Ssireum is a Korean form of grappling. Wrestlers grip sashes that are looped around their opponent's waist and thigh while competing inside a sand circle with the goal of making any part of their opponent's body above the knee touch the ground. In Korea ssireum is understood to be a national sport developed during the country’s modernization in the early 20th century that has origins as a thousands-of-years-old folk game. By the start of 21st century ssireum's popularity had waned and a once prosperous professional league collapsed. The effects of globalization are frequently cited as the cause. However, the sport continues to be played at various levels throughout the public education system in addition to semi-pro and amateur leagues. This dissertation asks the question, "What does it mean collectively to play ssireum?" The answer comes from fifteen months of participant observation and interviews in Korea's collegiate ssireum league. The goal is to establish the first major body of academic information about ssireum and to place it within the larger cultural context of contemporary Korean society. Fieldwork data is interpreted using theories drawn from Roger Abrahams, Fredrik Barth, Pierre Bourdieu, and Eric Hobsbawm. Ssireum's ritualized use of symbols appropriated from the past is a means of maintaining the boundaries of an ethnic identity that allows everyone involved to assume they are "playing the same game." Ssireum is a vehicle for negotiating, performing, and evaluating a unique identity. For those involved, playing ssireum makes Koreanness. Ssireum dramatizes a traditional identity which has incorporated distinctly modern ideologies about the world. The relationships of people within ssireum are inextricably linked to existing protocols for social interactions in Korea; recruitment of talent, training regimens, competition events, future careers, and industry solvency could not be maintained otherwise. Globalization, frequently invoked in the rhetoric about ssireum, fills contradictory roles of boogeyman and savior, and misdirects attention away from counterproductive internal processes damaging the industry.

No description available.

For many years, linguists, ESL writing teachers, and especially students have puzzled over the phenomenon where non-native English writers' sentences are grammatically correct, but their paragraphs and complete essays often appear illogical to native English speaking readers. From the perspective of Kaplan's original contrastive rhetoric theory where American rhetoric is "linear," Korean L2 writers' apparently circular rhetoric causes problems. Even though Korean writers are trying to write paragraphs that are logical for native English readers, this illogical output results in Korean ESL students being perceived as poor writers. In order to discover more about the nature of the rhetorical problems Korean ESL writers face, this study reports on a close contrastive analysis of a corpus consisting of 25 Freshmen Korean ESL students' unedited, first draft essays and 25 Freshmen native-English speaking American Freshmen's unedited, first draft essays randomly collected from a series of 1st year writing classes at a U.S.-based university. The analysis focused on areas where the logical flow breaks down from a native English reader's perspective. The Topical Structure Analytical approach (TSA), developed by Lautamatti (1987), was used to analyze the data. Results show that both American and Korean Freshmen have difficulty controlling topical subjects and discourse topics in their writing. Instead, they often introduced irrelevant subtopics that did not advance overall topic development, making their writing difficult for general readers to follow. The key finding of the study shows that to overcome these rhetorical weaknesses, both Korean and American Freshmen need to be educated in academic writing regardless of their first language.

No description available.

Thesis (DTh)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The difficulties attending our understanding of the experience of shame are widely recognized. This work is concerned with the interplay between the experience of shame and religious pathology in Korean culture, especially regarding theological anthropology. Religious pathology implies the sick or distorted faith when people’s belief system or contents, particularly inappropriate God-images and negative self-identity, becomes negatively influenced due to painful experiences of shame. It was hypothesis that the phenomenon of shame in Korean culture needs to be understood in terms of multidimensional perspectives including psychological, sociological, socio-cultural and a theological perspective as well. It was argued that parishioners’ biased understanding of, and response to the experience of shame, is associated with inappropriate God-images and negative selfidentity which hamper spiritual maturity and spiritual growth. The empirical research reported in chapter 5 shows that the parishioners’ experience of shame is associated with disharmony between values and expectations in a specific community. This phenomenon has a huge impact on position (habitus; attitude; aptitude) within cultural contexts. The study proposes the use of a pneumatological model of understanding of God, based on Louw’s four-stage counselling model, in order to respond constructively to an existential problem such as shame within the Korean Presbyterian Church. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die ingewikkeldhede verbonde aan ons verstaan van die belewing van skaamte word wyd erken. Hierdie werk is gemoeid met die wisselwerking tussen die belewing van skaamte en godsdienspatologie binne die Koreaanse kultuur, veral met betrekking tot fn teologiese antropologie. Godsdienspatologie impliseer die siek of verwronge geloof wanneer mense se oortuigingsisteem of -inhoude, in die besonder onvanpaste Godsbeelde en negatiewe selfidentiteit, destruktief beinvloed word as gevolg van 'n pynlike en lydingsvolle belewing van skaamte. Daar is gehipotetiseer dat die verskynsel van skande in die Koreaanse kultuur verstaan moet word in terme van multidimensionele benaderings, te wete sielkundige, sosiologiese, sosio-kulturele en teologiese perspektiewe. Daar is geargumenteer dat lidmate se eensydige verstaan van en reaksie op die belewing van skande geassosieer is met onvanpaste Godsbeelde en negatiewe selfidentiteit wat geestelike volwassenheid en spirituele groei belemmer. Die empiriese navorsing waaroor in hoofstuk 5 verslag gedoen is, toon aan dat die lidmate se belewing van skaamte verband hou met diskrepansie tussen waardes en verwagtinge in 'n spesifieke gemeenskap. In die verband speel die kultureel-religeuse agtergrond van Korea 'n deurslaggewende rol. Hierdie verskynsel het fn fundamentele impak op mense se posisie (habitus; hauding; wees-funtsie) binne kulturele kontekste. Die studie stel die gebruik van 'n pneumatologiese model, gebaseer op die vierfase beradingsmodel van Louw, vir die verstaan van God voor om konstruktief te reageer op die eksistensiele probleem van skaamte binne die Koreaans-Presbiteraanse Kerk.

The film is about three young Korean-American adults who have adapted to American society while retaining certain aspects of Korean culture in their lives. To expose their intermingled behaviors and concepts, the film combines the observational format of a documentary with an information style employing family photos, home movie recordings, and interviews with the three subjects and their families. An accompanying production report describes the research process, pre-production, production, and post-production.

Thesis (M.G.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Sociology and Gerontology, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-96).

The master thesis analyses the South Korean culture wave (known as Hallyu) in the context of globalisation and Internet development. The theoretical part defines key terms in the area of globalisation, focusing on cultural globalisation and the role of Internet. This part further explains the origins and the spread of Korean popular culture with focus on its glocalization and the role of social media and the benefits of the wave for its country. The practical part of this master thesis deals with the presence of Korean wave in the Czech Republic. Included is also own research aimed at Czech fans of Korean culture. The final part includes the research evaluation, interpretation of the findings and the results obtained.

Master thesis Intercultural Communication (Republic of Korea) defines the basic definitions and approaches to culture and intercultural communication. Theoretical passage is concluded with the test of intercultural sensitivity that combines theoretical and practical approach. Next chapter is devoted to facts about the Republic of Korea: an overview of important historical events, political and economic characteristics and religion. The key passage - intercultural communication in the praxis is mostly based on the personal experience with Korean culture and on opinions of Koreans for their own cultural values and society. Korean society is based on traditional values which determine a set of rules which may not been even noticed. The content of this paper should contribute to avoiding the missteps while staying in the Korean culture.

This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. There may be additional materials from the meeting available at the Faculty Center.