여성 담론의 ‘언어’와 ‘말하기’의 아이러니 －1920년대 초까지의 담론을 중심으로－

Abstract

This study explores the irony of language and speaking in beginning form of women discourse from the very end of the 19th century to early 1920s. Under the strong power of feudal tradition and nationalism under Japanese colonialism, language appealed as the structure of sexual domination. Early form of discourse on women could allow itself to appropriate the language of modern ideas and values to discuss women’s rights merely within the limits male-dominant discourses had set on women. Nationalism before the annexation of Korean to Japan in 1910 forced languages to say ‘rights’ for women to be said as another androcentric obligation, urging women to face their ‘deficiency’ as their own indolence and irresponsibility. After the annexation, which broke the power of nationalism, women discourse encouraged itself to deconstruct the structure of domination engraved in language, which appeals to be objective and unbiased, and have chance to renew their own language free from the language of others. However, as the priority of women discourse in its beginning stage was to be heard and understood by people who cling to inertia of androcentric language, the language of the discourse could not exercise itself beyond the way it was given by ‘bigger’, male-dominant discourses. Exploring this early form of women discourse, this study finds the ‘speaking’ of women discourse as a speaking of subaltern, in which the speaker immediately finds the needs to choose the language the target audience is familiar with, confronting its limitation, to speak about herself and ‘reveal’ her existence. The ‘speaking’ of women discourse was a struggle through and against ‘language’ which was disclosing the existence of women as subaltern and at the same time the structure of domination underlying ‘modernism.’