Seeun (Tina) Jeon

This contextual presentation is assessing the language policy and educational materials for marriage immigrant women (MIW) in South Korea, addressing how those are closely related to ethnically homogenous Korean society and its international and gender power dynamics. The presentation will first ground the audience with the characteristics of South Korean society. South Korea’s strong national identity as a racially and ethnically homogenous country, how that has been educated in different sectors would shed light on how that often becomes a barrier against diversity, despite the growing population of immigrants. Author's own positionality as a South Korean as well as a Korean as Foreign Language (KFL) teacher in Minnesota, this also justifies studying South Korean context.

Main content of the presentation shows some cases of MIW Korean language textbook and programs and identifies its hidden curriculum. A strong expectation for MIW to be a good wife and daughter-in-law has been embedded in several aspects of South Koreans society, and it can be elaborated with examples of language educational materials and cultural programs. From initial review, images and dialogues in Korean language textbooks for MIW imply that women need to do all the house chores and stay submissive to husbands and adults in the family. While there are conversations that South Korean family members teach MIW about Korean culture and etiquette, there is no content on Koreans showing interest in her country and culture (Ahn&West, 2024). With these, the presentation would specify how MIW are required to adapt to the new Korean environment and norms as fast as they can, and how language is the key to be accepted by the South Korean communities and keep the good relationship and economic status in South Korea for their families in their home country.

The presentation will leave room for reflection at the end, highlighting particularity of South Korean and MIW context as well as how this can be related to other settings. In suggesting more inclusive narratives and agency for MIW Korean language learners, the presentation will introduce the idea of love and emotion for the decolonizing project, mentioned by De Fina et al. (2023). Korean language is one of the crucial forces of national identity, since it gives pride and has value of equity and resilience in Korean history; letters have been created by King Sejong to make easier letters to educate all the people regardless of their class, and Korea is one of very few countries that preserved native language and designated as an official language even after being colonized. Thus, instead of using it to have foreigners assimilate to South Korea and reinforce internal social cohesion, Korean language and culture should be a way to reiterate its core merit to embrace difference, broadening our perspectives to perceive immigrants in Korea. Ultimately, it would contribute to the language policy/planning field, as it has been striving to employ critical lenses to assess policies along with increasing immigration and fluid ethnic/linguistic identities of people.

Reference

Ahn, S. Y., & West, G. B. (2024). Positioning of female marriage immigrants in South Korea: a multimodal textbook analysis. Applied Linguistics Review, 15(1), 287-307.

De Fina, A., Oostendorp, M., & Ortega, L. (2023). Sketches Toward a Decolonial Applied Linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 44(5), 819-832.