‘From Hygiene to Health’ in Modern Korea: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Background: Previous research dealt with the concept of ‘hygiene’ in Korea, mainly regarding the modern transition summarized as ‘from regimen to hygiene’, has been based on qualitative research methods. However, because modern Korean language material had been constructed as a corpus with a considerable size, a quantitative approach based on language material has become possible. Through this, the provision of a new implication point can be received.

Methods: The Corpus of Modern Korean Magazines, which is a morph-tagged corpus constructed based on 20 kinds of original texts of modern magazines in Korea, was utilized. In this corpus, a list of the co-occurred words of ‘wisaeng [hygiene], yangsaeang [regimen], geongang [health], and cheonggyeol [cleanliness]’, importantly related to the concept of ‘modern hygiene’ and the strength of co-occurrence that was calculated with the t-score, were extracted and analyzed. 

Results: Through a quantitative analysis of the corpus base, it was confirmed that the number of the co-occurred words of ‘wisaeng [hygiene]’ decreases and the strength of the co-occurrence gets low.  In contrast, the number of the co-occurred words of ‘geongang [health]’ increases and the strength of the co-occurred words becomes heightened. 

Conclusion: Regarding the change after ‘from regimen to hygiene’, an analysis based on the corpus has been attempted. Through the quantitative data, the conversion into ‘from hygiene to health’ was confirmed. Research with such a method proves the need and the feasibility of quantitative research that supplements the previous qualitative analysis.