Why do interpreters need to be beautiful?
Aesthetic labour of language workers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31618Keywords:
aesthetic labour, translation and interpreting, korea, commodification and englishAbstract
This article explores the intersections between language, gender and commodification in the Korean language market, in which the focus is currently shifting from language proficiency to personal aesthetics. By drawing on the concept of ‘aesthetic labour’, it explores how and why beautification has emerged as one way of enhancing individual competitiveness among English–Korean female interpreters who are engaged in heavy competition in the context of market saturation. This process is best embodied by the recent media phenomenon of eoljjang tongyeoksa or ‘good-looking interpreters’, which refers to a number of beautiful female interpreters working on television and sensationalised in the media. This paper examines how contemporary female interpreters cope with a market demand for performing beauty work in addition to language work in order to highlight aesthetic labour as a strategically gendered approach for selfcommodification in a patriarchal language market.
References
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Dean, D. (2005) Recruiting a self women performers and aesthetic labour. Work, Employment and Society 19(4): 761–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017005058061
Eckert, P. (1996) Vowels and nailpolish: the emergence of linguistic style in the preadolescent heterosexual marketplace. In Jocelyn Ahlers et al. (eds) Gender and Belief Systems 183–90. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
Entwistle, J. and Wissinger, E. (2006) Keeping up appearances: aesthetic labour in the fashion modelling industries of London and New York. The Sociological Review 54(4): 774–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2006.00671.x
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Holliday, R. and Elfving-Hwang, J. (2012) Gender, globalization and aesthetic surgery in South Korea. Body and Society 18(2): 58–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X12440828
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Koh, A. (2014) The ‘magic’ of tutorial centres in Hong Kong: an analysis of media marketing and pedagogy in a tutorial centre. International Review of Education 60(6): 803–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-014-9460-y
Kwak, J.-C. (2012) ???? ?? ??? [Kwak Joong-cheol’s Interpreting Lecture Notes]. Seoul: HUFS Press.
Lee, C. (2008) ???, ?? ????? ?? … ?? ??? ?? [Interpreters even expected to coordinate a conference atmosphere: Endless lifetime learning]. Retrieved on 19 June 2014 from http://article.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?Total_ID=3421129.
Lee, H. (2011) ???? ???, ???? ???? ?? ?? ?? [Conference interpreters, a look is prioritised over competence]. Retrieved on 11 October 2013 from www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2011042074581.
Lee, S.-Y., Kim, I.-S. and Kim, J.-H. (2011) ??? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? [The development of examination of conflicts arising from Korean male gender roles]. Seoul: Korean Women’s Development Institute.
Lewig, K. A. and Dollard, M. F. (2003) Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction in call centre workers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 12(4): 366–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320344000200
Nickson, D., Warhurst, C. and Dutton, E. (2005) The importance of attitude and appearance in the service encounter in retail and hospitality. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal 15(2): 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1108/09604520510585370
Park, H. (2010) ??? ?? ??… ‘?? ???’ [Falling popularity of interpreters … ‘What shall we do?’]. Weekly DongA 747: 56–7. Retrieved on 14 April 2014 from http://weekly.donga.com/List/3/all/11/90391/1?.
Park, I.-D. (1987) ??? ?? [Women and employment]. Seoul: Korea Women’s Development Institute.
Park, J. S.-Y. (2009) The Local Construction of a Global Language: Ideologies of English in South Korea. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Park, J. S.-Y. and Bae, S. (2009) Language ideologies in educational migration: Korean jogi yuhak families in Singapore. Linguistics and Education 20(4): 366–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2009.09.001
Park, S. (2012) ?? ??? ???, ?? ?? ?? [Good-looking interpreter Lee Se-Yoon remains popular]. Retrieved on 24 January 2015 from https://tinyurl.com/id-7224325.
Park, S. J. and Abelmann, N. (2004) Class and cosmopolitan striving: mothers’ management of English education in South Korea. Anthropological Quarterly 77(4): 645–72. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2004.0063
Pavlenko, A. and Piller, I. (2001) New directions in the study of multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller and M. Teutsch-Dwyer (eds) Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender 17–52. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Pettinger, L. (2004) Brand culture and branded workers: service work and aesthetic labour in fashion retail. Consumption Markets and Culture 7(2): 165–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/1025386042000246214
Pettinger, L. (2015) Embodied labour in music work. The British Journal of Sociology 66(2): 282–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12123
Piller, I. and Pavlenko, A. (2007) Globalization, gender, and multilingualism. In H. Decke-Cornill and L. Volkmann (eds) Gender Studies and Foreign Language Teaching 15–30. Tübingen: Narr.
Piller, I. and Takahashi, K. (2006) A passion for English: desire and the language market. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 56: 59.
Power, J. (2015) Brains and beauty! The sexy tutors being used by South Korean firms to ‘innocently motivate’ young men learning English. Retrieved on 20 December 2016 from https://tinyurl.com/mail-2998816.
Roh, E.-H. (Undated) ????? ??? – ???? ??? ??? ?? [An interview with an interpreter: Dr. Choi Jung-Gwa, a conference interpreter]. Retrieved on 29 March 2015 from http://job.hankyung.com/interview/interview_view.asp?id_num=505andgubun=2.
Ross, K. and Carter, C. (2011) Women and news: a long and winding road. Media, Culture and Society 33(8): 1148–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443711418272
Sanders, K. P. and Pritchett, M. (1971) Some influences of appearance on television newscaster appeal. Journal of Broadcasting 15(3): 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838157109363648
Shin, H. (2014) Social class, habitus, and language learning: the case of Korean early study-abroad students. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 13(2): 99–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2014.901821
Walcutt, B., Patterson, L. and Seo, S. (2011) Beauty premium and grade point average: a study of business students at a Korean university. Business Studies Journal 51: 51–68.
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2001) Looking Good, Sounding Right. London: The Industrial Society.
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2007) Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality. Work, Employment and Society 21(1): 103–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017007073622
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2009) ‘Who’s got the look?’ Emotional, aesthetic and sexualized labour in interactive services. Gender, Work and Organization 16(3): 385–404.
Warhurst, C., Nickson, D., Witz, A. and Cullen, A. M. (2000) Aesthetic labour in interactive service work: some case study evidence from the ‘new’ Glasgow. The Service Industries Journal 20(3): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642060000000029
Witz, A., Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2003) The labour of aesthetics and the aesthetics of organization. Organization 10(1): 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508403010001375
Wolf, N. (1990) The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto & Windus.
Wolkowitz, C. (2006) Bodies at Work. London: Sage Publications.
Woo, J. (2013) ??? ???? 90% ??? [Women Can Be Transformed 90% with Voice]. Gyeonggi: Wisdom House.
Yook, S. (2000) ?????: ?????? ???? [Sports issues: professional foreign sports players’ life in Korea]. Retrieved on 11 December 2014 from http://shindonga.donga.com/3/all/13/100559/1.
Bourdieu, P. (1977) The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information 16(6): 645–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901847701600601
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cameron, D. (2000) Styling the worker: gender and the commodification of language in the globalized service economy. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4(3): 323–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00119
Cho, J. (2015) Sleepless in Seoul: neoliberalism, English fever, and linguistic insecurity among Korean interpreters. Multilingua 34(5): 687–710. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2013-0047
Cho, J. (2017) English Language Ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the Past and Present. Cham: Springer.
Cho, J. and Roger, P. S. (2010) Improving interpreting performance through theatrical training. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 4(2): 151–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2010.10798802
Choi, J. and Lim, H.-O. (2002) The status of translators and interpreters in Korea. Meta 47(4): 627–35. https://doi.org/10.7202/008041ar
Coupland, N. (2007) Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coward, R. (2001) The look. In J. Thomas (ed.) Reading Images 33–9. New York: Palgrave.
Dean, D. (2005) Recruiting a self women performers and aesthetic labour. Work, Employment and Society 19(4): 761–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017005058061
Eckert, P. (1996) Vowels and nailpolish: the emergence of linguistic style in the preadolescent heterosexual marketplace. In Jocelyn Ahlers et al. (eds) Gender and Belief Systems 183–90. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group.
Entwistle, J. and Wissinger, E. (2006) Keeping up appearances: aesthetic labour in the fashion modelling industries of London and New York. The Sociological Review 54(4): 774–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2006.00671.x
GSIT (2013) 2013??? ?? ?????? ???? [Details of recruitment in the second half of 2013 at GSIT]. Retrieved on 16 May 2014 from http://m.hufs.ac.kr/sub03–3–2.jsp.
Heller, M. (2002) Globalization and the commodification of bilingualism in Canada. In D. Block and D. Cameron (eds) Globalization and Language Teaching 47–64. New York: Routledge.
Heller, M. (2003) Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4): 473–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2003.00238.x
Heller, M. (2010) The commodification of language. The Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 101–14. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104951
Heller, M. and Duchêne, A. (2012) Pride and profit: changing discourses of language, capital and nation-state. In A. Duchêne and M. Heller (eds) Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit 1–21. New York: Routledge.
Hiramoto, M. (2010) Utterance final position and projection of femininity in Japanese. Gender and Language 4(1): 99–104. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v4i1.99
Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Holliday, R. and Elfving-Hwang, J. (2012) Gender, globalization and aesthetic surgery in South Korea. Body and Society 18(2): 58–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X12440828
Holtzman, B., Craig, H. and Meter, K. V. (2007) Do it yourself … and the movement beyond capitalism. In S. Shukaitis, D. Graeber and E. Biddle (eds) Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations//Collective Theorization 44–61. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Hutchinson, K. L. (1982) The effects of newscaster gender and vocal quality on perceptions of homophily and interpersonal attraction. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 26(1): 457–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838158209364013
Kim, N. (2004) ‘?????? … ? ? ???’ ?????? ??? [‘Looking cool? Give me some jobs’: outcries from simultaneous interpreters]. Retrieved on 15 September 2014 from http://weekly1.chosun.com/wdata/html/news/200408/20040811000014.html.
Koh, A. (2014) The ‘magic’ of tutorial centres in Hong Kong: an analysis of media marketing and pedagogy in a tutorial centre. International Review of Education 60(6): 803–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-014-9460-y
Kwak, J.-C. (2012) ???? ?? ??? [Kwak Joong-cheol’s Interpreting Lecture Notes]. Seoul: HUFS Press.
Lee, C. (2008) ???, ?? ????? ?? … ?? ??? ?? [Interpreters even expected to coordinate a conference atmosphere: Endless lifetime learning]. Retrieved on 19 June 2014 from http://article.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?Total_ID=3421129.
Lee, H. (2011) ???? ???, ???? ???? ?? ?? ?? [Conference interpreters, a look is prioritised over competence]. Retrieved on 11 October 2013 from www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2011042074581.
Lee, S.-Y., Kim, I.-S. and Kim, J.-H. (2011) ??? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? [The development of examination of conflicts arising from Korean male gender roles]. Seoul: Korean Women’s Development Institute.
Lewig, K. A. and Dollard, M. F. (2003) Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction in call centre workers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 12(4): 366–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320344000200
Nickson, D., Warhurst, C. and Dutton, E. (2005) The importance of attitude and appearance in the service encounter in retail and hospitality. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal 15(2): 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1108/09604520510585370
Park, H. (2010) ??? ?? ??… ‘?? ???’ [Falling popularity of interpreters … ‘What shall we do?’]. Weekly DongA 747: 56–7. Retrieved on 14 April 2014 from http://weekly.donga.com/List/3/all/11/90391/1?.
Park, I.-D. (1987) ??? ?? [Women and employment]. Seoul: Korea Women’s Development Institute.
Park, J. S.-Y. (2009) The Local Construction of a Global Language: Ideologies of English in South Korea. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Park, J. S.-Y. and Bae, S. (2009) Language ideologies in educational migration: Korean jogi yuhak families in Singapore. Linguistics and Education 20(4): 366–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2009.09.001
Park, S. (2012) ?? ??? ???, ?? ?? ?? [Good-looking interpreter Lee Se-Yoon remains popular]. Retrieved on 24 January 2015 from https://tinyurl.com/id-7224325.
Park, S. J. and Abelmann, N. (2004) Class and cosmopolitan striving: mothers’ management of English education in South Korea. Anthropological Quarterly 77(4): 645–72. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2004.0063
Pavlenko, A. and Piller, I. (2001) New directions in the study of multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller and M. Teutsch-Dwyer (eds) Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender 17–52. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Pettinger, L. (2004) Brand culture and branded workers: service work and aesthetic labour in fashion retail. Consumption Markets and Culture 7(2): 165–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/1025386042000246214
Pettinger, L. (2015) Embodied labour in music work. The British Journal of Sociology 66(2): 282–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12123
Piller, I. and Pavlenko, A. (2007) Globalization, gender, and multilingualism. In H. Decke-Cornill and L. Volkmann (eds) Gender Studies and Foreign Language Teaching 15–30. Tübingen: Narr.
Piller, I. and Takahashi, K. (2006) A passion for English: desire and the language market. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 56: 59.
Power, J. (2015) Brains and beauty! The sexy tutors being used by South Korean firms to ‘innocently motivate’ young men learning English. Retrieved on 20 December 2016 from https://tinyurl.com/mail-2998816.
Roh, E.-H. (Undated) ????? ??? – ???? ??? ??? ?? [An interview with an interpreter: Dr. Choi Jung-Gwa, a conference interpreter]. Retrieved on 29 March 2015 from http://job.hankyung.com/interview/interview_view.asp?id_num=505andgubun=2.
Ross, K. and Carter, C. (2011) Women and news: a long and winding road. Media, Culture and Society 33(8): 1148–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443711418272
Sanders, K. P. and Pritchett, M. (1971) Some influences of appearance on television newscaster appeal. Journal of Broadcasting 15(3): 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838157109363648
Shin, H. (2014) Social class, habitus, and language learning: the case of Korean early study-abroad students. Journal of Language, Identity and Education 13(2): 99–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2014.901821
Walcutt, B., Patterson, L. and Seo, S. (2011) Beauty premium and grade point average: a study of business students at a Korean university. Business Studies Journal 51: 51–68.
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2001) Looking Good, Sounding Right. London: The Industrial Society.
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2007) Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality. Work, Employment and Society 21(1): 103–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017007073622
Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2009) ‘Who’s got the look?’ Emotional, aesthetic and sexualized labour in interactive services. Gender, Work and Organization 16(3): 385–404.
Warhurst, C., Nickson, D., Witz, A. and Cullen, A. M. (2000) Aesthetic labour in interactive service work: some case study evidence from the ‘new’ Glasgow. The Service Industries Journal 20(3): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642060000000029
Witz, A., Warhurst, C. and Nickson, D. (2003) The labour of aesthetics and the aesthetics of organization. Organization 10(1): 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508403010001375
Wolf, N. (1990) The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto & Windus.
Wolkowitz, C. (2006) Bodies at Work. London: Sage Publications.
Woo, J. (2013) ??? ???? 90% ??? [Women Can Be Transformed 90% with Voice]. Gyeonggi: Wisdom House.
Yook, S. (2000) ?????: ?????? ???? [Sports issues: professional foreign sports players’ life in Korea]. Retrieved on 11 December 2014 from http://shindonga.donga.com/3/all/13/100559/1.
Published
2017-12-06
Issue
Section
Special Issue Articles
How to Cite
Cho, J. (2017). Why do interpreters need to be beautiful? Aesthetic labour of language workers. Gender and Language, 11(4), 482-506. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31618
