Hangul as a Sound Representation System: Efficacy and Innovation

This chapter explores Hangul’s role as an efficient and innovative sound representation system for spoken Korean. While the Korean normative orthographic conventions require spoken Korean to be represented morpho-phonemically, Hangul is also used to represent actual speech with higher orthographic transparency. This chapter begins by introducing the consonant and vowel inventories of modern Seoul Korean and the correspondences between phonemes and Hangul graphemes. It then examines how Hangul represents phonological processes and phonetic variations in spoken Korean, especially in contexts where normative orthographic conventions are not strictly enforced. Additionally, the chapter discusses how loanwords are adapted into Korean and represented in Hangul, highlighting crucial factors at play in the process. This chapter concludes by addressing innovative uses of Hangul emerged in contemporary Korean media.