• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1163

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Giving Meaning to Languages: Language Biographies among Sojourning Native Speaker English Teachers in South Korea and the Discursive Construction of Languages

Authors: Chesnut, Michael (1,2)
Submitted by: Chesnut, Michael (Hankuk University of Foriegn Studies, Korea, Republic of (South Korea))

Language biographies offer an effective way of gathering data on the discursively constructed representations of self, language, place, and more (Pavlenko, 2007). This study uses critical discourse analysis to explore the language biographies of “foreign” or “native speaker” English teachers in South Korea in order to understand how this group of long-term, sojourning, cosmopolitan travelers discursively construct and are constructed by the languages they encounter throughout their lives either at home, in Korea, or elsewhere. Although sojourning teachers travel, teach, and sometimes act as personal representations of language, there has been relatively little study of the how this group engages with the multiple languages these travelers encounter. The data for this study consists of semi-structured interviews and participant observations collected over two years in two large urban centers in Korea as part of a larger ethnographic study of 33 native speaker English teachers in Korea. Although folk understandings of native speaker teachers in East Asia may describe these sojourners as relying upon only English to live and work, or alternatively as eager learners of language they are immersed in, the findings of this study highlight the diversity of languages known and used among this group of sojourners and the complexity and ambivalence that shapes the learning, teaching, and use of these languages. This study, following Park’s (2009) larger study of the ideologies of English in Korea, which relied solely upon data gathered from Korea participants and sources, adds to the understanding of the multiple discourses of English in Korea and how those employed in the business of teaching English represent English and other languages to themselves and others. Further, this study finds that some sojourning teachers use languages other than English or Korean as a means of building social connections, alternative identities, and more. Although sojourning native speaker English teachers are not normally considered migrants, study of this group of long term travelers, who occasionally settle permanently in the place they are sojourning, sheds light on the larger globalized discourses of language that travel the globe among different groups of sojourners, professionals, and others. As this group of sojourning teachers is often employed for reasons related to ideologies of globalization (McConnell, 2000) scholars interested in multilingualism and globalization should find this study relevant to ongoing discussions of travel, language, place, globalization and more.

References:

McConnell, D. L. (2000). Importing diversity: Inside Japan’s JET program. Berkley, CA. University of California Press.  

Park, J. S. (2009). The local construction of a global language: Ideologies of English in South Korea. New York. Mounton de Gruyter.     

Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics. 28,2. 163-188.