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Understanding parasite movie through language learning theory and sociological

perspectives

María José Celis Patiño

Languages department, National Pedagogical University

1322217:Communication and interculturality:the academic domain

George louis Narvaez Chamorro

The 4th of February, 2021

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Understanding parasite movie through language learning theory

How the concepts originated in the language learning field could be related with this

prize-winning and very well criticized movie? In this paper, I will demonstrate that this

movie can be read and interpreted through learning language theory.

First and foremost, it is necessary to give the synopsis of the movie. Parasite narrates

the story of a poor family (the Kims) who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family(

the parks) and infiltrate their household as unrelated, highly qualified individuals. Given the

synopsis that contains the keypoint of my discussion I take the position that the interaction

between the Kims and the Parks would be impossible without simulating another identity

with admissible social meaning that could allow them, at the end, to get a better income.

The first idea that I would like to develop here is the social background for being

maybe, the most remarkable issue since the beginning of the movie.

I draw upon Shumann’s (1976) concept of social distance, primarily coined in the

language learning field for explaining the possible context in which the integration between

the learning language group and the target language group cannot be successful considering

the different lifestyles and values of both groups.

There are many ways in which this notion could be related to the movie beginning

with the architecture or rather, the surroundings of each family that are very well defined.

Across the scenes, the divergences can be automatically noticed, starting with the houses and

neighborhoods which are nothing alike. As for the Kims, they live in a small semi-basement

while the Parks live in a big beautiful house designed by a famous architect.

Continuing with this research, locating the divergences between both families that

leads to social distance, the second fact to take into account is the one that concerns work.
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Whilst Mr. Park is the only man who provides money in the house for living very

comfortably, the other family has to manage to survive by bending pizza boxes. Given the

above considerations, this can be considered as a high enclosure (Schumann, 1986), a

situation in which the schools, clubs, recreational facilities, crafts, professions, and trades are

different between both groups which commands social distance.

The last distinction that I identify as social distance is the academic and professional

recognitions. From a sociological perspective, the academic and professional recognitions

are considered as cultural capital (Bordieu & Passeron,1977) which consists of the

accumulated cultural knowledge that confers social status and power. Having said that, this is

an outstanding matter in the movie considering that Mr, Park has an award that recognizes

him as the best user of new technologies which in turn, taking into account this sociological

theory it is classified as institutionalized cultural capital (Bordieu and Passeron,1977), the

recognition received from an institution, primarily through educational degrees. On the other

hand, none of the Kim family members has an academic recognition and this is the first

concern that they have to keep out of sight when they start to work for the Parks. There could

be many more small distinctions amidst the two families, however, the surroundings, labor

and academic recognitions establish a social inequality that can be seen as social distance.

Now that the distinctions in which social distance take place were established, the

next matter to be discussed is about the whole deception that the Kims execute in order to be

accepted. Going back to language learning, I draw on Schumann’s concept(1986) of

acculturation that refers to the adoption of the lifestyle and values of the target language

group in the field of language learning.

As for the movie, the acculturation can be seen as a process promoted at first,by Ki-

woo’s rich friend, Min- hyuk, who is the one who recommended him as an English tutor that
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could replace him while he is overseas. The above is a relevant detail since it can be

understood as social capital (Bordieu, 1986) which provides access to resources embedded in

social relationships and enables people to mobilize these embedded resources to facilitate

action. It is also important to highlight that in the inner circles of the wealthy (and outside),

connections are often more important than ability and qualifications (Di Placido,2020), as is

expressed several times by Mrs. Park during the movie; “I do not care about papers. I only

wanted to see you because you were recommended by Min-Hyuk. I guess you two are good

friends”

As described before, the acculturation that takes place in parasite movies has

interesting characteristics. In addition to Min-Hyuk’s encouragement, Ki-Woo keeps

promoting this acculturation for his sister by recommending her as an art teacher that studied

in the United States. At this point, Ki-woo turns into a resource for his sister, he continues

being the social capital that his family needs for working in the service of the Parks.

That is how each member of the family turns out to be a resource, a connection for the

members that are still unemployed. Nonetheless, when it is time for the older members, to

place themselves in the service of the Parks, the connections that are already established seem

to be not enough, it seems to be another obstacle, the current employers, specifically the

chauffeur and the housekeeper, as result, they have to make them get fired. As for the

chauffeur, Ki-Jung makes the Parks believe that their current chauffeur had sex in their car

and recommends them another chauffeur that in rea

This kind of pattern is repeated again, to make the current housekeeper being fired

and being replaced by Mrs. Kim when Mr. Kim recommends a false company where the

Parks can hire a new clerk. The aforementioned pattern can be comprehended as
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adaptation(Shumann, 1986) which refers to the integration strategy with the target language

group. However, I take the concept for explaining the integration with the Parks.

Finally, the acculturation is not only seen in that kind of bridges of acculturation that I

aforesaid, but also, in those small changes and transitions, one of the most interesting occurs

when they take another name instead of the one that they have, but what is intriguing is the

fact that instead of choosing another Korean name, they are called by an English name. I

argue that this is another example of acculturation because in many situations the Parks use

English to show an air superiority, therefore, they prefer to call their employers, specifically

Ki-jun and Ki-woo as Kevin and Jessica. By the same token, the acculturation arises

whenever the Kims are working for Parks, they wear different clothes, speak differently and

more importantly, they are not the Kim family anymore, notwithstanding, when they are not

working for the Parks, they keep being the Kims, alluding to a degree of adaptation that

Schumann (1986) describes as maintaining its own lifestyle and values for intragroup use. In

brief,

Finally, the aforesaid acculturation has a certain purpose, mentioned at the beginning,

getting an income. Drawing on Norton’s (1995) argument that if language learners invest in a

second language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of

symbolic and material resources which will in turn increase the value of their cultural capital.

In the case of the Kims, they are not investing in this process of acculturation for

increasing the cultural capital, they tried before, as it is the case of Ki-woo and Ki-Jung trying

to get into college. As a consequence, they pretend to have a cultural capital that in reality,

they do not have, which is also part of the acculturation process. I take the position that if

Kims invested in deceiving the Parks, they did so, with the understanding that they were
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going to increase their economic capital (Bordieu,1986) which refers to the command of

economic resources (money, assets, and property) and the crucial factor in this story is that

they could not have achieved it without simulating another identity that could allow them to

get accepted into an unattainable job as Norton (1995) points out that learner will expect or

hope to have a good return on that investment, a return that will get them access to

unattainable resources.

For concluding,
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Referenceshttps://URL

Bong,J. (2019, May 21st).Parasite [Video]. Netflix.

https://www.netflix.com/co/title/81221938?source=35

Shumann, J. (1986). An acculturation model for second language acquisition. Multilingual

matters. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Norton, B. (1995).Social identity, Investment, and language learning.Tesol quaterly.

https://doi.org/DOI

Author’s last name, Initial(s). (Year, Month Day of publication). Title of the work. Website.

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Author’s last name, Initial(s). (Year of publication). Title of the article. Newspaper.

Organization. (Year of publication). Word. In Dictionary. Publisher. https://URL