from the Chinese language, such as tofu, kanji, and sensei. On the other hand, unlike Japanese and Korean origin words whose roots are recognisable by English speakers in the UK, some Chinese-origin words were not recognised as loanwords at all. Typical examples included tea and ketchup. This may be due to the relatively long ‘loan history’ of these words, as well as the fact that the pronunciation of these words has been nativized and has deviated from its original source. Many students mentioned global culture and Japanese pop-culture exports as a route for EAW.
6.2 Most accepted EAW in English: sushi, karaoke, samurai and kimono
The participants' cognitive component of attitude was measured by examining the acceptance or popularity of the words on the list. Once again, Japanese-origin words were shown to be the most commonly accepted. Most students not only recognised several words of Japanese origin but also considered them to be part of the English language. The most readily accepted words were sushi, karaoke, samurai, and kimono, and many students observed the necessity of using these words to refer to specific cultural imports, phenomena, or food items. In addition, ‘very Japanese’ words such as kawaii (the culture of cuteness in Japan) were also mentioned as accepted and used. This was because participants considered them to have specialised meanings that were more precise than any English word.
6.3 Students' desire to learn foreign words and to use EAW
The behaviour and affective components of attitudes were measured with a series of questions. In the online surveys, most students expressed a desire to learn more EAW and to use them on their daily communication in English. In addition, using EAW in English was seen as ‘fun’, ‘exciting’, ‘useful’, ‘interesting’, and ‘brilliant’. This is potentially because the words are relatively new borrowings in the English language, making them appear exotic and innovative. Additionally, understanding of a geographically distant culture with different customs to one's own is likely to be associated with a high level of education. Thus, it is possible that the use of EAW could make the speaker appear more sophisticated. The precise factors that lead English speakers to view EAW positively is a potentially interesting area for future research.
The results suggested that students were very open to EAW and keen to consider them as belonging to the language of origin but also to ‘their’ English, acknowledging them as dual identity words. However, the choice of which word would be used if there were also an English equivalent (e.g., sakura vs. ‘cherry blossom’) depended on context. Although the cognitive component of attitudes towards these EAW measured positively, the behavioural aspect of attitude, such as the decision whether to use EAW or their English equivalent, was more complicated, as the choice was based entirely upon the context and interlocutor.
For example, one student said that she would be most likely to use the word sashimi with her peers in the UK. However, if discussing this dish with her grandmother, who had never left the English countryside, she would avoid using the term sashimi but use raw fish instead. This suggests that the cognitive component of this interviewee's attitude towards the word sashimi is mostly positive as the word sashimi was considered an essential part of her communication. However, the behavioural component of her attitude towards the word sashimi was subject to change depending on the situation she found herself in. Register-sensitivity is thus shown to play a large role in word choice. As suggested by Kiaer (Reference Kiaer2018), it is the speech environment in which one has grown up, as well as the identity of the interlocutor, that exerts the greatest influence on word choice.
6.4 Understanding words of East Asian origin
The interviews investigated students' understanding of a small set of EAW. The word sushi, for example, was one of the highest-scoring words in terms of familiarity. However, it was found that understanding of what the word sushi referred to varied. Opinion was divided as to whether sushi referred to a way of preparing rice with vinegar, referred to raw fish, or referred to a dish involving rice with fish and sometimes other things. One student pointed out that British people often use the word sushi to refer to anything that ‘looked like sushi’, with an emphasis on appearance rather than ingredients. Similarly, whilst a much smaller group of students correctly identified kimchi as a food, many of these students were not sure whether it was from Korea or Japan, and one student thought it was a sweet dish. Only two students correctly described kimchi as pickled cabbage with spices, both of whom were students studying Korean.
However, for other items such as kawaii and senpai, students' understanding was generally lower and their interpretations were less varied. Two students pointed out that these terms did not refer to specific items and, since there were English equivalents, they were often not used in casual conversation in English. One student called these two items ‘very Japanese’, suggesting they were less assimilated into the English language. The word kawaii was referred to as a ‘specific kind of cuteness', ‘one associated with a fashion trend’, and ‘extremely cute’. The majority of students who recognised senpai gave its meaning not as the accepted Japanese meaning of ‘upperclassmen or a senior in an organization like a school, club, or company’, but instead as ‘someone you admire, a kind of role model’, ‘someone who is more knowledgeable or generally cooler than you’, or ‘someone senior’. Only one student was aware of the semantic differences between the Japanese and English usage. The majority of students with an awareness of the meaning of kawaii and senpai said that they had learned of these words in Japanese anime or Japanese video games and used them within these particular contexts. They would only use these terms with friends who shared the same interests as themselves such as Japanese pop culture or Japanese video games.
6.5 Usages: how and why
In this section, the behavioural component of attitudes surrounding the usage of EAW is analysed and presented. Most people understood terms such as sushi, karaoke, and samurai, all of which can be used in their communication. If their interlocutors were not aware of the meaning of these terms, students were willing to provide an explanation, perceived this as an easy task, and felt they were enriching their interlocutors' knowledge of East Asian culture. One student mentioned, however, that the terms kawaii and senpai were either omitted from conversation or only used among friends or siblings who would ‘get where [you're] coming from’. Additionally, in cases where a direct English equivalent was available, informants stressed the importance of the discourse context (described as the ‘kind of scene’ one is trying to set) and the need for communicative clarity when deciding which form to use. For example, for some students, the English term ‘cherry blossom’ was used in English-speaking contexts because the meaning was more explicit, whilst for others, the word sakura was preferred when talking about subjects in a Japanese context.
Students were also asked if they used EAW depending on their interlocutor's age or level of education. One student stated that he only would use EAW with his ‘own generation’. Another student said they were more confident using the terms among their friends, as they were not 100% certain they were using or pronouncing them correctly. Another suggested that a person's level of education level did not really affect people's attitudes towards using EAW. Again, context was emphasised as the most important factor determining East Asian origin word use, as conversations about East Asian culture, shared background knowledge, or a casual/jokey context could all make the use of EAW appropriate.
When students were asked why they choose to use these words, the most common response was as part of a joke, to add special emphasis, or to express their subcultural identity. One student speculated that those who use EAW in English conversation ‘randomly’ must do it because of their personal interests. In other words, the use of EAW and particularly Japanese origin words outside of a strictly relevant context was seen and used as a sign of subcultural identity. However, it was frequently mentioned that overusing Japanese words ‘just for the sake of it’ was associated with stigmatized nerd or weeaboo (or o-taku) subculture. One student even expressed a certain amount of concern and resentment about weeaboo overuse of anime and gaming words. The term weeaboo is generally only applied to fans of Japanese pop culture in the UK, with other East Asian cultures being exempt. However, as South Korean pop culture has gained popularity in English-speaking countries in recent years, the related derogatory term koreaboo has also been coined and has seen some online usage. Similarly to how weeaboo refers to fans of popular Japanese exports like anime or video games, koreaboo is applied to fans of TV dramas or pop music that emerged from the ‘Korean wave’ (hallyu) that spread across the globe from the early 21st Century. Stigmatization of the use of Korean-origin words in English was not detected as part of this particular study. This is possibly because the influx of Korean popular culture to the UK has been fairly recent and there are fewer borrowings from Korean-origin words in English in comparison to Japanese. However, as more Korean borrowings make their way into English, whether or not overuse of these terms becomes stigmatized will be an interesting direction of future research. The negative attitude towards association with weeaboo culture by overuse of Japanese words was the only negative response towards the uptake of EAW in English. Overall, no student felt there were ‘too many’ EAW being used.
6.6 Comparison with words from European languages
When asked about the presence of loan words in English from other European languages, many students noted that, given the geographical and cultural proximity of Europe, alongside the shared genetic roots of the languages, it was to be expected that words from other languages were well established and integrated into English. For example, using French-origin words like café in conversation had little impact on listeners, and no one would think twice about using them. Despite some students suggesting that EAW had a high impact and were exciting and exotic as there was still a certain ‘foreignness' about the words, students generally thought that in the near future EAW would become assimilated into the English language as have words from other European languages.
6.7 Pronunciation
When considering the pronunciation of EAW, opinions differed wildly. Students who had negative attitudes towards using original pronunciation mentioned that it was confusing, unnecessary, and pretentious to pronounce them authentically, and it is more natural to pronounce the words with English pronunciation. Another opinion expressed was that using English pronunciation aided the word's assimilation into the English vocabulary and helped others understand. Students who believed the words should be pronounced according to their language of origin gave reasons such as ‘it's more respectful to pronounce words according to their original pronunciation, if you can’ and, ‘nativized pronunciation is confusing’. They also said they tried not to pronounce words with a strong English accent ‘as this might be offensive’ and even ‘it's better not to use a word if you don't know how to pronounce it correctly’. In addition to these comments, the context and the interlocutor's knowledge of the East Asian language were frequently cited as determining factors. It was also noted that the pronunciation of these words created a small level of stress for students. One student said that they feared using Japanese words with Japanese people and felt embarrassed about the possibility of using them incorrectly. Another student, however, also felt stressed using EAW when talking with their British friends who were not necessarily aware of Japanese culture. One respondent said that they did not know how to pronounce the words authentically and were confused about whether to use English pronunciation or not, saying, ‘I am too nervous to try it authentically, but I feel wrong to pronounce it like an English word’. This statement also demonstrates how students may find dilemmas over how to pronounce words from East Asian countries. Furthermore, students tended to use the Japanese pronunciation for words that originated in Chinese before coming into the Japanese language, as they were more familiar with this form. Examples included kanji for ‘Chinese characters', and tofu for ‘bean curd’.
7. Limitations
Although our investigation revealed many aspects of English-speaking students' attitudes towards EAW, the study was not without limitations. Specifically, it is possible that the participants' native dialect of English could have influenced how they perceive EAW. As all participants were living in the UK, unsurprisingly British dialects of English were heavily represented in proportion to those of other countries. This limits the extent to which the results can be generalised to speakers of other English dialects. Similarly, it is likely that the sociolects of highly educated, young people were overrepresented in our collected data. This too limits the extent to which the results can be generalised to speakers of English from different backgrounds. It is hoped that this current study, with its limited scope of just British university students, will provide a springboard for future research into how English speakers from different backgrounds may perceive EAW.
8. Conclusion
The present study investigated British students' attitudes towards EAW in English. It examined which words were familiar and in common usage amongst students. In addition, it has looked at how strongly students desired to learn and use these words, determining their level of understanding of EAW and how or why these words are used in daily conversation. Attitudes towards the use of EAW and those from European languages were also compared, as were student attitudes towards the pronunciation of these words. It was noted that words of East Asian origin were in the process of integration into the English language, and students in general were positive about their use in daily conversation as well as their future place in English. The present study also offers an insight into how the adoption of EAW goes hand in hand with the adoption of East Asian cultural trends. The participants revealed an awareness of this process during the interviews and could associate new and diversifying cultural influences with the kind of linguistic borrowing under discussion.
Dr ZIXI YOU received her DPhil (PhD) in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. She is currently a lecturer and subject leader at the School of Language and Global Studies, University of Central Lancashire, UK. Her research interests include linguistics, learning and translation of English and East Asian languages. Email: zyou@uclan.ac.uk
Dr JIEUN KIAER is YBM-KF Associate Professor in Korean Language and Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interest includes cross-cultural pragmatics, translingualism, translation and Asian Englishes. She has authored Translingual Words (2018, Routledge). She is the Series Editor of Routledge Studies in East Asian Translation.
Dr. HYEJEONG AHN works as a lecturer at the School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her publications include Attitudes to World Englishes: Implications for teaching English in South Korea (Routledge). Her research interests includes Cultural Linguistics, World Englishes, and English in Higher Education.
Appendix 1: Questionnaire
Language users' information
This questionnaire is anonymous, and it takes 5–10 min in total to complete. Please answer based on your own knowledge and individual intuition, without referring to any dictionary/ reference book, or exchanging opinions with other people. Should you not wish to answer any particular question, please leave it blank and keep on with other questions. Thank you.
1. Is your English closer to ____? (Please choose one from the following options, or specify in the box.)
○ British English
○ American English
○ Other (please specify) ___________________
2. What is your gender?
○ Female
○ Male
3. Which is your age group?
○ 0–10
○ 11–20
○ 21–30
○ 31–40
○ 41–50
○ 51–60
○ 61–70
○ 71–80
○ Above 81
4. In the past 10 years, how long have/had you been outside English-speaking country?
○ Never, or less than a year
○ 1–5 years
○ 5–10 years
○ More than 10 years
5. Have you learnt any East Asian Language before? (Please choose all languages you have learnt.)
□ Japanese
□ Chinese
□ Korean
Please indicate here your level and main method(s) through which you learnt each language in this box.
Familiarity with words
Please answer based on your own knowledge and individual intuition, without referring to any dictionary/reference book, or exchanging opinions with other people.
6. How familiar are you with the following words?
Frequency of usage
7. How often do you use the following words?
General attitude
8. When using East Asian origin words in spoken English, e.g. tofu, Tai-chi, ____. (Please choose the best description.)
○ I always use the original pronunciation.
○ I use the original pronunciation whenever I know or am confident with it.
○ I always use the ‘English way’ of pronouncing the words.
9. When using East Asian origin words in written English, e.g. tofu, Tai-chi, ____. (Please choose the best description.)
○ I often put them in bold/italics or quotation marks.
○ I do nothing special.
○ I just follow the rules if I was told (by tutor, supervisor) to do so.
10. Please choose to what extent you agree/disagree about using East Asian origin words in English.
Please add here any thoughts/comments/ideas that you have about using East Asian origin words in English. Thank you. (This is the end of the questionnaire.)
Appendix 2- Interview questions
