State Ideology And Language Policy In North Korea: An Analysis Of North Korea’s Public Discourse

Abstract

This study examines how ideology has affected North Korea’s language policy since the beginning of its nation-state-building project in 1945, as well as North Korea’s public discourse as a result of this language policy. This dissertation aims to contribute to the language planning and policy field by shedding light on the ideology and language norms produced by the North Korean authority regarding its language policy and language use. Using discourse analysis and corpus linguistics as methodological approaches in a socio-historical context, this study investigates what ideological/political motivations have driven North Korea’s language planning policies, and the consequential characteristics of the North Korean public discourse, which have rarely been addressed in previous studies. North Korea’s language policy has developed and thrived in conjunction with its state ideology, Juche (self-reliance), which is bound up with a popular ethno-nationalism. Political authority in North Korea has viewed language as an ideological weapon against the enemies of the Korean nation and socialism and as a tool to remold people into patriotic socialists. This ideology has driven language policies in North Korea: the hankul (vernacular Korean script)-only use policy that banned the use of Chinese characters in writing, linguistic purification, linguistic etiquette, and stylistic planning. By examining various data from North Korea’s state-controlled public discourse, including mass media, school textbooks, literature, and magazines, this study suggests that North Korea’s language policies have been generally successful, at least in the public discourse. This study also touches on the critical role of political power in the design and implementation of North Korea’s language policy, mass media, and pedagogy in terms of appropriating and educating the people in the language policy. Finally, this study examines linguistic etiquette and stylistic planning as part of corpus planning in North Korea. Discourse analyses on the data in this study demonstrate that one of the major language norms in North Korea is modeling the state leaders’ language styles: using special terms that are predefined by political authorities, quoting the leader(s), using political slogans of the leaders and the Party, using expressions of reverence for the state leaders, and practicing linguistic dichotomy.