Introduction

Tēnā koe / hello,

I am Major/Specialization Leader (Chair) in Asian Studies and Senior Lecturer (equivalent to US Associate Professor) in Korean Studies at the University of Auckland. I am an interdisciplinary scholar in sociolinguistics, migration, and diasporic studies, and a qualitative methodologist. I have researched language, migration, and identity with a particular focus on the language maintenance of East Asian languages and linguistic discrimination in Asia. I was initially trained in Korean linguistics. 

However, since being in Auckland (2014), I have broadened my research foci to address three key thematic concerns: language and identity, heritage language maintenance & family language policy, and linguistic discrimination – exploring these themes in relation to both South Korea and Korean diasporic communities worldwide. My work on language and identity has focused on the voices of marriage-migrant women, study abroad students, and elite bilingual returnees in South Korea and Korean New Zealanders.

My research on heritage language maintenance examines the experiences of mixed-heritage children in South Korea and New Zealand, as well as 1.5- and 2nd-generation Koreans in Australia, New Zealand, and the US. Most recently, my linguistic discrimination research has examined the experiences of Southeast Asian marriage-migrant women and North Korean refugees in South Korea while my current work explores linguistic diversity and discrimination in New Zealand higher education.

I am currently co-editing a forthcoming volume “Mobilizing multilingual identities in language policy, teaching, and learning: Global perspectives” (with Professors Gary Barkhuizen, Stephen May), which is under contract with Routledge and will be published in 2025.