The Background of the Study

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

The general utility of a language is as a tool of communication. When a language plays as a media of communication, it shares the thought and feeling in a community. Sapir 1921:3 states that language is purely human and non instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntary produced symbols . On the other hand, a language also performs as a means of power or practice: political, socio-cultural, and economic practices. According to Phillipson 1997, a language interlocks with political, economic, and cultural chiefly in education, science, and the media powers. Crystal 1997:5 added that a language cannot grow as a favoured language without a strong power-support. In short, a language can exclusively have the power if it is well supported by those practices. In relation to a language, English becomes an obvious example which is known as one of languages that has a power and is spoken in every place around the world because of the influence of people who use it. Based on the historical review, it is the power of British Empire and further followed by the United States that make English to be a world language. Furthermore, 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 et al., Eds., 2006:465 as the World Englishes. Consequently, a local feature both in spoken and written form particularly in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary , as a result of English variations, occurs in several countries, such as in Asia and Africa see Crystal, 1997; Mullany and Stockwell, 2010. Nevertheless, several cases of English variations, particularly in pronunciation, are still being stereotyped if the English speakers pronunciation is different from the so-called native speakers. Such a case in India, because the wage costs rose, the call centres were relocated in the small cities with a lower cost, poorer communication infrastructure, and poorer English skills Graddol, 2006:36. Similar case also occurred in accents like Hispanic accent that was underestimated in North America by non-Hispanic English users Nelson, 2011:3. Such stereotypes lead to injustice in the speakers especially non-native speakers, such as in international businesses, formal education, and other international affairs. For instance, the non-native speakers with very different accent are often considered to be less intelligence, complicated, or less credible in communication affairs. If these injustices are also applied to the English learners, particularly they who learn English as a foreign language, it will not benefit them to communicate with others from different language background. Perceiving the cases of English variation s stereotype, what the effect given in relation to the use of English in Korea will be because of its K-pop culture s popularization. The way of Korean speak English with their accent which are presented in many kinds of Korean TV programs such as K-dramas, K-movies and K- variety shows becomes an attention to discuss. KorE is interesting to analyse since the English learners do not only learn English in academic field, but also from many kinds of media nowadays. Then, one of Korean variety shows which is informed as the most popular variety show in Korea and across Asia including in Indonesia, namely Running Man is interested to scrutinize. Since now Running Man has a lot of fans from all over the world particularly among Korean lovers and most likely among students, analyzing the way of Running Man s players speak English becomes the foremost reason in this study. Through the selected Running Man s videos, the notion of intelligibility as a consideration to the multilingual speakers who have different mother tongue and speak with different accent of English is applied see Canagarajah, 2007; Grushko and Petrosyan, 2008. Furthermore, the description the sound patterns of Korean-accented English to name Korean accent in this study; KorE onwards, which is compared to the reference English- British English and American English Crystal, 1997:149, is given to uncover which patterns that is intelligible and unintelligible. After all, the students judgments and attitudes towards the way of Running Man players pronunciation are discussed to prove whether Korean s pronunciation, as an accent s variation, is stereotyped or accepted.

1.2 Research Problem