ABSTRACT

Loanwords from a donor language are adapted to the receiving language and, at the same time, generate new meanings, often resulting in the partial transformation of the receiving language. This chapter takes as its starting point a metaphor stemming from this linguistic phenomenon and applies it to the adoption and adaptation of an English-origin educational discourse in South Korea. This linguistic metaphor provides educational researchers with a useful framework for analyzing the influence of educational discourses coming from major English-speaking countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom, on recent educational reforms in Korea. The government has been a key player in the borrowing of educational discourses and in the production of new policies in South Korea, with the media being crucial in promulgating these positions. Indeed, as Hall (1986) points out, media discourses do not simply reflect a government’s policy texts; as we will see, by closely aligning itself with the state’s reform agenda and by delivering a set of key ideological presuppositions, the media was more than a little crucial in the attempt to reshape public consensus (van Dijk, 1998).