Abstract

Never before in the last decades of Joseon Korea and Japanese colonial era had it showed that the aspects of discourse of language and writing were terribly complicated. A written language and writing style depended on the class and values. In case of same person, it also depended on the times, situation, and purpose. So we need to examine how a written language and writing style were selected, how a writing style was intermingle with another writing style in order that we have much of an eye for those times. This paper considered Jeong‒Inbo’s perception of language and writing style as part of a research of that kind. Jeong Inbo, a representative man of the classical scholars in 1930’s, wrote in Hangul and in chinese character. First, Jeong‒Inbo regarded Hangul as true character because he thought that our spoken language could be written in Hangul. Second, He thought that chinese characters were based on Chinese spoken language. But He didn’t exclude our cultural heritages written in chinese character. He regarded Korean literature in classical Chinese as our literature. Moreover he estimated that we had had our own letters. Like this, he put emphasis on national identity and uniqueness. It is the same in writing in Hangul and writing in classical chinese. The former had be done on the basis of the tradition. The latter had be done by changing to those times and by trying finding a new route. In summary Jeong‒Inbo’s writing could be done by a succession and innovation of tradition. Although his bilingual writing did not last to posterity, his attempt of writing has a significance in national identity and uniqueness in modern transition period.