Ross King
Courses Taught
KORN 102 - Basic Korean
KORN 300 - Readings in Korean Topics
KORN 410 (A, B, C) - Modern Korean Short Fiction
KORN 411: Readings in Korean Non-Fiction
KORN 440 - Supervised Study in the Korean Language
ASIA 570B (008) Language and Colonialism in (mostly East) Asia
This course examines the relationship between colonialism and language, especially with respect to (mainly East) Asia. Topics covered include: orientalism, 19th-century philology, and the rise of modern linguistics; colonialism and missionary linguistics; colonialism and the rise of modern national languages in Asia; colonial educational and language policies and their legacies in Asia; the problem of cosmopolitan vs. vernacular in Asian colonial contexts; colonialism, linguistic thought and language ideology; elite bilingualism under conditions of colonialism; language contact and language change under colonialism; etc. Special attention is paid to British colonialism in India and Japanese colonialism in Korea and Taiwan.
Sample readings: L-J Calvet (1974/2002): Linguistique et colonialisme: petit traité de glottophagie; Cohn (1996): Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India; J. Errington (2008): Linguistics in a colonial world: a story of language, meaning, and power; J. Fabian (1986): Language and colonial power. The appropriation of Swahili in the former Belgian Congo, 1880-1938; W. Koyama (2003): Language and its double: a critical history of metalanguages in Japan (PhD dissertation, U Chicago).
ASIA 582 (A, B, C): History and Structure of the Korean Language
This course covers the essentials of the structure of Middle Korean as well as the central features of the diachronic changes from Middle Korean into modern Korean dialects through a combination of readings in 15th-century Korean texts and 20th-century scholarship on the history and structure of Korean. Attention is also paid to the history of writing in Korea, and to the basic bibliographic tools necessary for work with premodern texts in vernacular Korean. Req’d texts: S. E. Martin (1992): A reference grammar of Korean; Ko Yengkun (1987): Phyocwun cwungsey kwuke munpeplon; R. King and H. Lee (forthcoming): Samgang haengsilto: annotated translation of the Illustrated Conduct of the Three Bonds.
ASIA 583: Topics in Modern Korean Literature
ASIA 584: Topics in Pre-modern Korean Literature
ASIA #TBA - Language, writing and history: the rise of language standards and standard languages in (mostly East) Asia
This course examines topics such as: poststructural approaches to language and communication; language, language ideology and the politics of language in (mostly East) Asia in modern times (1850s-present); the social history of language and the problem of how to historicize language and writing (especially in Asia; language and national/ethnic identity in Asia; case studies specific to Asia and the interests of the students in the course.
Sample readings: R. Harris (1998): Introduction to integrational linguistics; J. Blommaert, Jan. (ed.) (1999): Language ideological debates; D. Cameron (1995): Verbal hygiene; J. E. Joseph (1987): Eloquence and power: the rise of language standards and standard languages. A. Simpson (ed.) (2007): Language and national identity in Asia.
ASIA # TBA - Language and Migration: with a focus on Asia and Asian Diaspora
This course uses models of immigration, language contact, and language maintenance and shift to examine questions like: What are the linguistic consequences of immigration? How are immigrant languages changed by contact with the host country’s language--and vice versa? What generalizations can be made about language choice and functions, language learning, and interlingual communication in immigrant settings? What effect do national policies have on immigrants and their languages? What is the relationship between language and identity? How do homeland language ideologies affect language maintenance in diaspora? All with a focus on Asian languages and diasporas and specialized readings targeted at the language expertise of the students.
Sample readings: M. Clyne (2003): Dynamics of Language Contact: English and Immigrant Languages; S. Ryang (1997): North Koreans in Japan: language, ideology and identity; Gardt & Hüppauf (eds.)(2004). Globalization and the future of German: with a select bibliography; D. Brinton (ed.)(2008): Heritage language education: a new field emerging; P. Trudgill (1986): Dialects in contact; M. Clyne (1994): What can we learn from Sprachinseln?: Some observations on ‘Australian German’; N. Dorian (ed.) (1989): Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death; A. C. Zentella (1997): The hows and whys of “Spanglish.” P. Schach (ed.)(1980): Languages in Conflict: Linguistic Acculturation on the Great Plains; M. Clyne (1992): “The Structure of 'Migrant Languages'”; J. Maher (1985): Contact linguistics: the language enclave phenomenon (Unpublished PhD dissertation, NYU).