The Biopolitics of Language Learning

Abstract

This chapter critically examines modes of English language learning that capitalize on the linguistic malleability of youth, collectively known as early English education (yeongeo jogi gyoyuk), arguing that the embodied nature of language learning makes such investments an important site for the inculcation of neoliberal subjectivities. A prominent aspect of the Korean English fever was the emphasis placed on exposing youths to English at an increasingly earlier age. Focusing on the case of early study abroad (jogi yuhak), this chapter argues that these aged-based projects of English language learning are not simply outcomes of increasing competition that drives down the age for first exposure to English; instead, they are facilitated by a deep sense of anxiety that derives from viewing youth as a limited resource, and in this sense, they are a site of biopolitics, where bodies of youth come to be incorporated into the logic of neoliberalism.