Comments on: Koreans in Korean Textbooks

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree entirely. Attempts to conjure up national cultures in textbooks of national languages are always simple-minded, misleading, and often irrelevant. It would be much better if they talked, not about fashion, but about an overweening concern with social hierarchy and how the latter directly affects language usage.

By: Lapis Lazuli

Lapis Lazuli — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Write more about Korea. I’m going in January and I’m getting nervous. Lapis Lazuli formerly Duckling formerly Twisted Hazel formerly Hippo formerly not addicted to blogging ;)

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of generalizations. They are false, in the sense that any generalization is false, but they are important pieces of social and cultural data, as well. For an American student audience effectively ignorant of Korean culture, it is worth emphasizing the fundamental (but general) differences in culture: the ‘socio’ in ‘socio-linguistic.’

The problem is not that this is a starting place; the problem is that hardly anyone gets beyond this level.

By: Muninn

Muninn — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jonathan, I agree that generalizations are not entirely avoidable but as you say, the problem is that they hardly get beyond this. In a language textbook especially, you can’t get beyond it, so I see its inclusion more harmful than helpful, especially in a case like this, where the generalization tells us nothing about life in Korea which is unique to it. Even if we focused only on the claim of “formalism” which has more of a ring of truth to it, it wouldn’t be much of a claim unless we put it into context.

For example, they might be able to have a passage on, as Joel mentions, social hierarchy and its relationship to language. They could then mention how this is reflected in Korean language, but also note that this is the case with other languages such as Japanese etc. Again, this would be something you would have to take considerable care in wording, another reason to simply leave it out of a language textbook.