해방/패전 체험과 미(美·米)점령기의 ‘영어’ 이야기 - 염상섭과 고지마 노부오의 소설을 중심으로

Abstract

After Japan lost the Asia-Pacific War and Korea met liberation from Japanese annexation, both Korea and Japan began to receive the governance by occupying allied forces. Accordingly, ‘English’ became a new official language in Korea and Japan. The literary works of Korea and Japan during this period described the position of English in daily living and the influence of United States at the time by way of various episodes related to English, an unfamiliar language. In the [Yangkwazagap(Western-style confectionery box)] (1948) and [Hyopoong(Wind at dawn)] (1948) by Korean novelist Yeom Sang-seop as well as the [American School, アメリカン・スクール] (1954) by Japanese novelist Kojima Nobuo (小島信夫) took the English immediately after the liberation/defeat-in-war as the major material of the novels and described the subtle attitude and complex feeling of intellectuals on English, which became a new language of power, by presenting the characters closely related to English such as an English teacher or a lecturer on English literature. This study compares the cultural landscape in society with English in the center in Korea and Japan after the Asia-Pacific War and contemplated how English was reflected in the literatures of Korea and Japan at the time. Characters that stubbornly refuse to use English on certain specific occasion, even they are English teachers, appear in the novels of Korea and Japan at this time in common. And the different past experiences of Korea and Japan having been an empire or a colony are influencing the refusal of English use on certain specific occasion in these novels. In the Japanese novel [American School], a character has strong belief in the view on national language, which sees that ‘Japanese language is the blood of Japanese people’. This view on national language, which asserts that language and spirit are directly related, was a part of the earlier assimilation policy of imperial Japan and the logic of “national language education = Japanese language education“, which Japan enforced in its colony, Korea. The logic of assimilation policy, which the imperial Japan enforced on its colony, came back to ‘occupied Japan’ like a boomerang as an anxiety on English and United States.