Codified Korean English: Process, Characteristics and Consequence

As an EFL country, Korea has been considered a member of the Expanding Circle of English speech fellowships where English education is centered around an exonormative and norm‐dependent variety of English. However, through more than 100 years of consistent English education and testing, virtually all educated Koreans now share a common set of English grammar rules and expressions that may best be referred to as a ‘codified variety of Korean English.’ Thus in spite of the popular belief that Koreans learn American English, a substantial portion of what is learned and tested in schools is different from American English and this codified variety of Korean English now serves as the endonormative standard for English education in Korea. This paper discusses the process, characteristics and the consequence of this codified variety of Korean English.