Contemporary Korean Research Articles

In Search of Asylum: Solitary Singing Practice in Koin Norae-Bang by Contemporary Korean Young People

This article explores the phenomenon of solo singing by Korean young people in koin norae-bang, a new type of karaoke that recently emerged in South Korea. Given the commonly held notion of singing as a form of communicative expression performed with and for others, solo karaoke singing seems to contradict conventional wisdom and requires rethinking it. Although this solo singing is a very private practice, I investigate its diverse dimensions, including not just the self-satisfaction derived from it on the personal level but also the sociocultural contexts in which this practice is produced. Solitary singing implies that the performer expresses the self to the self without being disturbed by others. Getting away from the pressure to impress audiences, as in the social performance of traditional norae-bang (karaoke) scenes, individuals reveal their feelings and emotions freely by singing whatever they want in koin norae-bang. And they are keenly aware of how this singing practice helps change and improve their feeling and mood. The koin norae-bang phenomenon has also much to do with the socioeconomic circumstances confronting Korean young people today. As a leisure form, it reflects the worsening living conditions of these young people, who are forced to live in isolation and experience economic marginalization. Koin norae-bang, in this context, plays a role as a haven for these young Koreans, in which they comfort themselves and soothe their isolation and marginalization by singing alone.

Pansori Hamlet Project: Taroo's New Pansori Shakespeare for the Local Audience

This essay focuses on the South Korean performance group Taroo's locally-oriented aesthetics in Pansori Hamlet Project (2014) as an alternative model to the notion of "Global Shakespeare" which presupposes intercultural spectatorship as well as intercultural practice. A natural corollary of this "global" discourse is overlooking smallscale productions and verbal genres such as pansori despite their artistic merit and cultural significance for the local audience. Taroo's pansori Shakespeare features four Hamlets who tell the story of the Danish prince with reference to Korean popular culture in local dialects. The pluralization and localization of the Shakespeare's melancholic hero transform Hamlet into a play of contemporary Korean young adults going through a difficult time together while recreating the traditional form of pansori as a popular genre they call "gugak musical." Taroo's pansori adaptation showcases a local Shakespeare that is not motivated by "bardolatry" or universalism underlying many intercultural Shakespeares but relies on indigenous language and music as a powerful vehicle of sympathy and renewal of tradition for the local audience.

On Masculinities in Contemporary Korean Society: From the Involvement of Militarism

On Masculinities in Contemporary Korean Society: From the Involvement of Militarism

종합토론] 서울올림픽을 통해서 본 한국현대미술 연구의 가능성과 과제_2부 : 포스트-올림픽 시대로의 전환?: 한국현대미술의 제도적 재구성과 한국현대미술 논쟁

종합토론] 서울올림픽을 통해서 본 한국현대미술 연구의 가능성과 과제_2부 : 포스트-올림픽 시대로의 전환?: 한국현대미술의 제도적 재구성과 한국현대미술 논쟁

설치미술의 국제화 흐름 속 1980-1990년대 한국현대조각의 변화

설치미술의 국제화 흐름 속 1980-1990년대 한국현대조각의 변화

Normative Instrument and the One with the Moral Emotion Contained in the Family Values of Confucianism

이 글은 전통적 세계관과 서구적 세계관이 동시에 사회 국가의 운영원리가 되어 있는 현대 한국사회에 있어서 가족(家族)의 의미를 유가철학의 가족관에 내포되어 있는 정감적(情感的) 계기와 규범적(規範的) 계기를 중심으로 고찰하고자 하였다. 또한 한국사회에서 ‘가족’관계가 내포하고 문제점에 대한 진단을 통하여 유가적 가족관이 지니는 현재적 의미를 해명하고자 하였다. 유학의 가족 윤리에 내포된 정감적 원리는 부부로부터 시작하여 혈연적 가족관계를 거쳐 외연적으로 사회, 국가, 천하로 확대된다. 이것은 혈연적 정감적 친친(親親)에서 정치적 규범적 원리로서 존존(尊尊)으로 나아가며, 추은(推恩)의 방식으로 이루어진다. 하지만 친친의 정감적 원리는 예의와 법 등의 수단적 규범적 원리를 넘어서 자연적 목적적 의미를 가진다. 공자가 말하는 ‘정직’은 이러한 관점에서 유학의 정감론적 도덕 원리에 특별한 의미를 부여한다. 하지만 혈연적 정감적 도덕 감정은 때로 부정적인 방향으로 나아갈 가능성이 있다. 이것이 유가철학에서 규범적 질서를 강조하게 되는 이유가 된다고 할 수 있다. 유가적 가족 관계에서 규범적 원리와 계기가 강조되는 것은 혈연적 정감적 도덕원리가 한쪽으로 치우쳐서 부정적인 방향으로 흐르는 것을 규제하기 위한 것이다. 정감적 도덕 감정으로서 친친(親親)의 진정한 의미는 덕을 가지고 친족을 바르게 친애하는 것이다. 이것이 불가능하여 사적인 감정으로 흐르는 경우에 이것은 공적이고 객관적인 도덕률로서 예의(禮義)나 법(法)의 제어와 규제를 받아야 할 것이다. 정치적 규범적 질서를 목표로 하는 도덕규범의 계기는 혈연적 정감의 치우침을 조절하면서 정감적 도덕 원리를 보완하는 기능을 가진다고 할 수 있다. 유가철학은 이러한 예 의(禮義)를 통하여 통치의 질서를 구축하고 있다. 유가철학의 정치적 이상은 국가 사회가 이처 럼 혈연적인 인의에 바탕하여 정치적 규범으로서 예의에 의해 적절하게 통치되어 공공선의 조화로운 통합이 이루어질 때 실현된다고 할 수 있다. 결론적으로, 경제적 이기주의가 심화되어 여러 문제점을 드러내는 현대 한국사회에서 유가철학의 가족관에 내포된 정감적 유대의식과 규범적 질서의식을 통한 조화와 균형의 이념은 미래사회의 보편적인 가치기준이 될 수 있다.This essay intended to investigate the meaning of family with normative instrument and the one with the moral emotion as the center in the contemporary Korean society in which the traditional world view and western one operate at the same time. Also, this paper tried to illuminate the present meaning of Confucian family values through problem diagnosis connoted in family relations in korean society. The emotion principle involved in family ethics of Confucianism starts from the couple and goes through with blood family relations, dispread to society, nation and world explicitly This advances from blood family ties to normative political order and works out the way through which one spreads familial warmth. However, the emotion principle of blood family ties has a spontaneous and purposive meaning over the instrumental and normative principle. In this way, the honesty that Confucius said imbues emotion moral principle of Confucianism with special significance. But, the moral emotion according to blood and feeling sometimes has good chance to go forward in the negative direction. This becomes reason emphasizing normative order in Confucian philosophy What the normative principle and chance are stressed in Confucian philosophy tried to control corruption and disorder of the moral emotion of blood and feeling. In the case of deviation to the private feelings, this has to receive control and restriction of the proprieties and legislation as objective moral law. Conclusionally, political ideal of Confucianism could be realized when nation and society are integrated with public interests[公共善] harmoniously by being governed properly accoding to regulations as political criterion lied on blood benevolence and righteousness.

A Reevaluation of Korean Written Discourse: An Analysis of Contemporary Korean High School Student Writing and Korean Language Arts Textbooks

According to previous studies, Korean writing is characterized by ki-sung-chon-kyul. Korean writing has been regarded as inductive, im plicit, and indirect. It was claimed that Korean students have difficulty understanding English texts due to differing textual features, and for the same reason, English-speaking people have difficulty understanding writ ten texts in Korean. The primary aim of this study is to challenge these hypotheses on the features of Korean texts. In an attempt to fill the gap, this study investigates high school Korean language arts textbooks and student writing samples. The present study both adds to a growing body of literature on international writing studies and enriches the understand ing of our assumptions about written texts.

A Tribute to Democracy and Peace by Contemporary Korean History Researchers of the Age of Division

A Tribute to Democracy and Peace by Contemporary Korean History Researchers of the Age of Division

Development of grammatical voice marking in Korean: On the causative, middle and passive uses of suffix -i

Voice-markers enable speakers to profile a situation/event in ways that reflect their perspective of ‘who’ or ‘what’ is being foregrounded as the discourse unfolds. Our diachronic study focuses on how a versatile voice marker evolves new functions as it competes for its semantic niche with other voice markers. Using data from Old Korean texts written in Kukyel and data from Middle and Modern Korean11Old Korean spans the period from the 8th to 13th century, Middle Korean from the 14th to16th century, Modern Korean from the 17th to 19th century, and Contemporary Korean from the 20th century to the present day. texts written in Hankul from the Sejong historical corpus, we show how Korean suffix -i extends from causative to middle and passive uses through reflexive causatives while competing with voice markers -eci and -key ha-. Our analysis reveals: (i) a relaxation of telicity and specificity constraints, which facilitates the extension of -i from a valence-increasing causative marker to a valence-reducing spontaneous and facilitative middle marker, and (ii) deployment of innovative morphosyntactic strategies (e.g. ‘double causatives’, ‘double passives’ and ‘hybrid passives’) to disambiguate between causative and passive uses of -i. The difference in directionality for -eci constructions (middle-to-passive development) and for -i constructions (causative-to-middle plus causative-to-passive developments) also has implications for our understanding of the development of voice systems in other languages.

Modelling the Englishization of vocabulary in contemporary Korean

AbstractThis study aims to analyse how English has been incorporated into contemporary Korean vocabulary, analysing vocabulary items from the 2014 New Words list published by the National Institute of Korean Language. It also surveys previous research on the Englishization of Korean vocabulary in order to devise a descriptive model of lexical borrowing from English in the contemporary Korean language. The examination of a wide range of data demonstrates that lexical borrowing into Korean is highly complex, involving at least four combinations of source languages: (i) English (only), (ii) traditional Korean and English, (iii) Sino‐Korean and English, and (iv) English, traditional Korean and Sino‐Korean. The findings suggest that ‘borrowed’ words undergo hybridized word formation processes in creative and innovative ways, which this paper attempts to describe using the model of lexical borrowing presented in this article.

The Posthuman and Transboundary Imagination in Contemporary Korean Literature: Considering the Works of Pae Myŏnghun and Yun Ihyŏng

Abstract Literature limited to the eyes of “humanity” as created by humanism is insufficient to explore the conditions faced in the twenty-first century. The posthuman forms prevalent in contemporary South Korean literature, such as cyborgs, humanoids, and artificial intelligence, go beyond reflecting scientific developments; they operate as critical, political rhetoric with regard to discourses of modernity. This article focuses on the posthuman forms and also future time and space in Pae Myŏnghun’s and Yun Ihyŏng’s short stories in relation to critical posthumanism. Although Pae’s allegorical approach may seem somewhat simplistic, the posthuman forms that are brought to life in his works are highly innovative and effectively criticize modern systems. In contrast to Pae, Yun uses the futuristic subject to concentrate on humans, through narratives of coexistence where nonsynchronism is in operation. Yun’s narratives focus on a performative posthuman discourse that traverses gender, age, and class-based dualisms. With hybrid, multilayered, and performative identities and the transgression of boundaries, the two writers undermine the modern notion of linear, progressing time and cast doubt on notions of objectivity or totalized knowledge, urging a rethinking of the “here and now.”

Attention on the Contemporary Korean Performing Art History

Attention on the Contemporary Korean Performing Art History

현대 한국어에서의 외래어 혼성어

현대 한국어에서의 외래어 혼성어

Revisiting colonial cinema research in Korea

Korean cinema during the colonial era has become the subject matter of the most productive scholarship in Korean language over the last decade. Contemporary Korean scholarship on colonial cinema ch...

The Identity Strategy of “Wild-Geese” Fathers: The Craft of Confucian Fathers

Transnational migration scholarship has discussed parents’ economic and emotional sacrifice for their children as a justification for separation. However, the researchers have overlooked addressing how the parents’ sacrifice is culturally ingrained, and fathers in the homeland construct their identity embedded in local culture. This article fills the gap by analyzing the experiences of Korean transnational fathers, “wild-geese fathers”, who live in South Korea. Using online data and narrative analysis, this article argues that wild-geese fathers identify themselves as tragic figures faced with emotional difficulties and successful heroes overcoming those difficulties. It shows that the mixed narrative of heroism is tied to Confucianism, which imbues fathers with the ideology of strong father controlling their emotions and intermediary roles producing children that are capable of maintaining the lineage honor. The analysis of wild-geese fathers shows that Confucianism proves to be a durable cultural resource for the contemporary Korean transnational family in a rapidly changing global era.

Historical and Contemporary Korean Emigration: a Comparative Analysis of Ten Waves of Korean Migration

Migration trends and patterns often reflect a country’s social relations at home and abroad. At the risk of overgeneralization, ten waves of Korean emigration with historical significance have been identified and organized in chronological order from the 1860s to 2010s for comparison, including the emigrant identities, settlement regions, emigration motivations, and migration classifications. While the temporal and spatial context of migration decisions varies, each wave has demonstrated how the Korean migrants respond to the internal and international political-economic environments as a survival strategy. Korean emigrants’ social class, the choice of destinations, the length of sojourn, and the nature of migration are all further diversified from historical to contemporary emigration. Korean settlement experiences with country-specific details in regions of significant Korean emigrant dominance are further investigated. The new concept of “liquid migration,” with flexibility, fluidity and hybridity, is also increasingly evident in the shifting patterns and trends of contemporary Korean emigration.

현대국어 해라체 의문형 어미 ‘-느냐/으냐, -니’의 변화

현대국어 해라체 의문형 어미 ‘-느냐/으냐, -니’의 변화

현대국어 해라체 의문형 어미 ‘-느냐/으냐, -니’의 변화

현대국어 해라체 의문형 어미 ‘-느냐/으냐, -니’의 변화

Aspects and Problems in the Contemporary Use of Address Terms and Reference Terms within a Family

Lee, Phil-young & Kim, Tae-kyung. 2018. “Aspects and Problems in the Contemporary Use of Address Terms and Reference Terms within a Family”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 26(1). 277~309. This paper investigates the use of address terms and reference terms within a family. This study was conducted based on the questionnaire result targeting 4,000 people in 17 administrative areas across the country. Our research focused on investigating whether the use of terms that has been recommended in (2011) corresponded to the actual use in Korean contemporary language life and determining how to resolve potential problems caused by inappropriate use of the terms. The result of current study revealed that there were a number of differences between the suggested terms in (2011) and the actual use of the terms in contemporary Korean. The difficulty in the use of address terms and reference terms within a family was largely due to its complicate system of kinship terms and the social change from patriarchal society. This study also reveals that sexually discriminated titles for husband's and wife's family need to be reformed to avoid potential problems.

The Intersectionality of Gender and Ethnicity in (Social) Mobility: Migration of Koryŏ saram Women from Uzbekistan to South Korea

Imagined ethnic ties and affinities have funneled many Koryŏ saram into South Korea—the divided homeland of their ancestors—as coethnic labor migrants and foreign spouses over the past decade. Based on in-depth interviews with ten Uzbekistan-born Koryŏ saram women who currently reside in South Korea with their Korean husbands and children, this paper examines intersections of gender and ethnicity in the women’s migratory paths and life experiences in the employment and family spheres. After contextualizing the ensuing influx of Koryŏ saram to South Korea from the perspectives of ethnic (return) migration and marriage migration, this study looks into how the ten informants’ skills are devalorized as coethnic migrants who lack Korean language skills but appear “Korean” to contemporary South Korean people. This research also investigates the ways that the incipient Koryŏ saram community allows them to seek new employment opportunities while juggling between work and family as a married migrant with children. By examining two salient social differentiations in (social) mobility of Koryŏ saram, this paper not only betokens the social position of Koryŏ saram in South Korea, but also underscores the agency of the coethnic migrant women who struggle to pursue inclusion in the affluent homeland.