In Pursuit of English

Language and Subjectivity in Neoliberal South Korea
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-085574-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 200 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 304 g

In Pursuit of English traces how the English language became an object of heated pursuit amid South Korea's rapid neoliberalization, creating the so-called "English fever" of the 1990s and 2000s. Joseph Sung-Yul Park demonstrates that English gained prominence not because of the language's supposed economic value, but because of the anxieties, insecurities, and moral desire instilled by neoliberal Korean society. Park shows how English came to be seen as an index of an ideal neoliberal subject who willingly engages in constant self-management and self-development in response to the changing conditions of the global economy.

Bringing together ethnographically-oriented perspectives on subjectivity, critical analysis of conditions of contemporary capitalism, theories of neoliberal governmentality, and sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological frameworks of metapragmatic analysis, In Pursuit of English develops an innovative new direction for research at the intersection language and political economy, challenging researchers to consider subjectivity as the key for understanding the place of language in neoliberalism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sung-Yul Park, Joseph

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Geopolitik
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Soziolinguistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Acknowledgements

- Chapter 1: Introduction

- The World in Pursuit of English

- Researching English in the Global Economy

- Subjectivity as a Critical Perspective on Neoliberalism

- English, Neoliberalism, and Subjectivity in South Korea

- Outline of this Book

- Chapter 2: Language and Subjectivity in Neoliberalism

- Defining Neoliberalism

- Theorizing Neoliberalism: Political Economy of Subjectivity

- Languaging Subjectivity: Methodological Notes

- Conclusions

- Chapter 3: English and Neoliberalism in South Korea

- Neoliberal South Korea: A Portrait of Hell

- Korea's Neoliberal Transformation: History, Actors, Processes

- Korea's English Fever and its Neoliberal Grounding

- Subjective Foundations of the English Fever: A Historical Perspective

- Conclusions

- Chapter 4: Language as Pure Potential: Crafting a Desire for English

- Who Desires English?

- Desire, Neoliberalism, and Language Ideology

- Language as Pure Potential

- Cosmopolitan Desire and Dreams of Self-realization

- Desire and the Crafting of New Subjectivities

- Conclusions

- Chapter 5: Language Learning as Technology of the Self: The Moral Grounding of English

- English and inequality in Neoliberalism

- Morality and Technologies of the Self

- Success Stories of English Language Learning in the Conservative Press

- The Successful Learner of English as a Moral Figure

- English Language Learning as Technology of Self

- Conclusions

- Chapter 6: The Biopolitics of Language Learning: Youth, English, and Anxiety

- Youth as a Valuable Resource

- Language Learning as Biopolitics

- Early English Education and Anxieties of the Future

- Anxieties of Early Study Abroad: Fears of Being Lost in Time

- Beyond Youth

- Conclusions

- Chapter 7: Deferring to the Other: English and Linguistic Insecurity

- Commodification and Competing Ideologies of Language

- Reframing Linguistic Insecurity

- Korean Mid-level Managers in Non-Korean Multinational Corporations

- Linguistic Insecurity in the Korean Managers' Discourse

- Coloniality and the Neoliberal Valorization of English

- Conclusions

- Chapter 8: Becoming Precarious Subjects: The Unfulfilled Promise of English

- Precarity as Subjective Condition

- Promise of English in a State of Precarity

- The rise and fall of TOEIC

- Consequences for Precarity

- Conclusions

- Chapter 9: Conclusions

- Rethinking English, Neoliberalism, and Subjectivity

- Towards a Global Account of English and Neoliberalism

- Subjectivity in Language and Political Economy

- References

Über Autor(innen)

Joseph Sung-Yul Park is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of The Local Construction of a Global Language: Ideologies of English in South Korea and co-author of Markets of English: Linguistic Capital and Language Policy in a Globalizing World and A Reference Grammar of Wappo.