2024 Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 20_33-20_47
To investigate the utilization of multilingualism within the young Korean-Chinese community, we examined the use of Yanbian-Korean (a variant of Korean mostly used in the Yanbian region), Chinese, and Korean in their internal situations. Our findings revealed that the young Korean-Chinese primarily engaged in two forms of language selection: 1) habitualized language choice and 2) adjusted language choice. In the former, there was a prevalence of using functional language, influenced primarily by the language hierarchy attitudes of the young Korean-Chinese community. In terms of functional language selection, there was a strong inclination to use the official language, Chinese. On the other hand, the latter is often accompanied by clear language management in specific situations Notably, the young Korean-Chinese tended to avoid using Yanbian-Korean in self-disclosure and self-presentation. Korean, serving as a ‘common language’ in internal situations, has been confirmed as the favored language for the young Korean-Chinese community.
