E305/505 Korean Language and Culture

Discussion questions on Politeness and language

1. What is politeness, honorifics, deference?
   
   
   
2. Politeness as linguistic phenomena: how is politeness implemented on language, e.g., in English, Japanese, and Korean (Cf. Sohn and Hijirida 1986)?
   
   
   
   
3. Brown and Gilman (1972, B&G hereafter) discuss two second person pronoun forms in Indo European languages which are represented as T-pronoun and V-pronoun. What do T and V stand for? How did the V-pronoun come about being used as a singular second person pronoun?
   
   How is You in English compared to the pronouns in Indo-European languages?
   
   
4. What are the two semantic dimensions underlying the uses of pronouns in Indo-European languages (B&G 1972)?
   
   How did they develop?
   
   
   How is power defined? What is the power semantics?
   
   How is solidarity defined? What is the solidarity semantics?
   
   What is reciprocal pronoun exchange and what is non-reciprocal pronoun exchange?
   
   How did the solidarity semantics develop historically?
   
   What is the current direction of change in T/V usage in European languages?
   
   How do French, German, and Italian differ in T/V usage?
   
   
   
5. How do the semantics of power and solidarity play in the Korean language (Sohn 1983)?
   
   
   What are the power variables?
   
   
   What are the solidarity variables?
   
   
   
   
6. Sohn (1983) discusses six speech styles in Korean (compared to three in Japanese) as follows:
   

   P-style ('Deferential' style)	Y-style ('Polite' style)
   S-style ('Authoritative' style)	E-style ('Familiar' tyle)
   N-style ('Intimate' style)	T-style ('Plain' style)

   
   [The terms in parentheses are by Martin (1964)]
   
   
   
   
   
7. The social structure of Korean society has changed recently. How has it changed and what effect has the social change had on the Korean language?