Sign Language in K-Pop
Welcome to my essay about Sign Language use in K-Pop! To all my fellow K-Pop casuals and stans: Welcome, and settle in! The link to the playlist is at the end of the post, of course!
I recently enrolled in an Austrian Sign Language course. It was an intensive course on Fridays and Saturdays, and while it was interesting, I have to admit: It was tiring to go on the weekends! On the way to class, the following songs gave me the serotonin boost I needed and reminded me that it’s pretty cool language!
Big Ocean: the first Deaf K-Pop Group
Sign Language in K-Pop is not that new of a concept. Many groups have already incorporated signs into their choreographies before, but recently a new boy group debuted with this as their special feature: all members are hard of hearing!
Jiseok, Hyunjin, and Chanyeon (from left to right in the thumbnail) are all hard-of-hearing/Deaf and use hearing aids and cochlear implants. Hyunjin is bimodal, meaning he combines a hearing aid on his left side with a cochlear implant on his right side. To sync up while dancing, they use big screens to display counts instead of the instructor counting and vibrating wristbands to feel the beat.
Their first 2 singles GLOW and BLOW are certified feel-good bops, that both feature Korean Sign Language (KSL) and have their respective Sign Language challenges for fans to learn.
Permission to Dance - BTS
Probably the best-known example is Permission to Dance by BTS. It features "Fun”, “Dance” and “Peace” in International Sign Language (ISL) as part of the chorus choreography. BTS were also repeatedly using Sign Language during the promotions for Butter, especially Taehyung.
Check out this full ASL cover made by ARMY
Love Wins All - IU
The reason for this whole post: The masterpiece from our vocal queen IU! As already mentioned in my February Newsletter, the music video of Love Wins All by IU features Sign Language. Differently from all the other entries on this list, Love Wins All uses KSL for storytelling purposes in the MV, completely independent from the song lyrics.
Set in a dystopia, where floating cubes hunt our protagonists, the singer and her co-star Kim Taehyung use Sign Language to communicate. Fans are still theorizing in comment sections everywhere around the globe whether they are using Sign Language because the cubes react to sound or because IU’s character is Deaf.
I like the interpretation that she is Deaf. It would be a nice juxtaposition to Taehyung being blind in one eye. Besides, I also doubt that they would have had the time to learn KSL while constantly outrunning the cubes of death and destruction. If it were a post-apocalyptic make-shift way of communicating, I doubt it would be that elaborate. Also, as a side note, communicating with signs can produce sounds too.
But not only the use of Sign Language is notable. As shown in the thumbnail: Taehyung’s character is blind in his right eye. And I love how that was incorporated into the story! It is shown that he became blind at some point in life, since the “pre-dystopia” flashbacks we get show him with his 2 brown eyes. And this is statistically speaking correct! Because most disabilities are acquired throughout life and low vision too. It’s quite rare to be born with no vision at all.
The MV also shows that partial blindness is a thing: You can be (canonically) completely blind in one eye and still read signs. Say it with me: Blindness is a spectrum!
Truth be told, this stylized version of a “blind eye” is more reminiscent of cataracts (which you can get at any age!) and blindness doesn’t have a certain look to it. But I will stop nit-picking here: The bottom line is, I’m happy that this representation challenges the common misperception of being blind = not being able to see anything at all.
Starry Night - Mamamoo
The origin of this choreography is a bit of an urban legend, in the sense that that all the sources I could find for it were hearsay or linked to tweets that no longer exist. But the legend goes as follows: At a fan meeting, a hard-of-hearing fan told MAMAMOO that they enjoy watching their performances despite not understanding the vocals. This inspired MAMAMOO, who at the time were composing their own chores, to incorporate signs into their dance routines.
In the chorus and also pictured in the thumbnail below, the girls are (allegedly) using KSL for “the stars are shining”.
I Quit - CL
Legend of Kpop, CL really said “Let me spell it out for you” and then hired an American Sign Language (ASL) consultant along with 5 Deaf and hard-of-hearing performers to do exactly that.
The full title is +I Quit180327+ which I find to be an iconic juxtaposition between the title looking like a phone number and the music video being an entirely signed performance with the singing as voice-over and lyrics on screen. Calling it quits!
Thanks - Seventeen
With this song, Seventeen thank Carats (their fanbase) for their love and loyalty. Thanks incorporated KSL into the pre-chorus, where the members both sing and sign Thank you. The timing is also really cute, as the members take turns signing it, giving the impression of waves rippling through the group’s positioning, which reflects the rhythm of the pre-chorus.
What more can I say then: it’s a bop!
Missing You - BTOP
BTOP giving deaf MELODYs their K-Drama moment! The members use KSL to sign the words "I miss you". The whole song belongs in a K-Drama! Where are the Samsung and Subway sponsorships, and the dramatic eye contact scene in the pouring rain?
Butterfly - Weki Meki
Butterfly features a lot of KSL, and I mean really a lot, to the point that the choreo could almost double as a translation for the entire song. The song was released for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, so it makes sense to have it serve the Paralympics as well. And serve they did.
It’s a rather slow song, with 115 beats per minute, but because it’s so slow the signs don’t look out of place or sloppy, but add quite the elegant touch to it, which fits great for a girl group.
GRL GVNG (girl gang) - XG
This one is interesting because it specifically uses American Sign Language (ASL). The signs used are: Sorry, Trust, faces/fool, problem, and 'pepe' an ASL sign for the lyric 'baddest' according to one Reddit user in the r/deaf subreddit.
Okay but why is a K-pop group using ASL instead of Korean or International Sign Language? Well, a bit of context: XG is a K-pop band whose members are all Japanese and sing exclusively in English. Yet the band is active in South Korea rather than Japan or any English-speaking country.
The choice for ASL might also be tied to the CEO of XG’s company XGALX being an American-born former K-pop idol. It might as well be a strategic choice because ASL covers a big demographic in absolute numbers.
The map below highlights countries where American Sign Language, or a derivative thereof, is the national language for the deaf, or where ASL is used alongside another Sign Language.
Euro-centric world map, highlighting countries that use ASL or a dialect of it as one of their national sign languages shown in red, or countries where ASL is in significant use alongside other sign languages in peach pink.
Copyright: Kwamikagami at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Despite its name, it’s not only used in the USA but also in Canada (okay, that’s geographically close enough to be expected), Guatemala, the Philippines, Singapur, Hongkong, as well as the following African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Madagascar, Benin, Togo and Zimbabwe (all according to Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt and don’t send any academics after me). Which honestly surprised me! Because a number of these countries adopted French rather than English as their official language or as only one of many official languages. Due to colonialism, of course.
Now, I don’t know where XG has the biggest fanbase (Alphaz, please tell me!), but one could assume that English-speaking Southeast Asian countries are an important market for them.
Side-Note: There is also an official ASL version by the XG members.
And if I may add one more fan theory of my own: The music video for Girl Gang was released on June 30, 2023. Maybe, just maybe, the choreographer took inspiration from the viral ASL interpretation of Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance on February 12 of the same year?
Fast Forward - Somi
This one I haven’t seen on any other lists so far! Yet it’s been on my playlist since its release, so you can imagine my excitement when our teacher showed us the sign for “film”, I did what I always do: imitate the sign, slowly mouth the word, and my brain short-circuited to “I can hear you say: Fast Forward”
Fancy - Twice
This feels more like an honorable mention, but Fancy from the girl group Twice incorporated the ISL sign for “I love you” into their dance routine. As someone who likes to throw up an ILY in almost every picture as well, I felt the need to give credit to the mothers.
Tomboy - (G)I-DLE
And did you think I would miss this opportunity to talk about our QueenCards of G-Idle? In the same spirit as Twice, they use the international ILY sign to show some love to the tomboys.
And as promised: the Link to my K-pop with Sign Language playlist
If you want to read even more about Korean Sign Language, check out Owlcation.
