English or perish: how contemporary South Korea received, accommodated, and internalized English and American modernity

Abstract

This paper discusses the positionality of English in South Korea as a form of symbolic capital that represents the discursive power of Americanism and East Asian Social Darwinism. By employing Bourdieu's and Foucault's theoretical orientations, this paper traces how South Korean linguistic policies to incorporate English loan words coincide with South Korea's struggle to face its historical challenges from a pre-modern to a modern postcolonial society. In doing so, this paper illustrates how Americanization is conceived as the process of winning global competition where only the 'survival of the fittest' reigns (a Social Darwinist discourse that justifies the power of Americanism).

Vlogging White Privilege Abroad:Eat Your Kimchi's Eating and Spitting Out of the Korean Other on YouTube

“…For instance, Martina and Simon condescendingly mark the Korean other through the couple's repeated mockery of Koreans' uses of “Engrish.” English has currency in Korea because it is structurally advantaged in employment and higher education entrance exams. Learning and knowing English has become a normative expectation (Lee, Han, & McKerrow, ; Shim & Park, ). Beyond Korea, their mocking humor is consonant with White delegitimation of cosmopolitan Englishes that reify North American and British English (Antony, ).…”

“UntilYouAre Able”: South Korean Multiculturalism and Hierarchy inMy Little Hero

“…Korea positions itself along a neocolonial axis that privileges the United States as a paternal site from which recognition and acceptance is desired. Because of Korea's neocolonial relationship to the United States after the Korean War, the United States has become the most powerful and salient signifier of modernity (Lee, Han, & McKerrow, 2010). The United States defeat of Japan, a colonizer on the peninsula, and the United States continued presence in Korea naturalized an unequal relationship between Korea and the United States (Lee, Han, & McKerrow, 2010).…”

“…Because of Korea's neocolonial relationship to the United States after the Korean War, the United States has become the most powerful and salient signifier of modernity (Lee, Han, & McKerrow, 2010). The United States defeat of Japan, a colonizer on the peninsula, and the United States continued presence in Korea naturalized an unequal relationship between Korea and the United States (Lee, Han, & McKerrow, 2010). Therefore, from the mid-20th century, Koreans' attitudes have been marked with desire, admiration, and envy as the United States has become a metonym for the entire industrialized world (Gweon, 2004).…”

The “Worldiness” of English: EIL and EFL in the Era of Global Capitalism

“…According to Song (2011), "English has been the most important foreign language in South Korea for the past six or so decades" (38). Evidence in support of this is found easily enough: English has been taught as a compulsory subject since 1997 (Song 2011); in 2009 Koreans spent over $19 billion on English education (Jung 2010, cited in Lee et al 2010) in addition to $752 million on English proficiency tests (Guardian Weekly, 15 December 2006, cited in Song 2011; and South Korea is one of the largest markets for TOEFL in the world (Guardian Weekly, 15 December 2006, cited in Song 2011. According to Park, this intense pursuit of English education, often termed 'English fever', is rooted in Korea's "so-called 'education fever', originating from the combination of the country's long tradition of Confucianism and new egalitarian ideas from the West" (Park 2009: 55).…”