재외교포의 이중언어에 대하여

Bilingualism for Overseas Koreans

In history, it remains unchanged that there is a certain difference between the surviving strategy of a strong nation and that of a weak nation. Even though there has been a formal change in the direction of the surviving strategy of a weak nation, that direction does not go beyond the boundary of the worship of the powerful. If the principle of ‘worship of the powerful’ and ‘tribute’ is like this, it will be correct to prescribe that the principle is constant regardless of the fact that the national identity of a weak nation will change its shape according to times. A cardinal point is the heritage learners’ conscious learning of their mother tongue, and the key to this learning is to become a balanced bilingual speaker who can master the local language as their first language and the mother tongue as their second one. Especially, such a balanced bilingualism can be said to secure national identity for overseas Koreans. This is because human beings essentially possess homing instinct which makes it impossible for them to rid the mind of nostalgia for their own lineage, ancestral home, family, and homeland, and the very homing instinct or rootedness is definitely an accelerator to help them to revive as a genuine human being and will further contribute to the happiness of their local community and the peace of all mankind.