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“Gireogi Gajok”: Transnationalism and Language Learning
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Abstract:
This dissertation examines effects of globalization on language, identity, and education through the case of four Korean jogi yuhak (early study abroad) students attending Toronto high schools. Resulting from a 2.4-year sociolinguistic ethnography on the language learning experiences of these students, the thesis explores how globalization--and the commodification of language and corporatization of education in the new economy, in particular--has transformed ideas of language, bilingualism, and language learning with respect to the transnational circulation of linguistic and symbolic resources in today‘s world. This thesis incorporates insights from critical social theories, linguistic anthropology, globalization studies, and sociolinguistics, and aims to propose a "globalization sensitive" Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory. To better grasp the ways in which language learning is socially and politically embedded in new conditions generated by globalization, this new SLA theory conceives of language as a set of resources and bilingualism as a social construct, and examines language learning as an economic activity, shaped through encounters with the transnational language education industry. The analysis examines new transnational subjectivities of yuhaksaeng (visa students), which index hybrid identities that are simultaneously global and Korean. In their construction of themselves as "Cools" who are wealthy and cosmopolitan, yuhaksaeng deployed newly-valued varieties of Korean language and culture as resources in the globalized new economy. This practice, however, resulted in limits to their acquisition of forms of English capital valued in the Canadian market. As a Korean middle class strategy for acquiring valuable forms of English capital, jogi yuhak is caught in tension: while the ideology of language as a skill and capital to help an individual‘s social mobility drives the jogi yuhak movement, the essentialist ideology of "authentic" English makes it impossible for Koreans to work it to their advantage. The thesis argues that in multilingual societies, ethnic/racial/linguistic minorities‘ limited access to the acquisition of linguistic competence is produced by existing inequality, rather than their limited linguistic proficiency contributing to their marginal position. To counter naturalized social inequality seemingly linguistic in nature, language education in globalization should move away from essentialism toward process- and practice-oriented approaches to language, community, and identity.
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Keyword:
0279; applied linguistics; bilingualism; capital; early study abroad; education; education industry; educational linguistics; English; English language teaching; ESL; essentialism; ethnography; geese families; Globalization; hybridity; identity; international students; language; language ideology; language learning; linguistic anthropology; migration; new economy; political economy; resources; Second language acquisition; second language education; sociolinguistics; sociology of education; South Korea; TESOL; transnationalism
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URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/19133
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English as a Multicultural Language: Implications from a Study of Japan’s Junior High Schools’ English Language Textbooks
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In: Sociology Faculty Publications (2010)
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Editors’ introduction: Emerging issues for educational research in East Asia
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In: Asia-Pacific Education, Language Minorities and Migration (ELMM) Network Working Paper Series (2010)
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