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Semantic Network of Korean Pop Songs — Changing meaning Structure from 1960’s to 2000’s

Yong Hak Kim 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Lyrics of popular songs convey the meanings and symbols that are important in that era because they are produced by the collective efforts of song writers, consumers, critics and distributors. This paper analyzes the semantic structure among keywords contained in popular song lyrics. Three hundred popular songs are compiled, one hundred each from 60’s, 80’s and 2000’s for social network analysis of keywords. Major findings are the following. 1) the most central keyword has always been ‘love’ regardless of the period the song was written. 2) During 60’s, natural phenomena such as rain, mist or lakes appeared frequently. Yet they disappear almost completely and replaced by English words like ‘nobody’ or ‘baby’ from 80’s. 3) The number of unique words increases rapidly over time and the mode of expressions became diverse. 4) The whole network structure changes from a radial type to a chain type indicating that the relative centrality of ‘love’ is weakened, although they the most important in each period. 5) Sentiments of longing for hometown disappears gradually, and scenes related with ‘drinking liquor’ become frequent.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.