The initial impetus for the book was sparked by my own language journey. At the age of 23, I decided to become an English-Korean interpreter, a glamorous bilingual, who would be respected for her English language proficiency in Korea caught in the phenomenon of “English fever”.

However, after many years of hard work, when I had finally achieved the dream of becoming a professional interpreter, I found myself perplexed and puzzled as a gap emerged between the pre-held dreams and the realities in the field.

And that’s where English language ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the past and present starts: the book critically examines the contrast between dreams and realities of English in the context of “English fever” in Korea from both historical and contemporary perspectives. It explores two overarching questions: why is English so popular in Korea? And, why, despite the enormous popularity of English, is there such a gap between the promises and realities of English?

In order to explore the first question of why English is so heatedly pursued in Korea, I conducted historical analyses of the development of English in Korea with English-Korean translation and interpreting as a key site of inquiry. The historical relevance of English-Korean translation and interpreting is well illustrated in the fact that English arrived in Korea for the first time in the late 19^th century in order to educate English-Korean translators and interpreters. English was important for the embattled Korean government of the time as they actively tried to strengthen relationships with the U.S. in order to curb its ambitious neighbours with predatory designs. Korea’s continued economic, political, and security dependence on the U.S. throughout the modern era has added more power and prestige to English, which has evolved to serve as a form of cultural, economic, social, and symbolic capital with class mobility as a key driver.

The second question of why there is such a gap between dreams and realities in English is examined from the perspective of contemporary English-Korean translators and interpreters, who represent the most engaged and professional learners of English in Korea. The social reputation of the profession as perfect English speakers and glamorous cosmopolitans provides an ideal site to explore the contrast between expectations and experiences in English, which was investigated from multiple perspectives including commodification, gender, and neoliberalism. Internal conflicts relating to English language learning and use are illustrated through interview data analyses, in which the aspect of English as an ideological construct shaping and shaped by speakers’ internalized beliefs in and hopes about the language is highlighted.

By exploring the gap between dreams and realities in English, I endeavoured to make sense of what appears to be an irrational pursuit of English in Korean society. Making huge sacrifices to learn the language only seems a “rational” act in Korea because English has been firmly established as a language of power and prestige as documented and explored in English language ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the past and present. It is my hope that the book highlights the importance of examining local particularities involved in the construction of particular ideologies of English, which is often approached from the monolithic perspective of “English as a global language”.

Images of glamorous interpreters in the recent Chinese movie “Les Interprètes” (Source: dramafever.com)

I recently volunteered to give a presentation on the profession of translation and interpreting as a parent helper for a community worker series at my son’s primary school in suburban Sydney. To make my presentation entertaining for little kids, I showed them how to interpret simultaneously between English and Korean. The children were just fascinated by instant language conversions and kept asking me to show them more. While I was delighted by the enthusiastic responses from the kids, one question occurred to me afterwards: how many parents in Australia would be happy if their child wanted to become a translator or interpreter?

Let’s consider the following two real stories: in the 1990s, an Anglo-Canadian boy who wanted to become an interpreter had to give up his dream because his parents wanted their son to pursue a “better” profession. On the other side of the planet, a Korean girl with the same dream was warned by her parents that she was “too ordinary” to become an interpreter; her parents believed only extraordinary people could make an interpreter. The former is my husband’s story, and the latter is mine.

Why is there such a contrast in terms of parental reactions to children who wish to become an interpreter? One way of examining this question is to consider the relationship between the status of language workers and the status of a second language in a society. In Korea, English is highly valued as a commodity, and this phenomenon is known as yeongeo yeolpung or “English fever”. Due to a high level of prestige attached to English, English-Korean interpreters are admired as master English speakers who are often glamourized in Korean media. Popular images of interpreters are cosmopolitan multilinguals working at international conferences for high-ranking officials or business tycoons as circulated in local media.

On the other hand, the societal valorization of translators and interpreters in Australia and other Anglophone countries remains very low. Translators and interpreters are associated with low-paid casual work that offers little chance for career progression. The low profile of the profession in Australia is strongly related to the societal recognition of languages other than English (LOTE). Despite Australia’s purported pride in multiculturalism, LOTEs have always remained on the periphery in its symbolic and practical values. While LOTEs are gradually gaining recognition particularly among middle-class parents primarily for instrumental purposes, their status as the “other” languages spoken by “other” people – immigrant Australians from non-Anglophone backgrounds – suggests that the status of language workers is perhaps determined by the status of LOTEs as well as the people and communities who they serve. Examining the status of language workers is, therefore, a good prism through which to understand the sociolinguistics of bilingualism.

If you are still not convinced, ask yourself this question: would you be happy if your child wanted to become an interpreter?

Further Reading

To learn more about English fever and the experiences of interpreters in South Korea, check out this article:

Cho, J. (2015). Sleepless in Seoul: Neoliberalism, English fever, and linguistic insecurity among Korean interpreters Multilingua, 34 (5), 687-710 DOI: 10.1515/multi-2013-0047

To show that language choice is not primarily a question of language, I will focus on the spread of English-medium lectures in Korean universities as an example: in 2011 global media reported the suicides of four students and one professor at an elite Korean university. The media blamed these tragedies on the university’s language policy of conducting classes in English only.  These media reports motivated us (Piller & Cho, 2013) to investigate the more fundamental question of what drives the zealous pursuit of English in Korean higher education.

The findings of our research show how the powerful ideology of neoliberalism can serve as a covert language policy, where market capitalism combines with academic capitalism. Since the neoliberal turn of Korea during the 1997-8 Asian Economic Crisis, improving competitiveness has become a mandate for Koreans, who endured immense social suffering during the crisis (e.g., massive unemployment, family breakups and suicides). In this context, English came to be seen as a key to competitiveness. While English as a competitive advantage may seem a common-sense approach given the global status of English, the Korean case demonstrates that the spread of English is inextricably linked with capitalist expansion.

English-medium lectures are important for local universities as they are mandated to compete for global excellence, which is tied to profits from increasing numbers of foreign students and government grants. Moreover, English-medium lectures are directly related to university rankings conducted by mainstream media. These rankings annually assess Korean universities according to set criteria with English-medium lectures being one of the key components to measure institutional internationalization. While other criteria such as research, learning environment and social reputation of graduates require time to produce measurable outcomes, increasing the number of classes taught in English can create instantaneous effects on the internationalization score and hence improve rankings almost immediately.

Universities are not the only institutions deriving a profit from English-medium lectures. For mainstream newspapers losing revenue due to increasing competition from online media, university rankings serve as a new source of revenue through production of special issues and university advertisement placements. This capitalist chain in which university and media interests are inextricably linked remains largely invisible to the public.

The spread of English as medium of instruction is widely seen as the result of the “free choices” of institutions and individuals who wish to better themselves and accordingly make personal choices as free market agents. However, it usually goes unnoticed that these “personal choices” are not really choices but are made within a narrow set of options that are determined by market interests.

In the e-seminar, Ingrid raised the question of how to remedy disadvantage resulting from language policies in education. I believe that research aiming to investigate and expose the complex power relations behind English-medium lectures has an important role to play. However, all too often such research is not accessible to policy makers and other stakeholders. Our 2013 article demonstrating how neoliberalism works as a language-policy-setting mechanism in favour of English medium lectures, for instance, was published in Language in Society, a sociolinguistic academic journal published in English. Although our article is available for open access from Cambridge University Press, the language of publication means, in effect, that our research follows the same logic that we describe for English-medium lectures. While we do not derive a direct financial benefit from publishing in English, we derive profits of distinction and reputation that may enhance our careers.

How can our research make a difference when it is published in English in an international sociolinguistics journal that is only read by fellow sociolinguists? Does it make sense to be critical of the global spread of English in education if we only publish that criticism in English? For us, the answer is no and we have been fortunate that 녹색평론 (“The Green Review”), a progressive social policy journal in Korea, has just published our work about “English-medium lectures in Korean higher education” in Korean.

References

Piller, I., & Cho, J. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy Language in Society, 42 (01), 23-44. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404512000887

Piller, I. & J. Cho. (2016). 한국의 대학과 영어강의 [English-medium lectures in Korean higher education]. 녹색평론 Green Review 148, 89-106.

Panel devoted to Jeju Global Education City (Source: Jeju Weekly)

Now that Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has become a global hit, I wonder if you know what Gangnam is? The dictionary definition of ‘Gangnam’ is the southern part of Seoul – the capital of South Korea – but in actuality ‘Gangnam’ is much more than a place name: it refers to the most affluent and exclusive area of the country. “Tower Palace,” a luxury residential apartment complex, is the pinnacle of its exclusivity. Built in the most prestigious section of the Gangnam district by Samsung between 2002 and 2004, it is literally a palace, in that its occupants are among the wealthiest and the buildings are equipped with amazing amenities ranging from a library, spas, a golf range, banks, and, yes, high-end boutique shops such as Channel.

Education is part of Gangnam’s attraction: South Korea’s best schools are located in Gangnam. And that includes English-language education. Gangnam parents are wholeheartedly devoted to their children’s English education, as English proficiency is a key status marker in 21^st-centry Korea. They led the trend of sending children abroad for English learning (known as jogi yuhak) either alone or accompanied by their mothers as guardians beginning in late 1990s. The number of jogi yuhak children, which peaked at 27,331 in 2008, has been on the wane since 2009. Apart from the Global Financial Crisis, family breakups as well as readjustment issues found among the first-generation returnees are cited as reasons behind the decline.

Undeterred, Gangnam parents are now setting a new trend in English education of Korea: they have found a way to immerse their children in an English-Only environment without actually going abroad. English language immersion is now available on Jeju Island, the country’s largest island. As part of Korea’s globalization drives, the government launched 940-acre Jeju Global Education City, a self-contained community, in 2011. Designed as an English-only district, there are currently three international schools operating within Jeju Global Education City.

Tuition fees in Jeju Global Education City are hefty. If accommodation is included, parents pay between 31,000 and 48,000 US dollars per year for schooling there.

Despite these high fees parents have little control over their child’s education once they are enrolled in a school in Jeju Global Education City. A recent report on a bullying case in one of the three schools there exposes what happens behind the ambitious global education project. The family of a victim student, who had been bullied by his roommate for one and a half years, was helpless at the school’s inaction. While that may not be unusual, what is unusual is that the victim’s family could not take this matter to the Korean education authorities or to police, since the school is “international” in nature and thus not subject to the Korean laws. International schools operating in Jeju have neither internal dispute settlement systems nor a teacher-parent committee to discuss such issues as bullying, as such measures are merely recommended, not required. As is the case in other countries, the Korean anti-bullying regulations stipulate that primary, middle, and high schools put in place an anti-school violence committee composed of various education stakeholders of whom parents should take up a majority. In the absence of such schemes, parents take to the media to air their grievances.

The absence of a requirement to follow Korean laws is even more extraordinary when one considers that the Korean government made a huge financial commitment to woo foreign schools to Jeju. For example, North London Collegiate School Jeju is committed to pay 56 million US dollars in royalty to their parent school North London Collegiate School in the U.K. over the next 21 years. In fact, the government even promised to find money from tax revenues (paid by all citizens) in case the school (which caters to a tiny elite who can afford to send their children there) runs into deficit.

The bullying cases reported above occurred in an extraordinary constellation of a globalization-driven Korean government, commercialized international schools, and education-obsessed parents. Who is the ongoing expansion of Western schools in Asia actually serving? As seen in the Jeju case, international schools even get away with not protecting the children in their care from harm as they are granted exclusive powers to resolve any ‘internal’ matters.

Whether you can afford going Gangnam style or not, it is a losing game for everyone in South Korea. In their search for exclusivity, Gangnam parents have ended up being excluded from their children’s education in the island. As for non-Gangnam parents who work hard to pay for their children’s extracurricular English education on land, they are doing so without realizing that their hard-earned money might only fatten the pockets of schools faraway.