Well, I took my speaking midterm today, and because I like to talk about my problems/opinions incessantly, here is a post about it.
Last year's speaking midterm was all but a disaster; see the Horrifying Crisis that Befell Me by checking the archives. This year's was a marked improvement in that I didn't have to endure the absolutely terrifying Lee Hyejun Sunsaengnim telling me that my absolutely blank face during class indicated to her that I might be about as good at Korean as an amoeba, but I was still slapped with some of the same criticisms I keep hearing, the first and most prominent being this
"Jangmi, if I were talking to you on the phone, I would think to myself, 'Wow, this person speaks Korean well...but they don't seem like a Korean.'"
Well, I've been thinking about how best to do this for awhile now, and I guess there's no better way to do it than to just come out and say it. This is my horrible truth: I am not Korean.
Try, if you can, to suspend what I'm sure must be a feeling of incredible shock and devastation. You must feel lied to, but I can hide the truth no longer. Despite my oversized v-neck t-shirt, skinny jeans, BB cream, and sandals with 9 unnecessary straps, I am actually just not Korean. I'm sorry for attempting to deceive you all. I don't deserve your forgiveness.
Okay, enough with all of the unnecessary theatrics, but seriously. Sogang grades us on a bunch of things for our speaking exams, and one that I do not understand at all is 억양, which Google Translate is translating as "accent," but it more encompasses tone and inflection as opposed to pronunciation. If you don't think they are different, they are - I usually get positive feedback on my pronunciation, but terrible feedback on my inflection. The reason my teachers give for my poor grades in this area is that I speak Korean words, but I sound American.
WELL, NO SHIT, I SOUND LIKE AN AMERICAN. I AM an American. My teacher (whom I love and very much respect, don't get me wrong) said it was very obvious that I wasn't raised in Korea because, despite my use of the language, I don't sound like a Korean. Well, isn't that...um...expected? Why am I being graded on how well I am assimilating into a culture that isn't mine? For me, the goal in learning Korean was never to "fool" people into thinking that I'm a native speaker - I don't think I know anyone outside of Hayeon Lee who could successfully fool people into thinking that they were both simultaneously 100% native Korean and 100% native American. I think that the way that I speak, with all of my wild gesticulations, changes in inflection, and use of tone, reflects the culture in which I was raised. I think it's an indelible part of me, this mix of obnoxious, sarcastic American English peppered with the Bronx-Italian New York accent I picked up from living with two parents who grew up in Little Italy. I don't think anyone or anything can take it away from me, and I think it will always be present in some capacity whenever I express myself in any form of communication.
So what is Sogang asking us to do, exactly? Are they asking us to internalize Korean to the point where we develop this novel identity, a new skin that we put on when we converse in Korean? Maybe, you might say, that I'm overreacting - if tone and inflection are a reflection of culture, and my last post was all about being able to deeply understand the culture of the people whose language you're attempting to learn, then it is a necessary and vital part of language learning to master appropriate inflection and tone as well. But let's keep in mind that I said it was important to understand the culture, not necessarily to absorb or adopt it. I could live in Korea for a hundred dumb years and be an academically-certified expert on Korean culture and traditions, but they still wouldn't be mine. They would still belong to Korea and Koreans, and I still would just be an admittedly smart and culturally sensitive observer. In a nutshell, no matter how well-versed I am in this language, culture, and people, I will only ever be able to achieve an understanding of it. I will never internalize it as my own, and I think it would be inappropriate of me to do so. Maybe it's just my opinion, but I would scoff at a Korean who moved to Italy and thought that just because they spoke Italian and really liked gelato they were in some way internally, culturally Italian.
To clarify, I'm not saying that one has to be ethnically Korean (or Italian, or anything) in order to be internally a part of that culture, because culture is something you're brought up, not something you're born with. What I'm saying is that my use of American inflection or tone in speaking Korean should not and does not impair anyone's understanding of what I am saying, and I shouldn't be judged in any way, shape, or form for speaking the way I was brought up to speak. Imitation of Korean speakers in the tonal/inflectional sense is just that - imitation - and I don't think it adds or detracts in any way from my ability to converse. Actually, I take that back, or rather, add an addendum: I think it detracts markedly from my infusion of ME into my language. I didn't come to Korea so I could be a Korean speaking Korean. I came to Korea so I could be an American speaking Korean. I will not be told to calm my exaggerated manner of speaking simply so that I can trick unsuspecting Koreans into thinking that I'm not white. Even if I did successfully trick someone (which, I actually have, so HAH), what does it accomplish, anyway? Eventually, they are going to find out I'm white (if they ever meet me), and so what am I supposed to say then? "Joke's on you, sucker!"? No.
Well, for the sake of my grade, I suppose I ought to work on sounding more like the calm, reserved Korean of my teachers' imaginations. But I still don't believe that anyone learning a language should be expected to internalize the cultural nuances of speaking that language. I often tease Jung Min Unni for speaking what I horrifically termed "Jung MinGlish" (I know, you can cringe), but it doesn't matter to me in the slightest that she doesn't sound like a native English speaker. This just in: SHE ISN'T. And her progress in English, her ability to learn and practically apply new expressions and vocabulary to novel situations, should never, ever be minimized because her inflection and use of language reflects her Korean upbringing. We're learning second languages here, and if we are successfully understood, then that's a damn big accomplishment, and the way we said it shouldn't take that away from us.
hilarious post-script: I was just woken up from my nap by what I can only presume was a telemarketer, since he introduced himself as being from SK Telecom, and my phone contract is with LG. He asked me what country I was from, and I responded in Korean that I was from America, and he hung up on me! In America, it's totally the other way around, it's like you can't PAY telemarketers to leave you alone, but BOOM! In Korea, they totes don't want to talk to me. Maybe it's because my inflection was off.
Amen, Dana! I completely agree with you. It would be like telling all of the people in America who are from a different country that they are not really speaking English because they have an accent and therefore we can tell that they are from another country. If we can understand them, what does it matter?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the only way that you could become a Korean without being born there would be if you were like the Pokemon Ditto. Since you aren't, I suppose you'll just have to speak Korean as the brassy New Yorker with an New York/Italian cultural background. I think it will add some spice to Korean :)
P.S. I was slightly shocked when I found out you were white, but I've quickly gotten over it.
"I think it detracts markedly from my infusion of ME into my language."
ReplyDeleteThis is one of THE major differences (statistically speaking, apparently) about how the typical American approaches learning another language vs a non-American who is trying to assimilate: self expression.
Keep in mind that self expression, particularly when it's infused in this other language you are still learning, takes on some interesting implications. For some students it means they get hung up on expressing meanings in the target language just as they would do in their own language. It doesn't fly most times.
Self expression, too, meets this challenge with tone, etc. What they are saying isn't "Be Korean" but "Speak Korean properly."
The problem there, though, is "properly" is, basically, to mimic "Korean." Why? Because Korea has relatively little experience with foreigners learning to speak its language. There simply isn't enough variation in how the language is heard (making allowances for dialect and generational issues, which can also be made fun of on T.V., etc.).
My advice? Don't worry about it. Also, just for fun, DO work on "sounding Korean" if you can or care to. Some people don't enjoy trying to mimic while some people find it almost unavoidable. The point, though, is not to misread the critique from your teachers. Just take it or leave it.
Of course, you realize that a prevalent Korean dream of the early 2000's is the hope of becoming so fully and completely Westernized as to blend into American culture completely. Might there be a bit of transference taking place?
ReplyDelete