E305/505 Korean Language and Culture

Study guides for the final exam

Slang

1. Why slang expressions?
   
   
2. What are the common strategies utilized cross-linguistically?

Cultural & cognitive values and language

1. Discuss the correlation between cultural values and language.
   
   
2. Compare American individualism and Korean collectivism and discuss how those cultural values are reflected in language behavior or practices.
   
   
3. Compare American egalitarianism and Korean hierarchism and discuss how those cultural values are reflected in language behavior or practices.
   
   
4. Compare American explicitness and Korean implicitness and discuss how those cultural values are reflected in language behavior or practices.
   
   
5. Discuss the direction of changes that are occurring in Korean language due to the changes in cultural values and give a few examples. Compare the changes in Korean language with those in the uses of the second person pronoun forms in Indo-European languages.
   
   
6. Relationships are very important in Korean society. Whether they be familial, between friends, or impersonal relationships in the workplace all relationships are guided by the principle of "unhae."; What is this?



7. Why do Koreans value education to such a great degree?



8. How is the ancient cosmology based on um (yin) and yang, the complimentary opposing principles from which all things are generated related to the highly developed sex roles (and separation of the sexes) in Korean society?

Proverbs

1. What are the characteristics of proverbs?
   


2. What are the similarities and differences between metaphor and proverbs?
   


3. What are the mechanisms of interpreting proverbs?
   


4. What are the English equivalents of the following Korean proverbs?
   

• Would there be smoke in a chimney no fire is set on?
  
• Your words would be heard by birds in the day time, and by rats in the night time .
  
• You would feed milk to a crying baby first.
  
• There would be days when sun rays would come even in a mouse hole.
  
• An empty cart makes more rattle.
  
• Other people's rice-cake looks bigger than yours.

What would you say about these comparable proverbs between Korean and English?

5. What cultural models can we reconstruct out of Korean proverbs? Examples?

6. Discuss the ways the women's characteristics are featured in Korean proverbs and give an example or two for each.

Luck and taboo

1. What are the unique characteristics of the Chinese strategy in dealing with blessing and taboo?
   
   
2. What are the common blessing and taboo expressions Chinese and Korean luck expressions refer to?
   
   
3. Luck and taboo are well expressed in Korean proverbs and old sayings. What are the general characteristics of old sayings that refer to luck and taboo in Korean culture? What are their rationale, purposes or motivations?

Politeness & Address-reference terms

1. Discuss the two second person pronoun forms in Indo-European languages; what are they, what semantic dimensions underlie their uses and how their uses have developed.
   
   
2. In the uses of the two second person pronoun forms in Indo-European languages, there are six possible relations to the listener. List the six possible relations and their examples, and predict which pronoun form would be used.
   
   
3. What are the honorific variables and how can they be classified?
   
   
4. What are the principal options of address in English? Discuss their uses along the two semantic dimensions of politeness (power and solidarity).
   
   
5. What are the three diadic patterns of address in English?
   
   
6. Discuss the developmental patterns of address terms in American English and Korean.
   
   
7. Discuss the sociolinguistic linkage between distance and deference and between intimacy and condescension with examples from English, Japanese, and Korea.
   
   
8. Discuss how honorific variables (e.g., kinship, age, gender, social status, occupational rank, ingroupness, intimacy) are factored in address terms among English, Japanese and Korean.
   
   

Language and gender

1.   Discuss different conversational styles of men and women in America as discussed in the literature.

2.   What is “ritual opposition” and how does it contribute to the different conversational styles between men and women?

 

3.   Discuss asymmetrical use of speech levels between men and women in Korean.

 

4.   Discuss the characteristics of women’s speech in English as discussed in the literature in relation to politeness.

 

5.   Where do the differences of conversational styles between men and women come from? What does it mean  by “language socialization”?

 

6.   Discuss the issues of “indexicality” and “Constitutiveness” of gender through language, that is, the way gender is indexed through language.

 

7.   Discuss a few examples of language use which show sexism.

 

8.   Discuss the ways the women’s characteristics are featured in Korean proverbs and give an example or two for each.

 

9.   Give a few examples where the same expression or attribute gets different interpretation depending on whether they apply to men and women.

1.   What is the oriental zodiac based on?

2.   What is the 60th birthday called in Korea and why is it significant?

3.   How is fatalism in Korean culture reflected in the use of Kanji?

4.   Which holiday or holidays in Korea both national and traditional holidays?