Between an internal code and the external world: Contrastive strategies for the circulation of legal terminology in South Korean queer and antiqueer politics

Abstract

This article theorizes the relationship between linguistic ideologies and legal ideologies by identifying and analyzing contrastive strategies for the circulation of legal terminology in South Korean queer and antiqueer movements. Based on long‐term ethnographic fieldwork, the research examines how queer activists and antiqueer groups approach law and language. While queer activists strive for referential clarity through contextualization in their language pragmatics, antiqueer groups focus on amplifying the effect of circulation and highlight the potential expansion of legal terms' jurisdiction. By investigating these divergent approaches, this paper reveals how legal language is an object of problematization for both queer Koreans and anthropologists.