Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 453 Proceedings of the International University Symposium on Humanities and Arts (INUSHARTS 2019) The Rise of English Among K-Pop Idols: Language Varieties in The Immigration 1st Andita Dyah Octaviani 2nd Harumi Manik Ayu Yamin* English Studies Program, Faculty Linguistics Department, Faculty of of Humanities Humanities Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia Depok, Indonesia [email protected] [email protected] Abstract—Well known worldwide, K-Pop idols are into common phenomena in society, especially in expected to maintain their fame by speaking in English bilingual and multilingual countries. Stylianou-Panayi to promote themselves to international viewers. The idea [2] acknowledges that code-switching and code- that K-Pop idols ought to speak English is even mixing may occur in bilingual communities. Owen [3] emphasized by the host of a variety show called The mentions that South Korean citizens use several Immigration, aired on K-Style TV. The host has stated languages daily, such as standard Korean, Korean that speaking English is essential for K-Pop idols before dialects, English, Chinese, and Japanese. they attend any overseas performances. Nonetheless, some K-Pop idols are still unaccustomed to English, This research paper has two essential aims: to which leads to the phenomena called code-switching and investigate the influential factors that affect K-Pop code-mixing. To explore this matter, this study used idols to switch and mix their speech between English three episodes of The Immigration to determine the and Korean and to investigate viewers’ opinions influential factors behind the code-switching and code- toward the phenomenon that leads to the impact of mixing phenomena. Moreover, this study used a using English as the choice of language for non- questionnaire that was filled out through Google Forms Korean viewers. A Korean variety show aired on K- to gather opinions from international viewers after Style TV called The Immigration is the main corpus of watching the show. The result shows that K-Pop idols this research paper. The Immigration is about K-Pop tend to switch and mix their languages to maintain idols who become guest stars in one of the largest K- topics and solidarity among the group members. Furthermore, the survey shows that the perception from Pop concerts called K-Con so that they get invited to participants of both sex groups toward K-Pop idols may The Immigration. K-Con [4] was established in 2012 vary due to their sense of belonging to the K-Pop and first began in Irvine, California. CJ E&M, the fandom. production that organizes the concert, has the aim of allowing people all around the world to experience the Keywords—code-switching, code-mixing, K-Pop idols, Korean culture. international fans, Korean-English. During The Immigration, K-Pop idols are expected I. Introduction to communicate in English as much as possible to test their English ability before they go to the country Korean pop, or K-Pop, is a music genre that has where K-Con will take place. In the middle of their been spreading all around the world, not only in Asian conversations, most K-Pop idols cannot avoid code- countries but also in non-Asian countries. Society switching and code-mixing between Korean and today is aware of the diversity of K-Pop groups, English. Interestingly, one of the hosts mentions that whether in the form of male groups or female groups. to be able to communicate with international fans, As K-Pop idols have the goal of stealing the spotlight speaking English is very important for K-Pop idols. by attracting more people in non-Asian countries, they Furthermore, to determine viewers’ opinions toward have been attempting to communicate with global fans this phenomenon, this research paper only focuses on using an international language, which is English. a mini-survey that was conducted to analyze people’s Whether they speak a simple word or a simple comments about the importance of English for K-Pop sentence, most K-Pop idols today put effort into Idols, along with the impact of code-switching and talking with their fans using English rather than code-mixing on the viewers, whether they are fans of Korean. It turns out that using English in conversation K-Pop or not. makes the fans, especially international fans, feel more attracted to K-Pop idols because they can comprehend II. Method them better. This research paper was conducted to answer two When it comes to speaking English, K-Pop idols questions regarding the topic of English as the cannot avoid two phenomena in sociolinguistics language choice in code-switching and code-mixing studies: code-switching and code-mixing. These two that occur in K-Pop Idols’ conversations. The phenomena occur when speakers switch and mix questions this research paper attempts to investigate languages during dialog with their interlocutor without are: changing the context or meaning of their utterances [1]. Code-switching and code-mixing have developed Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 117 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 453 Research question 1: What are the aspects that years old. Most participants are students or employees influence the occurrence of the code-switching and who have or do not have any interest in K-Pop. Out of code-mixing phenomena in K-Pop Idols’ conversation 70 people, 42 of the participants are K-Pop fans, yet in The Immigration? 42 out of the 70 people do not understand the Korean language at all. Out of the 70 people, the 28 who Research question 2: How does the use of English understand Korean are differentiated into two types: attract viewers of The Immigration, despite the those who are fluent in Korean and those who are not. frequent use of code-switching and code-mixing Interestingly, only 2 out of 28 people could understand during the show? and speak Korean fluently, whereas the rest were not In this research, there are two types of participants: fluent in Korean. those in the video K-STYLE TV: The Immigration [5] This research paper focuses on three videos on [6] [7] [8] and those who filled out the survey through YouTube. The video of ASTRO is one full video of the Google Forms. the same artist that is separated into two parts. These No Name DOB Nationality Occupation videos were chosen as the main focus of the research 1 Kim March 5, Korean Singer of because the episode about ASTRO is the first episode Myungjun 1994 ASTRO of the show from 2016, while the MOMOLAND (MJ) episode is the first episode from 2017. Table 2 below 2 Lee Dabin August 1, Korean Singer of (Yeonwoo) 1996 MOMOLAND is the detailed information about the videos. 3 Lee March 30, Korean Singer of No Title YouTube Release Time Dongmin 1997 ASTRO URL Date (Cha 1 [KSTYLE TV] The http://bit.ly/ Septemb 09:53 Eunwoo) Immigration | TheImmigra er 12, 4 Lee Eunbi - Korean Model, Host ASTRO Part 1 tionASTRO 2016 (Sera) 1 5 Lee Hyebin January Korean Singer of (Hyebin) 12, 1996 MOMOLAND 2 [KSTYLE TV] The http://bit.ly/ Septemb 04:08 6 Lee August Korean Singer of Immigration | TheImmigra er 13, Joowon 18, 1999 MOMOLAND ASTRO Part 2 tionASTRO 2016 (JooE) 2 7 Lee April 13, Korean- Singer of Seungri 2000 American MOMOLAND 3 [KSTYLE TV] The http://bit.ly/ January 10:58 Immigration | TheImmigra 2, 2017 (Nancy) MOMOLAND tionMOMO 8 Park March 15, Korean Singer of LAND Jinwoo 1996 ASTRO (JinJin) Table. 2. Materials 9 Park February Korean Singer of Minhyuk 25, 1999 ASTRO Furthermore, to analyze the perspective of (Rocky) the second type of participants, this research paper 10 Song March 18, Korean Actor, provided 24 with a questionnaire that covers the Joongeun 1980 Comedian, participants’ personal information, language speaking (Jun) Host 11 Sung December Korean Singer of ability, understanding of the English and Korean Jiyeon 20, 1997 MOMOLAND languages, and their opinion about code-switching and (Jane) code-mixing between English and Korean, along with 12 Yoon March 21, Korean Singer of the language choice between English and Korean. The Sanha 2000 ASTRO data were collected through Google Forms and filled (Sanha) out by various groups of people. Table 1. Participants. The hosts tests all of the singers listed in Figure 1 III. Results and Discussion before they go to the K-Pop concert called K-Con. Each episode of the K-Style TV show The Jun, as the host, says that if they want to communicate Immigration was analyzed, and particular transcripts with the audience in K-Con, speaking English is very are already in this paper to determine the influential important for them. As a result, the hosts test the factors that lead speakers to switch and mix their singers’ English-speaking abilities by asking the language between English and Korean. This research singers several questions. Based on the videos, 13 paper only focuses on particular transcripts because singers in total are assessed because ASTRO consists some of the members do not perform code-switching of six people, and MOMOLAND consists of seven and code-mixing behaviors during their conversations. people. However, one member of ASTRO and four The conversations between the speakers are provided members of MOMOLAND did not use any code- below. switching and code-mixing during their dialog with the hosts, so they were automatically not included in • ASTRO Episode 1 the research.