South Korean Bilinguals by Lee Jin Choi Dissertation
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FRAGILE BILINGUALS: RESCALING 'GOOD' AND 'BAD' SOUTH KOREAN BILINGUALS BY LEE JIN CHOI DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Policy Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Adrienne Lo, Chair Professor Anne Haas Dyson Professor Violet Harris Associate Professor Joseph Sung-Yul Park, National University of Singapore Abstract My dissertation explores how U.S.-based multilingual South Korean speakers of English and Korean negotiate their positions in the over-crowded and complex lingusitic market, and try to stake a claim to being legitimate bilinguals through the process of metapragmatic typification (Agha, 2007). First, I investigate how tensions between Koreanness (nationalism/tradition) and cosmopolitanism (national betrayal) are exercised and displayed through mediatized discourses. Using discourse analysis, I then analyze interactions among a group of transnational South Korean graduate students who attend a North American university. By analyzing naturally occurring data from their social meetings and computer-mediated conversations, I examine how they consume circulating language ideologies, and locate themselves through the selective production of ideological representations or language registers associated with certain models of personhood. In particular, I focus on the process of metapragmatic typification, which shows how participants discursively typify linguistic registers, linguistic practices and models of personhood as indexical emblems of ‘good/successful’ or ‘bad/failed’ bilinguals as an attempt to legitimize themselves. By analyzing both macro- and micro- contexts, my dissertation highlights how such tensions have been reconstructed and rescaled in society, and how individuals participate in the process of developing sense-making discourses (Heller & Duchêne, 2012) in order to secure their positions and marginalize ‘other’ English speakers (e.g., Agha, 2003; Inoue, 2006). ii Acknowledgements In researching and writing my dissertation, many people served as great mentors and supporters and I am deeply indebted to all of them for their constant encouragement. Above all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Adrienne who guided me to go through this long academic journey and provided me invaluable comments and advices. I am certain that I could not have completed my dissertation without her. I also would like to offer my sincere graditute and appreciation to my committee members for their guidance, feedback and support. Dr. Dyson was such a caring mentor who saw my passion and encouraged me to further my passion for language studies. Dr. Harris was always supportive throughout my doctoral study, both academically and personally. Dr. Park provided me with thoughtful comments and insightful criticisms that enabled me to critically approach my data and further my research. It was such an honor to work with them. I would like to thank my participants who spent their valuable time participating in my research. Their willingness to share their personal experiences and thoughts made this research possible. A special thanks goes to my friends and colleagues for their feedback and moral support, especially Paige, Sylvia, Hyeyoung, Liliana, my beloved Maze, Hyona & Nimo, Sunjae, Heunjin, Genova, Shinwoo & Yong (and their little Hailey), Koeun, Taesung, Choongsup, Mina, Hina and Jihye. My greatest debt of gratitude also goes to my family—my parents who have always believed in me and have been so supportive (I love you both so much), my wonderful big brothers, Jaeyoung and Jaesung, and my lovely cats at home. With deep gratitude and much love, I would like to dedicate my dissertation to my aunt and uncle who had always encouraged me to pursue my dream but unfortunately could not be here to celebrate my graduation. iii Finally, I am incredibly thankful to my husband, Paul Lee, who put up with my frustrations, comforted me, gave me a back massage every night and read multiple drafts of my dissertation though they did not make much sense to him who majored in engineering. My love also goes to my little Gabi and Rafa/Ella who are the joy of my life. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………..9 Chapter 3. Historical Construction of Languages and Language Practices in South Korea…….21 Chapter 4. Historical Construction of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Bilinguals in South Korea…………....46 Chapter 5. Looking Inside: The Construction of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Bilingual Personhood…......84 Chapter 6. Looking Inside: The Construction of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ English Competence and Bilingual Competence…………………………………………………………………………..120 Chapter 7. Looking Inside: The Construction of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Bilinguals Through Novel Respelling Forms……………………………………………………………………………….149 Chapter 8. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..179 References………………………………………………………………………………………184 Appendix A. The National Curriculum Reform…………………………………………….….216 Appendix B. The Vowel Phonemes of Korean Language…………………………..………….218 v Chapter 1. Introduction As a result of neo-globalization and late-capitalism, English has spread widely across the world and become a key element for success in various countries. Many scholars have examined how the global spread of English has generated a new English-oriented market and created new hybrid forms of languages. Although some scholars explain the English frenzy and the increasing number of transnational students in relation to neoliberal globalization, I take the position that globalization alone cannot generate such ‘new’ changes and delicate tensions between ‘new’ and ‘old’ regimes, between ‘global’ and ‘local’ and between ‘modern’ and ‘tradition’. Since neither multilingualism nor different language varieties are new, we cannot argue that globalization itself has led to the emergence of ‘new’ social phenomena, including ‘new’ forms of hybrid language varieties and ‘new’ groups of global elites who equip themselves with foreign language skills and overseas study. Rather, the circulation and recycling of recognizable chronotopic representations of events, people and linguistic practices and their ideological discourses reshape and reorder the ‘new’ ways we understand languages, language speakers and language practices. These stereotypical language registers and identifiable historical figures (Agha 2007a) have been used as the authentic tool to legitimize a certain linguistic variety and speaker, and marginalize others in contemporary linguistic markets. As one of many countries that have experienced rapid sociopolitical change, contemporary South Korean society has placed a high value on English skills because they are thought to signify the speaker’s ability to participate in global communications and to show their constant effort to develop their skills and meet the needs of neoliberal logics (Park, 2009; Park & Lo, 2012). Since the United States has remained the “object of material desire and moral approbation, longing and disdain” (Abelmann & Lie 1995, p. 62) in the post-war period, the 1 same bifurcated gaze has been cast upon multilingual South Korean speakers of English and Korean. As the linguistic market is becoming crowded with growing numbers of multilingual speakers who try to claim their legitimacy, this bifurcated view has created a thin boundary between the categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bilinguals. It treats intense investment in learning/using English and being a global subject as a sign of devaluing Koreaness/tradition or betraying the nation (Park, 2009). In addition, it problematizes English speakers who are ‘too cosmopolitan’ or ‘too Americanized’, and often questions their morality and the ways of learning or using English (Abelmann & Kang, 2013). In other words, a Korean speaker’s English language proficiency can be understood as a ‘valuable’ and ‘marketable’ resource only when it is accompanied by a careful display of ‘balanced’ Koreanness (c.f., Besnier, 2011; Heller & Duchêne, 2012; Lo & Kim, in press). Many scholars in applied linguistics, education and linguistic anthropology have explored the tensions between the global and local, and between tradition and modernity. Terms such as glocalization (Robertson, 1995) and translocalization (Blommaert, 2010) have been introduced in order to conceptualize these tensions, and have urged researchers to pay attention to the multiple tensions between local and global discourses rather than simply focusing on the dominant power of global discourses. More recently, attention has turned towards the dynamic process of (re)localization and its production of hybrid forms (Alim et al., 2008; Blommaert, 2010; Pennycook, 2012, 2010). As these complex tensions between the global and local, and between tradition and modernity are rescaled and relocalized over time and across spaces, they come to measure one’s ‘appropriate’ modernity (e.g., Besnier, 2011), or to decide who is viewed as a more ‘authentic’ language speaker in a crowded and precarious market (e.g., Heller & Duchêne, 2012). In this context, the two types of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bilinguals are located on “axes of 2 differentiation” (Irvine & Gal, 2000) where contrasts in linguistic forms are mapped onto social differences and different models of personhood (Gal, 2012). Korean and English, for example, are associated with contrasting models of personhood