The Marketization of Teaching British English Accent in Korea: Focusing on Raciolinguistics and Critical Multimodality

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Interrogating Ideologies in Language Education: From Native Speakerism to Raciolinguistic Ideology (Table 10)

Abstract

This study explores the promotion of the British English Accent (BEA) in Korea’s private education sector, contrasting it with the dominant North American English Accent in the national curriculum. Drawing upon a raciolinguistic framework and multimodal critical discourse analysis, it examines how BEA, represented by Brit English (a private English education company), is idealized and racialized through accents (e.g., Received Pronunciation and Cockney). Commercials consisting of interviews with six Brit English teachers were analyzed to identify raciolinguistic and multimodal discourse features. The results reveal the racialization and commodification mechanisms through accent choices, showing how BEA is exploited to market over-simplified/generalized linguistic identities of BEA Speakers. The study highlights the socio-political dynamics influencing language perceptions and identity constructions in educational marketing.

Author

• Duk-In Choi, University of Iowa