"Korea Is Not Ready for Immigrants": Chronotope and Social Tense for Danilminjok Korea

• In Event: Multilingual Learners' Experiences in Academic and Community Spaces

Abstract

Employing chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981) and social tense (Povinelli, 2011), this study investigates how Korea is perpetually described as a danilminjok (one nation, one people/blood) nation in online English study group discussions. I conducted virtual ethnography of an English study group of Korean learners. This space is significant because both online and English mediums are often believed to encourage more diverse and cross-boundary thinking. In discussing Korea’s immigration and diversity, the members actively used the negative present tense to illustrate that Korea is “not ready” for immigrants on the ground that it lacks proper policies for existing immigrants in Korea. Deploying linguistic tenses this way has negative sociopolitical impacts on non-Korean populations in the country.

Author

• Rayoung Song, Defense Language Institute