KRC Seminar Series

"Junian Tetrad: Hangeul as a form of 'banal nationalism'" 

by Dr Eldin Milak (Curtin University) 

Tuesday 2 May 2023

In this talk, Dr Eldin Milak maps out the trajectory by which Hangeul has come to function as a symbol of banal nationalism in the landscapes of Seoul. Building on the discussion of the historical rise of Hangeul through the writings of one of the founding figures in Korean linguistics, Ju Si-gyeong, he positions Hangeul within the national development project of South Korea, theorizing it as one of the four central elements of the nation-state, alongside ‘language’, ‘people’, and ‘land’. Dr Milak labels this fourfold construct as the ‘Junian Tetrad’ (a reworking of the ‘Herderian Triad’) and explore how it manifests in the public signage and semiotic landscapes of the Jongno and Yongsan Districts in Seoul. Triangulating the landscape data with a discursive analysis of the script policies enforced in the two Districts, he exemplifies how script can serve as a form of banal nationalism by reifying the nation-state construct through the ubiquitous and mundane practice of sign-making in public spaces. 

"Australian-Korean multicultural family members' emotions about their family language policy" by Dr Nicola Fraschini and Dr Adrian Lundberg (Malmo University, Sweden)

April 8, 2022

This presentation investigates the emotional reactions of members of multilingual families in relation to their family language policy (FLP) using Q methodology. The purpose is to foreground possible emotional differences that family members experience regarding FLPs, and to show the complexity of the web of emotions triggered by the adoption of these policies. Research in the field of language acquisition demonstrated the relevance of emotions in the process of learning an additional language. Therefore, it is important to understand how different emotions are interconnected and represent individual reactions to FLPs, as emotions ultimately affect the wellbeing of multilingual families. In this project, a pictorial Q set using seventeen face emojis to represent emotions is used to meet existing methodological challenges in research with children with limited literacy. Fifteen participants, parents and children of six Australian-Korean multicultural families, sorted the set of emojis depending on their feeling about their FLP. Results provide insights into the variety of emotional reactions to FLPs, and the different emotional reactions that members of the same family have regarding their family language practices. 

"Brilliant are the Flowers: Envoy Poetry and the Rhetoric of Empire" by Dr Sixiang Wang (UCLA) 

Friday 22 April 2022

In the two centuries of peace, the Chosŏn dynasty of Korea (1392–1910) enjoyed with the Ming empire in China (1368–1644), it exercised enormous agency in shaping the very terms of imperial rule. This agency, however, has often been obscured by the very rhetoric adopted by Chosŏn's own diplomats in the process. This talk explores the rhetorical strategies of Korean diplomacy, in particular in its envoy poetry, to argue that Chosŏn Korea crafted with Ming envoys central aspects of Ming imperial ideology. These included a shared insistence on Korea's membership in a civilized ecumene, recognition of independent Korean links to the classical past, and a repudiation of the specter of imperial irredentism. Chosŏn-Ming relations, far from a ready-made system derived from timeless Confucian principles or a coherent Ming vision of world order, emerged in part from these rhetorical negotiations in diplomatic poetry.