The Role of English in South Korean Social Mobility : A Sociolinguistic Study on Korean Native Speakers’ Perspectives, Language Ideologies, and Identities with Respect to English

Abstract: English has been a central language in various sectors of South Korean (henceforth Korean) society for over a century, with historical events and contexts resulting in a glorification of the language as both an essentiality for success and an indicator of superiority and modernity (Park, 2009; Cho, 2017). With English becoming omnipresent in recent times due to an increasing focus on globalisation within Korean society, most families rigorously pursue English education to ensure optimal chances of employment. In turn, due to the necessity for additional English education outside of school, such as expensive private education, the divide between social classes in Korea has been continuously growing up to this day (Cho, 2017). Due to these existing inequalities and language ideologies, English is generally recognised as an indicator of social class in Korea. Despite the strong history of English in this country, however, Koreans’ perceptions of English, whether they see it as a key for vertical social mobility, and how they conceptualise English with respect to their self-images remain under-researched. Thus, by approaching this topic empirically, the present thesis explores the perspectives of English-speaking and non-English-speaking Korean native speakers regarding the role of English in Korea. To investigate this, the present study incorporates semi-structured interviews on the addressed topics and a subsequent content analysis through which themes are both established and interpreted. The participants were selected according to their age, English proficiency, and respective employment, with all interviewees being in their 20s and all working either in the real estate market or being involved in university undergraduate studies. The participants’ responses in the interviews showed similarities between the two groups, namely that both English-speaking and non-English-speaking participants of the present study position themselves similarly towards the role of English in Korea. First, it seems clear from the responses that English is perceived more as a marker of social class and less as a tool for vertical social mobility. This finding appears to indicate that English influences movement within the social hierarchy of Korea only to a certain extent, according to the interviewees’ perspectives, due to English being less important after recruitment by a company. Second, the participants conceptualise English as having general overt prestige. At the same time, the participants’ responses indicate that they connect English with the possibility of putting themselves in danger of face-threatening acts (FTAs). Thus English is conceptualised positively as being an indicator of intelligence, power, and wealth, while being negatively conceptualised as being a possible threat to the face of Koreans, resulting in their reluctance to speak English.