Multiracial Korean Americans negotiating Korean and English

Abstract

AbstractUsing the case of multiracial Korean Americans, who are positioned across/between the boundaries of language and race, we explore language choice and use as sites for reimagining intercultural communication. Analyzing in‐depth autobiographical interviews, we ask how cultural difference and sameness are constructed and how understandings of English as a world language shape multilingual interactions. Findings reveal how, despite being familiar with cultural norms of Koreanness, multiracial Korean Americans are still constructed as cultural others by Korean speakers and rely on understandings of English as a world language to resist the metapragmatic frames their interlocutors would inscribe onto them. Use of English became a method for protecting their Korean identity, thus challenging the notion that use of a heritage language is essential for maintaining the ethnic identity. Consequently, we discuss the intersections of multiraciality and multilingualism to refine understandings of race and culture in intercultural communication and the globalization of English.