topic isAnalysis of Gangnam Style Ideologies.instructions arePlease read the attached article, write a summary and your critique or response to the content (450 words minimum).
‘Gangnam style’ English ideologies: neoliberalism, class and the parents of early study-abroad students Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbeb20 Download by: [Florida Institute of Technology] Date: 13 July 2017, At: 10:51 International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism ISSN: 1367-0050 (Print) 1747-7522 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20 ‘Gangnam style’ English ideologies: neoliberalism, class and the parents of early study-abroad students Mun Woo Lee To cite this article: Mun Woo Lee (2016) ‘Gangnam style’ English ideologies: neoliberalism, class and the parents of early study-abroad students, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 19:1, 35-50, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 Published online: 30 Sep 2014. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 498 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 6 View citing articles http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rbeb20 http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbeb20 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rbeb20&show=instructions http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rbeb20&show=instructions http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/13670050.2014.963024&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2014-09-30 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1080/13670050.2014.963024&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2014-09-30 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024#tabModule http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024#tabModule ‘Gangnam style’ English ideologies: neoliberalism, class and the parents of early study-abroad students Mun Woo Lee* Department of English Education, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea (Received 25 March 2014; accepted 1 September 2014) This study examines the English ideologies of Korean early study-abroad students’ parents in Gangnam, one of the most affluent areas in South Korea. The data collected were drawn from in-depth individual interviews with 23 parents, and subjected to critical discourse analysis. The findings showed that the issue of class was foregrounded prominently in the Gangnam parents’ discourses. They believed that English was a requisite for being in the Gangnam inner-circle, and that their children’s native-like English reflected their own high socio-economic status. They also perceived English to be a capitalistic instrument through which they could hand over their own socio-economic class to their children. English was perceived to help the children get high-paying jobs that would then enable them to live in Gangnam like their parents. This study is expected to unpack the neoliberal English ideologies, especially in relation to class, and give us an opportunity to rethink them from a more critical perspective. Keywords: English ideologies; early study-abroad; neoliberalism; parents; Gangnam; socio-economic class Introduction In many English as a foreign language (EFL) countries, the term ‘English fever’ (Krashen 2003) is no longer new, and it is not difficult to find people willing to take significant action to learn English. The early study-abroad phenomenon in South Korea is one example of such action. The law regarding study-abroad students provided by the Korean Ministry of Education (2000) defines the word ‘early’ as those under 18 years old, which means that early study-abroad students are in their primary or secondary school years. This type of voluntary education migration (Balaz and Williams 2004; King and Ruiz- Galices 2003) is undertaken in pursuit of English language skills, restricting the target countries to English-speaking countries (Cho 2007; Han et al. 2002; Park and Bae 2009; Yoon 2005). The number of early study-abroad students in South Korea increased exponentially after 2000, when the Korean Government liberalised regulations regarding sending money to study-abroad students (KEDI 2011). Specifically, the number of early study-abroad students in 2001 was 7944 (KEDI 2011), but by 2010 it has risen to 18,741, which means 25.8 students out of 10,000 left Korea to study-abroad while they were still young.1 *Email:
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[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2014.963024 Despite this steep numerical increase, early study-abroad is not something that everyone can undertake. The first and foremost condition for becoming an early study- abroad student is the strong financial background of one’s parents (Oh 2007). Migrating to an English-speaking country as an early study-abroad student is the most active measure that English learners can take only if they are supported by upper-middle-class parents whose joint annual income exceeds US$100,000 (Gangnam-Seocho Naeil News 2010). This is why the density of the early study-abroad population in Gangnam (1.39 students out of 100) is approximately 10 times higher than that of South Korea as a whole (0.14 student out of 100; KEDI 2011). In other words, Gangnam is an ideal place to understand the complex representations of English, especially in relation to class, because its residents’ dedication to English education is contingent upon their stable financial backgrounds. Thus, the present study attempts to delve into the English ideologies revealed in the early study-abroad phenomenon by focusing on the parents of early study-abroad students in the Gangnam area. Parents were interviewed instead of their early study-abroad children because they had the most influence on the decision to study-abroad given their need to provide financial support (Lee and Koo 2006; Park and Ablemann 2004). Furthermore, this study takes a critical stance when unpacking the multi-layered representations of English, delineating English ideologies and Korean EFL perspectives in the context of class. The specific research question is as follows. How do Gangnam parents whose children are early study-abroad students perceive study-abroad as a means towards acquiring English? Neoliberal English ideologies and early study-abroad The notion of language ideologies is multifaceted, including ‘ideas about the status of specific languages, the appropriateness or inappropriateness of some expressions in particular contexts and how language should be taught to children’ (Silverstein 1979). Jaffe (2009) further specifies the composition of language ideologies as follows: (1) ideas about the nature of language itself; (2) the values and meanings attached to particular codes; (3) hierarchies of linguistic value; and (4) the way that specific linguistic codes are connected to identities and stances (390–391). They are, in essence, mental representa- tions or beliefs regarding language usage that can be expressed by talking about language itself, or reflected in language usage in the process of meaning negotiation (Gal and Woolard 2001; Seargeant 2009; Silverstein 1979). In other words, language ideologies are ‘constructed from the sociocultural experience of the speaker’ (Kroskrity 2004, 196). In this sense, the current English ideologies of Koreans are closely connected to broader sociocultural influences. As Park and Lo (2012) point out, the most distinctive sociocultural influence that governs the lives of the moderns is ‘neoliberalism’. In a neoliberal society, one should be ready for ‘infinite competition in the global market’ (Pieterse 2004) because neoliberalism itself is based upon the assumption that ‘human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills’ (Harvey 2005, 2) at both intranational and international levels. In this harshly competitive ‘imagined market of the world’ (Fairclough 2002; Phillipson 2002), one should strive to win the race by ‘distinguishing’ oneself from others by one’s market- favourable values. That is why English, intertwined with economic value, works as a concrete criterion that distinguishes the ‘English haves’ from the ‘English have nots’ (Phillipson 2008). It is this lower proficiency level that often puts the English-have-nots at a disadvantage when entering a good school, getting a dream job or being promoted, 36 M.W. Lee all of which require a high score in the standardised English proficiency tests (Park and Lo 2012). Thus, the overheated ‘English fever’ (Krashen 2003) in South Korea cannot and will not happen with any other foreign languages because it is only English that is seen to possess a significant ‘linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu 1991) in the Korean EFL context. Thus, it is not surprising that most research dealing with English ideologies puts emphasis on the concept of English as a hegemonic language (Bourdieu 1991) in South Korea. Even though English is not used as a main communication medium in Korean society, as Park (2004) points out based upon in-depth discourse analyses of English usages in Korean media and in face-to-face interactions, Koreans certainly hold hierarchical ideologies towards English. He categorises three representative English ideologies – necessitation, externalisation and self-deprecation – highlighting how these ideologies are formed and legitimised in relation to Korean history and culture. Notably, these three English ideologies are contradictory but not completely mutually exclusive. Koreans perceive English as ‘a language of an Other’ (Park 2009, 26) and refrain from being closely aligned with it to avoid corrosion of the Korean national identity. However, Koreans strive to learn English because they think of it as necessary for survival in the globalised world, and lack of proficiency in English is understood as shameful. The early study-abroad phenomenon is especially related to the ideologies of necessitation and self-deprecation. The 22 early study-abroad undergraduates in the USA in Lee’s (2010) study frequently mention the value of English as an international language. They say that they can ‘go globally’ thanks to English, and believe that their active pursuit of native-like English is an ‘investment’ (Norton 2000) in their future, especially in terms of getting a good job. Park and Bae (2009) also interview 12 early study-abroad families in Singapore and find a similar ‘English as a linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu 1991) perspective. The early study-abroad students themselves, as well as their parents, perceive that English will give them advantages such as being accepted by a good high school or university when they return to Korea. Song (2010) explains why parents place such an importance on their children’s English education: they want their children to have what they don’t. Their self-deprecating joking, ‘My husband speaks only two English words, “Marlboro Light” and “eighteen”’ (32), demonstrates that they feel they lack English skills which is ‘an important commodity in the global market’ (31), and wanted to ensure that their children gained those skills through study-abroad programmes. As seen in these studies, there are multiple modalities of early study-abroad experiences mainly varying in terms of destination and family arrangements. The target countries for studying abroad early encompass almost all inner-circle and outer-circle countries (Kachru 1997).2 In addition to study-abroad programmes in which the students are not accompanied by their parents, there are also ‘education immigration’ situations in which the whole family spends time in an English-speaking country, and ‘wild goose dad family’ situations in which the father works alone in South Korea to support his wife and children in an English-speaking country (Lee 2010; Song 2012a). Regardless of the multiple modalities of early study-abroad, the pursuit of neoliberal values and market- favoured English proficiency remain constant across the variety of early study-abroad experiences. In all situations, the socio-economic status (SES) of the family becomes the crucial factor enabling early study-abroad due to the multiple years of financial sponsorship required to undertake such study. This study follows Block (2014) in defining class as fundamentally economic, but also composed of factors such as education and social mobility. Thus, ‘class’ is used to refer to an economic position International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 37 (i.e. property ownership, occupation, income, neighbourhood and community) that enables one to position oneself in terms of distinguished social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984). This study will