Ethnographic Discourse Analysis of the Representations Of
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ETHNOGRAPHIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATIONS OF MARRIAGE IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN TRANSNATIONAL SPACES OF SOUTH KOREA A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES (KOREAN) DECEMBER 2016 By Jae Rim Yoon Dissertation Committee: Ho-min Sohn, Chairperson Mary Shin Kim Christina Higgins Mee-jeong Park Graham Crookes Keywords: transnationalism, gendered identities, ethnographic discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, second language learning, South Korea To my parents and my brother i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without heartfelt support from a great number of people I greatly cherish. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to those who guided and cheered me through this academic adventure. I would like to first express my profound gratitude to my dissertation committee who have become my role models. I cannot put into words how blessed I am to have been a student of Professor Ho-min Sohn. As one of the most prominent scholars and a respected educator in the field of Korean linguistics and Korean language pedagogy, he has guided me to become an enhanced analyst of the Korean language with his insights and expertise. He has also encouraged me to pursue my research interest and grow as a researcher. He will always remain to be one of my most influential role models whom I will try to resemble in his ways of loving his students. I was truly blessed to have Professor Mary Shin Kim as my academic advisor. She has greatly helped me polish my analysis of Korean conversation data and improve my arguments and formation of this dissertation. She has also guided me to begin my professional career in the field of Korean language teaching with her insights and experiences. Moreover, I am grateful for her emotional support when I faced hardship during my journey. I cannot find words that fully express my respect for her not only as a researcher but also in all of her personal qualities. My special gratitude goes to Professor Christina Higgins who I have had the pleasure of working with since 2008. She has been an inspiring influence on my development as a researcher and analyst, and I have benefited tremendously from her educational insights and astute critiques in reaching my highest standards as a professional. Her classes sparked my interest in the field of sociolinguistics in the first semester of my Master’s study, and her seminars introduced me to the various aspects of discourse analysis, which ultimately contributed to the formation of my ii research agenda. I was blessed to have had her as my academic advisor during my Master’s study as well as my doctorate dissertation committee. Professor Mee-jeong Park is another mentor who I am indebted for her constant support and guidance not only professionally but also personally. Her passion and expertise in Korean language pedagogy have continuously inspired me to become an enthusiastic and committed Korean language educator. Moreover, I thank her for her insightful feedbacks that deepened the analyses of my dissertation and her genuine advice on my professional development. Last but not least, I would like to thank Professor Graham Crookes, who kindly agreed to serve on the committee as the University Representative. His astute critiques have pushed me to pursue challenging yet important theoretical inquiries of my dissertation, which inspired me to grow further as a researcher. I am also deeply grateful to have learned from his critical practices in class as well as perspectives. I will always try to resemble him as a researcher and an educator. I cannot, of course, go without expressing my appreciation to all of the participants of my dissertation. This dissertation was only possible thanks to their support and assistance. I am grateful for the director of the Multicultural Families Support Center who welcomed an outside researcher. My sincere gratitude also goes to the Korean instructor at the center whose professional insights and caring heart for her students have greatly inspired me to hear the participants’ voices with my whole heart. I cannot find words to properly show my appreciation and respect to the strong and inspiring women who have opened my eyes to the communities of transnationals in Korea. Thank you for sharing your precious life stories and insights with me. Your welcomes and friendship made my journey remarkably meaningful and beautiful. My academic journey at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa was full of joyful memories thanks to my precious graduate colleagues and friends. Due to the limited space, I cannot express iii my thanks in length, but I would like to send my heartfelt mahalos to my Hawai‘i ohana with whom I was fortunate to have shared many things from academic interests and educational inspiration to concerns and joys of our personal lives on the beach. My life in Hawai‘i would have been dull without you. Thank you, Ju-A Hwang, Josephine Lee, Rue Burch, Seunghye Yu, Eunho Kim, Soyoung Yi, Hyeseung Lee, Cheol-lin Park, Dongmin Kim, Nayoung Kim, Hiromi Yoshida, Hanbyul Jung, Eunseok Ro, Sangki Kim, Leon Potter, Hyeyoon Cho, Hakyoon Lee, and all my colleagues that shared ideas and laughs in Room 366 and hallways of Moore Hall. I would also like to show my gratitude to all my colleagues in the Korean Language Program at the Pennsylvania State University. Thank you for your considerate support, Sorin Huh, Lan Kim, Hyunjoo Matsueda, Bookyung Kim, and Hyowon Park. I am truly blessed to have begun my professional career with such a supportive group of professionals. Special thanks to my precious best friends who have always believed in, supported, and loved me throughout my long journey: Hyojung Jun, Kyewon Chung, Nana Son, Suk-hee Choi, Sang-Ah Lee, Kayoung Kim, Youra Kim, Jeewon Yang, Minjeong Kwon and her mother, Rebecca Hannon, and Allen Giles. You have always been my soulmates to cherish beautiful moments together and my shelter on rainy days during my journey. Thanks to your heartfelt cheering, my adventure away from home was always full of courage and love. Finally, and most importantly, I thank the unconditional support and love that came from my family. I would like to express my utmost gratitude, respect, and love to my parents Younghee Park and Insoo Yoon, who have always believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my dream. I also wish to express my love and appreciation to my younger brother Heesang Yoon for being the best brother anyone could ever have. I am extremely fortunate to have such loving family whom I can count on no matter what. I wholeheartedly dedicate this dissertation to them. iv ABSTRACT Recent sociolinguistic research on multilingualism and identities in the context of globalization has recognized the transnational nature of discourses and semiotic resources that flow beyond national and cultural boundaries. In the context of South Korea, significant amount of interests across different disciplines has explored a specific category of multilingualism: multicultural families with Korean men and immigrant women. Despite the extensive societal attention to the phenomenon, no sociolinguistic research has explored the role language plays in discourses that suppresses, regulates, or promotes multilingualism and the gendered discourses about marriage immigrant women’s second language socialization. Given the crucial role of language in creating pubic image of immigrants, it is important to understand what types of ideologies are reinforced regarding marriage immigrant women in different levels of discourses. Uncovering the underlying ideologies in discourses will foreground struggles immigrant women undergo and eventually help bring social changes. To this aim, this dissertation investigates the language ideologies in representations of marriage immigrant women in policy, media, and women’s self-representations through an ethnographic approach. Drawing upon the perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and post- structuralist approach to the analysis of representation, this dissertation primarily examines discourses in the Multicultural Families Support Act, the known television program on marriage immigrants ‘Love in Asia,’ and interactions among marriage immigrant women at a Korean as a Second Language class. The analyses in this dissertation illustrate how policy and media discourses reproduce integrationist ideologies on immigrants and patriarchal gender ideologies on immigrant women. Self-representations of the women in this study, on the other hand, show the complex, dynamic, v diverse, and even contradictory nature of their identities that interact with different elements of their identities and contexts. The women of this study create discursive spaces to exercise agency in performing, negotiating, resisting, and even challenging imposed ideologies by reconstructing themselves as transnationals. Thus, this dissertation demonstrates how a better understanding of transnational women’s identities and second language socialization can be achieved through examining the multifaceted nature of their identities and illuminating their voices in response to surrounding discourses. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................