Joseph Sung-Yul PARK: In pursuit of English: language and subjectivity in Neoliberal South Korea

Kim, Seung-hwan Leo (author)

In Pursuit of English presents an incisive aetiology of South Korea’s national obsession with the acquisition of English (“English fever”) and, more broadly, demonstrates the importance of subjectivity—emotions, perceptions, beliefs and the like—in understanding the relationship between language choice and the speaker’s situated environment. Park argues that 1) recent history and policy choices have turned English into an index of wealth, prestige, and good moral character in South Korea; and 2) the resulting subjectivities of language, consisting of such affects as desire, moral responsibility, anxiety, and insecurity, now perpetuate English fever as a neoliberal self-development project. In doing so, Park successfully makes the case for us to examine attitudes toward language-learning as a mechanism born of, and now serving, a particular political-economic and social paradigm.

• Language: English
• Keywords: English fever, Neoliberalism, South Korea, Foucault, subjectivity
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.19 - Review, Book Review, Critique
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 371-374
• Numbering: Vol. 13, suppl.
• ISSN on article: 2232-5131
• DOI: 10.4312/as.2025.13.sup.371-374
• Publication date in RUL: 05.11.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian studies = Azijske študije
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 265206272

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: angleška mrzlica, neoliberalizem, Južna Koreja, Foucault, subjektiviteta