Language ideology and identity in transnational space: globalization, migration, and bilingualism among Korean families in the USA

Abstract

A growing transnational migration trend among (South) Korean families brings heterogeneity to the Korean-American communities in the US in terms of educational practices and identity. Based on interviews with Korean mothers, this study discusses how two groups of Koreans, Korean immigrants and early study abroad sojourners, enacted and adopted different language ideologies that resulted in divergent attitudes to and different strategies for their children's language education. The interviews with early study abroad families, in particular, revealed that their attitudes to language education were closely related to the language ideologies of global English in Korea. That is, these early study abroad families circulated ‘glocalized’ English (localized global English) through transnational migration as an educational strategy. Particulary, two language ideologies of global English: (1) language as marketable commodity; and (2) language for cosmopolitan membership, become apparent and intensified in their discourse on language education. A pluralistic approach to an immigrant community highlights the intra-group variations in US immigrant populations, yielding an understanding of their diverse educational practices and identities. This study also contributes to a dynamic notion of bilingualism and language learning in transnational space by emphasizing the multiple and context-specific nature of language ideologies.