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Cambridge Asia’s Archaeology and Heritage Group is hosting the following talk:

Heritage language studies in the Korean-speaking world

Abstract

In this talk, I explore the notion of ‘heritage language’ within the South Korean context from two distinct angles. First, I delve into research on Jejuan (also known as 제주어 Jejueo or 제주방언, the Cheju/Ceycwu dialect of Korean), where we see the confluence of distinct scholarly trends, from South Korean national linguistics, via the study and documentation of Jejuan as an endangered language, to intersecting views within the heritage linguistics framework. Next, I take a first step at looking at my own German-Korean heritage speaker background. The linguistics of the German-speaking Korean diaspora interacts with complex layers of migration into German-speaking countries, yet is severely understudied. Studying both contexts will reveal the challenges that not only Korean communities across the world face today, but also highlight some pertinent issues that heritage linguistics has to take into account.

Speaker bio

Soung-U Kim is Ricercatore RTDB for Korean language and literature at the Department of Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean at Università di Napoli L’Orientale. As a German-Korean linguist with a Ph.D. in Linguistics (SOAS University of London), he has an extensive track record with respect to minority language research and documentation, language teaching, Koreanic languages and cultures. His research areas are language documentation and description, Koreanic languages (specially Jejuan), egophoricity, politeness, multilingualism, language ideology, language and power, and fieldwork and reflexivity.