Can we exit the English-only myth? Lessons from English Village, LG Electronics, and the Busan English-Friendly City Project

Dongil Shin^*

Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Chung-Ang Univerrsity; 84 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 06974, Korea

Abstract

Through a meta-analytic reading of three discursive events—the English Village initiative (2004–), LG Electronics' English-only policy (2008–2010), and the Busan English-Friendly City project (2022–)—this study explores how monolingualism has been reconstructed rather than dismantled in South Korea's two-decade "English fever." Drawing on Roland Barthes' theory of myth, this paper analyzes English-only and English-friendly discourses not as neutral communicative tools, but as a second-order sign system that naturalizes contingent policies as self-evident imperatives of global competitiveness. Positioning itself within critical accounts of English ideology in Korea, this exploratory, agenda-setting study re-examines secondary sources across three institutional fields: education, corporate management, and urban administration. The analysis argues that each field mobilizes a different technology of normalization— disciplinary, performance-based, or environmental—and that these modes are shaped less by chronological succession than by the institutional conditions of each field: rather than replacing one another, they accumulate and overlap. Yet all three converge on a single constant, the myth of "separate bilingualism," which treats Korean and English as mutually exclusive domains. Across these institutional contexts, the proliferation of English language planning in Korea marks not a departure from monolingual ideology but its adaptive reproduction through new discursive technologies.

탈신화는 가능한가? :분리된 이중언어주의의 세 가지 통치 양식

초록

Vol. 40 No. 4 (2022.12)

Journal Abbreviation j. Korea Saf. Manag. Sci.
Frequency Published four times annually in March, June, September, and December
Doi Prefix 10.14353/sjk.
Year of Launching 1993
Publisher The Sociolinguistic Society of Korea

Indexed/Tracked/Covered By