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Tracing Transnational Identities of North Korean Refugee English Learners in South Korea

Park, Seo Hyun
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408694083

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
This ethnographic study focuses on (1) how adult North Korean refugees come to understand the practice of English language learning in South Korea and, in the context of this dynamic understanding, (2) how their identity work develops in the course of migration, resettlement, and language learning experiences. The study draws on varied data collected over the course of a year, including interviews, observations of the learners inside and outside of the classroom, and artifacts. Unlike newcomers to the Anglosphere, immigrants new to the English as a foreign language context may not be aware of the need of English in the host society before or right after migration. The North Korean refugee population is an example of such border-crossers, whose sending and receiving countries are outside of the Anglosphere and who slowly discern the new or increased need to learn English. Contrasting North Korea’s top-down management of English education to South Korea’s family-driven “English frenzy,” the study demonstrates that the current North Korean refugee population overlaps little with those in North Korea who are granted access to English education. Even after their entry to the South, the majority of adult refugees are excluded from access to English learning opportunities due to South Koreans’ double standard toward English as critical for themselves but optional for the newcomers. Other challenges arising from the refugees’ decision to learn English from the beginning level are discussed, including their interrupted education, imagined community and its disjuncture from reality, familylessness, dilemma between hiding and promoting North-Koreanness, and pre-investment period in language learning owing to traumatic memories. This dissertation contributes to sociocultural approaches to second language education, research on transnationalism and refugee resettlement, and studies of the interplay between language learning and identity transformation.
Leslie Moore (Committee Chair)
Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm (Committee Member)
Alan Hirvela (Committee Member)
296 p.
Adult Education; English As A Second Language; Sociolinguistics

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Park, S. H. (2014). Tracing Transnational Identities of North Korean Refugee English Learners in South Korea [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408694083

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Park, Seo Hyun. Tracing Transnational Identities of North Korean Refugee English Learners in South Korea. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408694083.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Park, Seo Hyun. "Tracing Transnational Identities of North Korean Refugee English Learners in South Korea." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408694083

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1408694083
748
© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.