Corpus-based analysis of honorifics in Korean and its pedagogical implication
Focusing on the speech level shift from non-honorifics to honorifics
This study explores the speech level shifts from non-honorific to honorific situation by analyzing Korean spoken
corpora of conversations between native speakers of Korean through a discourse-analytic framework. Although non-honorific styles
(e.g., panmal) are used as frequently as honorific ones (e.g., contaysmal), little
attention has been paid to non-honorific expressions in Korean, let alone to the speech level shift between
non-honorific and honorific. Analyzing interactions between native speakers of Korean revealed that, depending on the change of their stance in response to the interlocutor’s utterance, speakers dynamically switched their speech levels not only within the boundary of non-honorifics or
honorifics, but also across the dichotomous categories, that is, they changed from non-honorific to honorific speech styles. In
general, speakers employed the speech level elevation from non-honorific to honorific when indexing a confrontational stance
toward a topic and an object, or when upgrading an epistemic stance in naturally occurring interactions. The findings of this
study encourage researchers to actively construct and use corpora of authentic/naturalistic conversations to explore the
dynamicity of the speech level shift and its functions, which in turn contributes to developing instruction materials that reflect
the dynamicity of the Korean honorific system.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Previous studies
- 2.1Speech levels and its dynamic shifts
- 2.2Applicability of corpus data to KFL settings
- 3.Data and methodology
- 3.1Corpus data
- 3.2Procedure
- 3.3Discourse analysis approach
- 4.Speech level shift and natural interaction
- 4.1Indexing confrontational affective stance
- 4.2Upgrading epistemic stance by distancing oneself
- 5.Conclusion: Implications on the use of Korean corpora for developmental research on Korean
- 5.1Linguistic and pedagogical implications
- 5.2Limitation and Further Research
- Abbreviations
-
References
References (25)
Atkinson, John Maxwell & Drew, Paul
1979 Order in court: the organisation of verbal interaction in judicial settings. Atlantic Highlands, United States: Humanities Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brown, Lucien & Levinson, S. C.
1987 Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brown, Lucien
2010 Questions of appropriateness and authenticity in the representation of Korean honorifics in textbooks for second language learners.
Language, Culture and Curriculum 23.1: 35–50.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brown, Lucien
2013a “
Mind your own esteemed business”: Sarcastic honorifics use and impoliteness in Korean TV dramas.
Journal of Politeness Research 9.2: 159–186.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brown, Lucien
2013b Teaching ‘casual’ and/or ‘impolite’ language through multimedia: the case of non-honorific panmal speech styles in Korean.
Language, Culture and Curriculum 26.1: 1–18.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Brown, Lucien
2015 Revisiting “polite” -yo and “deferential” -supnita speech style shifting in Korean from the viewpoint of indexicality.
Journal of Pragmatics, 791, 43–59.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Byon, Anderew Sangpil
2007 Teaching the polite and the deferential speech levels using media materials: Advanced KFL classroom settings. In
Proceedings of Pragmatics in the CJK Classroom:The State of the Art, 21–64.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chang, Sumi
2014 Korean honorific speech style shift : intra-speaker variables and context [Doctoral dissertation], University of Hawaii at Manoa
Cook, Haruko
1997 The role of the Japanese masu form in caregiver-child conversation.
Journal of Pragmatics, 28(6), 695–718.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Selting, Margret
2018 Interactional linguistics : studying language in social interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Eun, Jong Oh & Strauss, Susan
2004 The primacy of information status in the alternation between deferential and polite forms in Korean public discourse.
Language Sciences, 26.3: 251–272.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hymes, Dell
1964 Toward Ethnographies of Communication.
American Anthropologist, 66.6: 1–34.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Leech, Geoffrey
2014 Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Oh, Mi Jung
2007 Education of Korean honorific expressions for foreign learners: By analysing dialog corpus.
Korean Semantics, 221: 185–208.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Paltridge, Brian
2012 Discourse analysis: an introduction. New York, United States: Bloomsbury Publishing.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Park, Mi Yung
2012 Teachers’ use of the intimate speech style in the Korean language classroom.
The Korean Language in America, 171, 55–83.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Park, Mi Yung
2014a Teachers’ use of speech styles in the Korean language classroom. [Doctoral dissertation] University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Park, Mi Yung
2014b A study of the Korean sentence-ender -(u)psita: Implementing activity transitions in the KFL classroom.
Journal of Pragmatics, 681. 25–39.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sacks, Harvey
1992 Lectures on conversation ed by
Gail Jefferson. Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schegloff, Emanuel. A.
1968 Sequencing in conversational openings 1.
American Anthropologist 701: 1075–95.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sohn, Ho-min
1999 The Korean Language. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sohn, Ho-min
2013 Honorific patterns in Korean. In
Topics in Korean language and linguistics, 513–530. Seoul, Korea: Korea University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sohn, Sung-Ok
2005 Corpus-based analysis of -ketun(yo) and -canha(yo) and its pedagogical application. In
Corpus linguistics for Korean language learning and teaching, 23–49.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (1)
Cited by 1 other publications
Giorgi, Alessandra & Erika Petrocchi
2024.
A cross-cultural analysis of the gestural pattern of surprise and surprise-disapproval questions.
Intercultural Pragmatics 21:3
► pp. 307 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.