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Volume 37 - Issue 3 - September 2021

English Today Volume 37 - Issue 3 -
Contents

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  • Editorial

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2021, p. 127
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Research Article

  • ‘King Sejong is crying’: Korean people's perceptions of growing English usage in Korea

  • Eun-Young (Julia) Kim
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2020, pp. 128-133

  • Korea is probably one of the few countries, if not the only one, that observes a holiday in honor of the national language's alphabet. Hangulnal, which falls on October 9, is the Korean Alphabet Day. Each year, the government hosts events to celebrate one of the most prized possessions of the country, Hangul – the writing system of the national language. Created by King Sejong and his Royal Academy Scholars in the 15th century, Hangul is recognized as one of ‘the world's most scientific writing systems ever created by man’ (Sohn, 2001: 13). To outsiders, such pride may appear somewhat overblown, but Koreans do take great pride in Hangul.

  • ‘Sejong the Great would turn in his grave!’: South Korean attitudes towards monolingual English signage in public buildings

  • Sugene Kim
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2020, pp. 134-141

  • The newly renovated Seoul Express Bus Terminal, which reopened at the end of 2019, has caused an uproar among the South Korean public. The fact that its ticket booth sign is written only in English – ‘TICKETS’ – was pointed out by one Twitter user (see Figure 1), and the message went viral among internet users. It took only a week or so for the issue to make headlines in Yonhap News – one of the major news agencies in South Korea (hereafter ‘Korea’) that provides news articles and pictures for newspapers, TV networks, and online media. The news article criticised that not only the ticket booth sign but also the sign of a nearby drug store is written exclusively in English – ‘pharmacy’.

  • English fever and American dreams: The impact of Orientalism on the evolution of English in Korean society

  • Jinhyun Cho
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2020, pp. 142-147

  • The current paper examines how English has evolved to become valued language capital in South Korea (henceforth ‘Korea’). Since the late 20th century, Korea has experienced the phenomenon of ‘English fever’, which refers to the frenetic and at times over-zealous pursuit of English-language proficiency across Korean society (J. S. Y. Park, 2009). Researchers have examined ‘English fever’ through various prisms, including education (Park & Abelmann, 2004; J. K. Park, 2009), neoliberalism (Piller & Cho, 2013; Cho, 2015; Lee, 2016), and local socio-politics (Shim & Park, 2008). Rarely has the phenomenon been approached from a historical point of view. Considering the fact that a historical examination of language can provide critical insights into the local processes through which distinctive ideologies of language have been shaped and popularized (Cho, 2017), this paper traces the historical evolution of English in Korean society by focusing on three key periods, i.e. Japanese colonization (1910–1945); the post-independence period and modernization (1945–1980); and military dictatorship and globalization (1980-present). Drawing on the theoretical framework of global centre-periphery divisions embedded in Orientalism (Said, 1979), the analysis focuses specifically on the influence of the United States on the rise of English in Korea. In doing so, I show that ‘English fever’ is not a recent phenomenon but has its roots in historicity through which the seeds for the ongoing phenomenon of ‘English fever’ were planted in Korean society.

  • Negotiating teacher identity: Experiences of Black teachers of English in Korean ELT: How race and English language teacher identity intersect in the Expanding Circle

  • Hohsung Choe, Youngjoo Seo
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2020, pp. 148-155

  • Most recent research on teacher identity in the TESOL field has focused on how non-native English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs) view and position themselves vis-à-vis native English-speaking teachers (NESTs), and which factors influence their construction of their professional identities. However, the perceived native speaker/non-native speaker (NS–NNS) dichotomy greatly oversimplifies a complicated phenomenon by representing it as solely linguistic and disregarding sociocultural and political issues. Beyond the question of nativeness versus non-nativeness, race, ethnicity, nationality, and cultural identity have played key roles in how teachers position themselves within English language teaching (ELT). These other factors may be critical in how others judge the capability of a teacher of English and authenticity of his/her English.

  • Student perceptions of sociocultural aspects of Korean and the Korean variety of English (KVE): A study of Korean university students

  • Kang-Young Lee, Randy Green
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2020, pp. 156-162

  • The purpose of this study is to identify the perceptions of 80 Korean university students majoring in English about sociocultural elements embedded in the Korean language and KVE. A secondary objective is to enhance students’ awareness of the connection between culture and language and some of the unique sociocultural characteristics of these two languages. To this end, all participants took part in a 3-part classroom activity in which they examined pairs of KVE and Korean sentences, translated both KVE and Korean sentences, and took part in small focus group discussions. Specifically, the study has two research questions:

    1. 1) What sociocultural aspects of KVE and Korean did the participants identify?

    2. 2) What reasons did participants identify for these sociocultural aspects?

  • An emerging trend in English education in Korea: ‘Maternal English education’ (eommapyo yeongeo): Challenges and strategies in raising a bilingual child as a nonnative speaker

  • Youngjoo Seo
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2020, pp. 163-168

  • Korean parents are strongly committed to investing time, effort, and money into improving their children's English competence in order to maximize their human capital in the era of globalization, a phenomenon often referred to as ‘English fever’ (Park, 2009). However, because of the Korean socio-economic structure, there is considerable disparity among families in the financial investment they can afford. Therefore, in the educational privileges and especially English learning support that Korean children receive is an inequity often overlooked by the majority of Koreans. One response to this issue is the newly emerging movement among Korean mothers called ‘maternal English education’ (eommapyo yeongeo), which has become a widely used term throughout the country.

  • English for North Korean refugees in South Korea: Another border to cross or a path to a new world?

  • Eun-Young Jang, Eun-Yong Kim
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2020, pp. 169-177

  • Mee-Soo was a good student in North Korea. She came to South Korea in her early teens, and South Korean state policy for North Korean defectors enabled her to gain entry into a decent university in Seoul. She majored in Business Management and, when she had to choose her sub-major, she chose Accounting over Marketing and Human Resources because she thought she could avoid English. Achieving CPA (Certified Public Accountant) status was the goal for Accounting majors. Passing a score of 700 in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) was a requirement to take the CPA exam. Mee-Soo worked hard studying for TOEIC and took the test ten times. Her score rose from the 400s to the 600s, but she could not pass the 700 threshold and was left behind while other South Korean students passed the English requirement. She could not even begin to study for the CPA exam itself. She once sighed and told me (one of the authors), ‘I wish I could have a life without English.’ I responded, ‘I didn't think English would be so important to North Koreans in South Korea.’ To this, Mee-Soo exclaimed, ‘It is a matter of survival.’

    Given there have now been over 70 years of separation between North and South Korea since the Korean War, it is unquestionable that North Korean migrants face and struggle with a variety of troubles in their attempts to settle into South Korean society. In this context, why does English constitute a ‘matter of survival’ for North Koreans when there are so many other critical issues for these individuals, who crossed several borders at the risk of their lives? This phenomena, that ‘English’ represents a major difficulty for North Korean defectors in their process of settling in South Korea (Jung & Lim, 2009), constitutes an interesting linguistic phenomena in an intra-ethnic contact. However, by itself, this statement somewhat simplifies how English actually affects the migrant group. Instead, its influence works in a surprisingly diverse number of ways across different ranges and layers within the North Korean population, depending on their regional and social background, age, time of migration, and possibly many other factors. A meaningful pattern we discuss here is the changing relations between English and North Korean migrants according to age; it is the North Korean young adults who seem to be particularly affected by English and disproportionately in need of English teaching. We also note, though, that this pattern itself is changing, as we are seeing the recent increase of children of North Korean migrants born and educated in South Korea or in China.

  • Pop culture words: How can K-Wave turn Korean words into global, translingual words?

  • Hyejeong Ahn, Jieun Kiaer
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2020, pp. 178-187

  • The English language is a global lingua franca that has itself been experiencing rapid change. This change can be attributed mainly to easy access to the internet worldwide and the popular use of social media. Frequent and common online communication amongst multilingual speakers mediated in English has naturally generated a diverse semiotic repertoire. As a result, new words are constantly and rapidly evolving on online platforms across language boundaries where there is little linguistic authority in place. The forms of many new words in English are becoming more hybridised and complex than ever before and the origins of these words are often difficult to trace because of their simultaneous and multitrajectory pathways.

Reviews

Corrigendum

  • Short fiction writing in English by Chinese university students: An integrated F-A-I-T-H approach - CORRIGENDUM

  • Gang Sui
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2021, p. 190
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Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter

  • ENG volume 37 issue 3 Cover and Front matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2021, pp. f1-f2
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Back Cover (IBC, OBC) and matter

  • ENG volume 37 issue 3 Cover and Back matter

  • Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2021, pp. b1-b2
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