Bilingual Womanhood and Politics of Multilingual Education in South Korea

• In Event: 64.086 - MTCC Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 64.086-4 - Voicing Bi/Multilingual Identities

Abstract

Recently, the South Korean government implemented multilingual education policies, transforming the role of damunhwa mothers (female marriage migrants) from KSL (Korean as a second language) learners to bilingual professionals whose linguistic capital be used in a new bilingual/minority education sector. However, the interview narratives of four damunhwa mothers demonstrated (1) negotiations of international and intranational linguistic markets facilitating the construction of linguistic hierarchies among multiple languages hindered many damunhwa mothers from getting working as bilingual professionals. Their interview accounts also presented (2) a rise of tensions between domestic gender roles and transnational selves. Through these findings, this presentation calls for more reflective accounts of ecological and translingual language policy in South Korea.

Authors

• Bong-gi Sohn, Simon Fraser University

• Mi Ok Kang, Utah Valley University