Crossing and crossers in East Asian pop music: Korea and Japan

Abstract

This paper examines crossing and crossers between Korea and Japan in the domain of pop music. Crossing of semiotic products such as music between the two countries, in both a ''linguistic'' and ''physical'' sense, presents a sociolinguistic case in which renegotiation of positions of ex-colonizer (Japan) and ex-colonizee (Korea) is promising. The turbulent cultural and linguistic dynamics between the two countries have undergone stages of oppression, contestation, and collaboration over the years. Pop culture, including music and TV shows, is a sociolinguistic venue that has recently experienced a noticeable change in the power dynamics between Korea and Japan.

English in Hong Kong Cantopop: language choice, code‐switching and genre

“…Nonetheless, written code‐switching has existed for many centuries, as evidenced by its occurrence in ancient texts (Aslanov 2000; Watt 1997), and some researchers have paid attention to code‐switching in written data or planned discourse such as poetry and novels (Kachru 1989; Callahan 2002; 2004), advertising (Bhatia and Ritchie 2004; Martin 2002) and pop song lyrics (e.g. Bentahila and Davis 2002; Kachru 2006; Lee 2004; 2006; Moody 2006; Sarker and Winer 2006).…”

Unraveling Post‐Colonial Identity through Language

“…Blending African American speech styles with Japanese language, these rap artists not only manage to organize a genre that is simultaneously global and local, but also employ the language -blend locally as a form of " resistance vernacular " (see Potter 1995 ). Similar trends appear in creative articulations of post -colonial Englishes genre of hip hop: in East African hip -hop (Perullo and Fenn 2003 ), in West African (and diaspora) hip hop (Omoniyi 2006 , see also this volume), and in East Asian hip hop (Condry 2000, Lee 2006 ). In these local genres of hip hop one notices a semiotic process of the social production of difference: local hip hop departs from the ' core ' in its rejection of features that characterize the mainstream gangsta rap norms such as heavy sexualization, misogyny, politics, and monolingualism (Omoniyi 2006 ; see also Perullo and Fenn 2003 ).…”

The Verbal Art of Borrowing: Analysis of English Borrowing in Korean Pop Songs

“…Lee (2006) criticized K-Pop star BoA as being a 'double-crosser' for using "two languages of the other: the ex-colonizer Japan and the oft-accused unofficial imperialist America (p. 237)."…”