한글의 텍스트성(textuality)과 ‘읽는 時調’ : 가람 이병기의 한글운동과 시조혁신운동

Abstract

This paper examined Garam Lee Byeong-ki’s linguistic instincts found in his views on Hangeul and Sijo as a desire to preserve the morphology of the characters. As a Hangeul scholar, Garam observed the grammar of the Korean language presented by Ju Si-gyeong and argued that the Hangul writing system should be morph-oriented and be based on the “original sound.” That is, the orthographic forms of Hangul should be fixed, even when some forms differ from the pronunciation. This paper links Garam’s views on Hangul, which formed the basis for his stances on morph-oriented orthography and the sijo reform movements, and presented three points for discussions. First, this paper examined the mandate for morph-oriented orthography in the sociocultural changes in the 1930s, when there was a sense of crisis that a permanent linguistic basis should be formed as the Korean language was in decline under the Japanese colonial rule and when textuality, rather than colloquialism, began to receive more attention. Second, this paper posited that the logic behind the Sijo Reform Movement, which argued that the transition from “sijo for singing” to the “sijo for reading” is an important task for the time, has much in common with the tendency to support text (or records). Garam’s arguments for the Sijo Reform Movement and his views on Hangeul all suggest that he considered the “text” to be the “conveyor of meanings” and “the permanent body.” Finally, this paper aimed to find how Lee Byeong-ki’s linguistic instincts resonated with the modernist writers during the period, who were also called the “Circle of Munjang.”