Analyzing Changes in the Knowledge Structure of Hanbok Research over the Last Decade : Focusing on Semantic Network Analysis

This study aims to empirically investigate the structural evolution and knowledge transition of Hanbok discourse by conductingasemanticnetworkanalysison the titles and keywords of 359 research papers published in Korean academic journals over the past decade (2015–2025),exploring basic statistics, word frequencies, and keyword co-occurrence networks. The analysis revealed that the landscape of Hanbok research can be categorized into three core themes: Historical-Traditional (HT), Design-Development (DD), and Modern-Applied (MA). The HT theme, with keywords suchas ‘Joseon’, ‘Dynasty’, and ‘Excavated’, forms the academic foundation that supports the identity of Hanbok research through historical verification, while in the DD theme, the keywords ‘Design’ and ‘Development’ recorded the highest degree of centrality, serving as pivotal mediators in the process of transferring historical assets into modern values. Finally, the MA theme—represented by ‘3D’, ‘Digital’, and ‘New Hanbok’—demonstrates the expansion of Hanbok into digital fashion and high-value cultural content industries. This study is significant in proving Hanbok research is expanding its scope beyond the traditional humanities paradigm by focusing on historical costume verification through convergence with design engineering and digital technology. Furthermore, it provides fundamental data for the future diversification of the Hanbok industry and the establishment of new research methodologies. In particular, the structural disconnect identified between the HT and MA clusters suggests that future research should prioritize building an organic knowledge pipeline from historical verification and digital archiving to industrial application, including the development of optimized 3D algorithm channels that reflect the unique physical properties of traditional Hanbok textiles, in proactive response to the emerging AI-based paradigm shift.