Variation in the English-to-Korean adaptation of the voiceless interdental fricative in technical terms

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate how the voiceless interdental fricative /θ/ in English technical terms is adopted into Korean. Based on the previous findings that English-to-Korean adaptation occurs depending on the two kinds of English originals (i.e., [s’] for general words and [tʰ] for chemical terms), this study examines phonological variation by introducing and analyzing the novel variant [cʰ] for technical terms. This is analyzed with actual chemical terms and a medicinal product name using ChatGPT and accounted for by the overapplication of palatalization in English-to-Korean adaptation of technical terms. While palatalization per se is an established phenomenon in Korean phonology, it is worth noting that it can be extended to loanword adaptation and, more importantly, even to an environment where palatalization would not be expected.