한국 언어인류학 연구의 성과와 전망

Achievements and prospects of Korean linguistic anthropology research

This paper aims to discuss the achievements of linguistic anthropology research conducted by Korean anthropologists since the mid-1980s. It examines the main themes which Korean linguistic anthropologists have investigated for the last three decades. The categories of the main topics can be summarized as follows: (1) the relationship between language and culture, (2) ethnography of communication, (3) verbal art and performance, (4) the issues of language ideology, globalization, and semiotic approaches. My review of the previous works on these topics demonstrates that Korean linguistic anthropology has evolved from the works mainly devoted to documentation and description of specific language communities to more critical approaches to language practices and ideologies as embedded in wider social contexts. The recent works tend to criticize the previous works’ static and fixed notions of language and culture, while emphasizing individual speakers’ strategic and political uses of language and the power dynamics that constitute and reconstitute the social effects of language in context.