The Perpetuation of Linguistic Insecurities in Neoliberal Personhood

Abstract

This chapter examines the socially constructed nature of linguistic insecurity with regard to neoliberal ideologies and English in Korean society. Specifically, it explores the pursuit of linguistic perfectionism as a form of neoliberal personhood among English-Korean translators and interpreters. Depending on their language learning backgrounds, the participants can be categorized into two groups: haewaepa (overseas learners of English) and guknaepa (domestic learners of English). While haewaepa (who have learned English in a naturalistic environment early in life) are generally legitimatized as superior language users compared to guknaepa, the over-idealization of haewaepa as “perfect” speakers of English as informed by neoliberalism serves as a source of anxiety and insecurity for the haewaepa participants. The same ideology that accentuates individual commitment to linguistic perfectionism also presents a challenge to guknaepa, who feel obliged to fit the images of interpreters as “perfect” speakers of English, and to achieve this solely through individual effort. By exploring the language journeys of those belonging to the two groups, the chapter demonstrates how neoliberal ideologies that idealize individual effort in pursuing the goal of becoming a particular type of “elite speaker” of English are circulated and internalized by English language learners in the context of “English fever” in Korea.

This chapter is a revised version of the journal article “Sleepless in Seoul: Neoliberalism, English fever, and linguistic insecurity among Korean interpreters” (Cho, 2015) published by Multilingua in 2015.