The Promise of English: Linguistic Capital and the Neoliberal Worker in the South Korean Job Market

Autor/in	Park, Joseph Sung-Yul
Titel	The Promise of English: Linguistic Capital and the Neoliberal Worker in the South Korean Job Market
Quelle	In: International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14 (2011) 4, S.443-455 (13 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1367-0050
Schlagwörter	Linguistic Competence; Job Applicants; Linguistics; Language Tests; Labor Market; Corporations; English (Second Language); Social Integration; Language Planning; Political Attitudes; White Collar Occupations; South Korea + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sprachkompetenz; Bewerber; Linguistik; Language test; Sprachtest; Labour market; Arbeitsmarkt; Unternehmen; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Soziale Integration; Sprachwechsel; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Angestelltenberuf; Korea; Republik
Abstract	English is often assumed to be a key to material success and social inclusion, and this belief commonly works to justify the global dominance of English, glossing over and rationalizing broader social inequalities. This paper extends the discussion of this fallacy of "the promise of English" to the domain of the South Korean job market, where skills in the English language play a major role in determining one's access to white-collar jobs. Since the 1990s, different modes of English language testing have emerged as popular means for evaluating job applicants for Korean corporations, constantly upgrading the criteria for "good English". Through a discussion of how such changes are linked with the conception of self in the neoliberal workplace and how evaluation of linguistic competence is always a matter of social and ideological interpretation, this paper demonstrates why, in the Korean job market, the fulfillment of the promise of English is constantly deferred. (Contains 2 notes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10