I thought that I don’t qualify to call Korean my ‘national language’: Identity and authenticity in Korean-Australian heritage language learners

This study aims to understand the process of identity development and perception of speaker’s authenticity in students of Korean as a heritage language enrolled in an Australian university. The history of Korean-Australians in more recent and different compared to that of Korean-Americans. Statistics
from the 2016 Australian national census show that 95% of respondents of Korean heritage speak Korean as a home language. Within this reality this paper, by focusing on the Korean language use of young Korean-Australians, aims at revealing the process of identity development and the issue of authenticity that arise when developing bilingualism and biculturalism. As investigation tool the researcher used an on-line blog writing activity adopted for a university course of Korean as heritage language. By analysing posts
and comments uploaded on the blog, this study reveals that parents’ influence, experiences related to the advantages of bilingualism and a strong monolingual discourse influence identity development and perceptions of authenticity in Korean-Australian university students of Korean.