| This study examines the issues of the unequal power relationship between languages and the consequent heritage language loss and identity struggle, especially of Korean linguistic minority children (LMC) in the United States. To examine this issue, this study targeted six Korean LMC attending a weekend Korean school, where they not only learn their heritage language but also maintain their heritage culture and identity. Seven mothers of the Korean LMC, including two "newly arrived" mothers, were recruited as participants.;The data has been gathered from: (i) participant observation of the students' heritage language classroom, (ii) focus-group interviews with the students, and (iii) semi-structured interviews with their mothers. As qualitative research, this study analyzed the data in terms of the theoretical and methodological framework of critical discourse analysis. This study found that the Korean LMC's endeavors in bilingual learning and their identity struggles represent the unequal power relationships between cultures and languages; i.e., their (ethnolinguistic) identity is affected by the issues of English domination, social inclusion/exclusion in the heritage or host culture, and parents' ambitions for bilingual learning and bicultural adaptation.;Here are the major findings of this study. First, the dominance of English in the era of globalization and an unequal appreciation of linguistic capital are two forces that drive the English-learning fever in Korea. Second, being normally the subjects of exclusion in U.S. public schools and unwillingly the subjects of inclusion in the weekend Korean School, the children experienced the double burden of being adapted to two different cultures/languages and of having ruptured identities. Third, the formation of the LMC's ethnolinguistic identity was affected by many factors, such as the degree or quality of family support, parental ambition, and cultural boundaries. Fourth, schools and classrooms are places in which social discourses are presented, ideologized, and reproduced in terms of pedagogic discourses. Based on these findings, this study highlights the unequal power relationship between languages and cultures and provides insights into how language pedagogy should adopt critical perspectives to help LMC's bilingual learning and to reconsider the language policy that secures the perspective of the ecology of language. |
