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Chapter 5 - Politeness Strategies in Korean

from Part I - Korean Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2022

By
Sungdai Cho
Edited by
Sungdai Cho  and
John Whitman
Sungdai Cho
Affiliation:
Binghamton University, State University of New York
John Whitman
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Chapter 5 describes the four chief domains of linguistic politeness in Korean: speech style, honorifics, terms of address, and gendered language. Based on characteristics of those four areas, the chapter proposes different variables governing when and how to use different components of polite language, in addition to two exceptional subcases of honorifics. The term “politeness” is used in this chapter in a broad sense to denote any linguistic expression that shows respect. Honorifics are a major component of linguistic politeness in this sense, but far from the only one.

Keywords

politenessspeech stylehonorificsgendered languagesociolinguisticspsycholinguistics
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Korean Linguistics , pp. 105 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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