South Korea has been experiencing an influx of migrants, predominantly from East and Southeast Asia and the former USSR, engendering the formation of numerous ethnic enclaves. The presence of different ethnicities has transformed these enclaves into transcultural, multilingual spaces where diverse languages and cultures are embedded onto the physical landscape. However, few studies have examined South Korea’s migrant cultures and languages. The chapter addresses this underresearched area by exploring (1) languages and cultures represented in South Korea’s ethnic enclaves, and (2) how this representation demonstrates conflicts between South Korea’s embrace and policing of multilingualism and multiculturalism. Adopting the notions of punitive multilingualism and semiotic assemblage, this chapter analyses how the semiotic landscape, or publicly displayed languages, visual signs, and material artefacts, of these enclaves communicates tensions between the confluence of migrant cultures and languages in diverse forms and South Korea’s regulation of perceived migrants’ deviant behaviour. This underscores how migrants’ transformation of South Korea’s linguacultural landscape collides with the country’s mixed response to this phenomenon, which ironically embraces and “punishes” multilingualism and multiculturalism. Such responses rooted in dominant ethnonationalistic beliefs in monoculturalism and monolingualism are increasingly being challenged by South Korea’s emerging multicultural and multilingual reality.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

THE Embrace and Policing of Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in the Ethnoracial Landscape of South Korea’s Ethnic Enclaves

  • Marc Yi Fei Yeo

摘要

South Korea has been experiencing an influx of migrants, predominantly from East and Southeast Asia and the former USSR, engendering the formation of numerous ethnic enclaves. The presence of different ethnicities has transformed these enclaves into transcultural, multilingual spaces where diverse languages and cultures are embedded onto the physical landscape. However, few studies have examined South Korea’s migrant cultures and languages. The chapter addresses this underresearched area by exploring (1) languages and cultures represented in South Korea’s ethnic enclaves, and (2) how this representation demonstrates conflicts between South Korea’s embrace and policing of multilingualism and multiculturalism. Adopting the notions of punitive multilingualism and semiotic assemblage, this chapter analyses how the semiotic landscape, or publicly displayed languages, visual signs, and material artefacts, of these enclaves communicates tensions between the confluence of migrant cultures and languages in diverse forms and South Korea’s regulation of perceived migrants’ deviant behaviour. This underscores how migrants’ transformation of South Korea’s linguacultural landscape collides with the country’s mixed response to this phenomenon, which ironically embraces and “punishes” multilingualism and multiculturalism. Such responses rooted in dominant ethnonationalistic beliefs in monoculturalism and monolingualism are increasingly being challenged by South Korea’s emerging multicultural and multilingual reality.