Perceptions and Functions of Korean Mianhada : Comparison with American English Sorry

Yu. Kyong-Ae 한국사회언어학회 2017 사회언어학 Vol.25 No.2

Yu, Kyong-Ae. 2017. “Perceptions and Functions of Korean Mianhada : Comparison with American English Sorry ”. The Sociolingusitc Journal of Korea 25(2), 197~224. Sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic conventions for apology vary from culture to culture. While the illocutionary purpose of apologizing in English is “the speaker s sense of social obligation” (Wierzbicka 1987: 215~217) and Japanese sumimasen involves “social-self with a social alter” (Ide 1998: 524), this study argues that Korean mianhada is an apology from the speaker s moral perspective linked with collective-self. Employing Wierzbicka s (1987) Natural Semantic Metalanguage, this study discusses that sorry is a separate concept but mianhada is a nebulous concept mixed with other emotions, e.g., thank and love . In addition, presenting the examples from corpus-based dictionaries, COCA, and the Sejong 21 st Century Corpus, this study discusses that sorry is authentically used as indirect and ritualistic apologies while mianhada is used as direct, indirect, ritualistic and substantive apologies. Finally, distinguishing main functions of mianhada into a sincere apology, a pseudo-apology, gratitude, a request initiator, a preclosing signal, and a territory invasion signal to strangers, this study provides cultural and ethnographical explanations.

A Corpus-Based Comparison of Would/ d Like To and Should Like To

Yu Kyong Ae 한국사회언어학회 2016 사회언어학 Vol.24 No.2

Although should implies obligation or necessity and would indicates undecided desire or intention, the phrases would/ʹd like to and should like to do not differ semantically, except that should like to is used in written British style. This paper investigates the two expressions synchronically and diachronically in corpora, namely the COHA, COCA, GloWbE, BYU-BNC, and BNCweb. Historically, should like to was more frequent before the 1850s, but has almost disappeared from American English in the 20th and 21st centuries. Following American English, should like to has almost perished in the Inner, Outer and Expanding Circles of English. It was overtaken by would/ʹd like to, which flourished until the 1970s, and has subsequently decreased in use, despite remaining common in contemporary English. Filling the gap, would/ʹd love to has increased in use over time. The paper discusses would/ʹd love to as a popular expression in the future.

Characteristics of Korean Politeness: Imposition Is Not Always a Face Threatening Act

Kyong-Ae Yu(유경애) 담화·인지언어학회 2003 담화와 인지 Vol.10 No.3

The principal theoretical aim of the present study is to challenge the widely accepted notion that politeness is a socio-cultural-linguistic universal. The universal theories of politeness claim that clarity and politeness are complementary elements and that diverse politeness phenomena are driven by underlying universal factors, such as non-imposition, optionality and friendliness. In order to re-examine the universality of the politeness rules and strategies, however, we should question whether general concepts of linguistic terms such as face, deference and politeness are universal and whether the constituents of face and face-saving strategies are the same in various cultures. In this paper, it is argued that the components of face, and face-saving strategies are culturally different, and that some behavioural patterns have different meanings in different cultures. Also, it is argued that Brown & Levinson's face threatening acts and face-saving strategies cannot be universal. This paper upholds the assumption that the functions of speech acts can differ according to culture-specific norms and languages.

Impact of Culture in Communication: Different Verbal Styles and Miscommunications

Kyong-ae Yu 한국사회언어학회 2006 사회언어학 Vol.14 No.1

Verbal interaction styles reflect the overall values and patterns of a culture. As Hall (1976) suggests, meaning or intention in low-context communication is best expressed through explicit verbal messages, while in high-context communication it is best conveyed through context and non-verbal channels such as pauses, silence and tone of voice. If different verbal styles are ignored or not understood, miscommunication may occur in cross-cultural communication, which may contribute to communication conflict or even hostile stereotyping (Milroy 1984: 26). Understanding of communication rules, sociocultural norms, and inferences involved in conversation are being accorded greater importance in language teaching and learning for effective communication in intercultural interactions. This paper introduces different communication styles based on cultural diversity, discusses the extent to which Korean EFL students are concerned with English pragmatic strategies, and analyzes Korean language and culture influence on their communication styles in English speech. This paper shows that Korean EFL students attempt to follow English styles in English conversation but their communication styles in English are largely influenced by their native language and culture, which can lead to miscommunication and conflict in intercultural interactions.

A Corpus-based Study on Comparison of Would/’d Like To and Should Like To

Kyong-Ae Yu(유경애) 담화·인지언어학회 2015 담화·인지언어학회 학술대회 발표논문집 Vol.2015 No.10

Explicitness for Requests Is a Politer Strategy than Implicitness in Korean

Kyong-Ae Yu(유경애) 담화·인지언어학회 2004 담화와 인지 Vol.11 No.1

This paper argues that 'impositives' and explicit request forms including imperatives, interrogatives and suggestions which contain the core request or the head act are considered politer than hints, in particular, in close relationship or when the size of the request act is not big. The use of imperatives with request markers jam and juda is considered polite because jam and juda are polite markers as well. Thus, Korean speakers employ direct directives more freely than English speakers. In English, to decrease imposition on hearer negative politeness strategies such as hedging, indirectness, giving option, and hints should be employed. 'Off-record' strategy, e.g., hints, is claimed as the politest strategy, but the long inferential path created by indirectness can be a cognitive burden. Hints can also be exploited for deniability or risk avoidance (Weizman 1993). Blum-Kulka (1987) assumes that the interactional balance achieved between the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness is important and thus clarity can be an essential part of politeness. This paper shows that the use of direct and explicit request forms is necessary for successful communications and can be politer than implicit ones in Korean.

The NSM-based Approach to a Korean Discourse Marker: jom

Kyong-Ae Yu(유경애) 담화·인지언어학회 2008 담화와 인지 Vol.15 No.1

Many studies on discourse markers (DMs) have been argued on how to define DMs, what their characteristics are and how to analyze them. Although there are generally no accepted definitions of DMs, prosodic and syntactic independence and semantic indetermination are widely accepted. Researchers try to elucidate semantic indetermination or polyfunctionality of DMs in various theoretical approaches such as Argumentation Theory (Watts 1988), Relevance Theory (Blakemore 2002), the Polyfunctional or polysemous approach (Fraser 1999, 2006), and the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach (Travis 2005, 2006; Fischer 2000). The application of NSM to the field of DMs is different and not common but can explicitly capture the core and pragmatic meanings of a DM, avoiding terminological ambiguities (Travis 2005, 2006). This paper employs the NSM approach and analyzes the functions and the pragmatic meanings of a Korean DM jom with semantic primitives of the NSM system. This paper illustrates how the core meaning of the DM jom relates to the original lexical adverb jogeum 'a little bit' and that the DM has four pragmatic functions: a hedge word for requests and offers; utterance highlight; utterance mitigation; utterance avoidance or hesitation. Through the NSM-based analysis, this paper also shows the relationship between the core semantic meaning of the DM jom and the contextual pragmatic meanings and how to link them.

An Alternative Analysis of Korean Addressee Honorific System

Kyong-Ae Yu 한국응용언어학회 2003 응용 언어학 Vol.19 No.1

Culture-Specific Concepts of Politeness

Kyong-ae Yu 한국응용언어학회 2002 응용 언어학 Vol.18 No.2

한국인 EFL 학습자들과 호주 학생들의 이메일에 나타난 담화표지 so의 사용법 연구

유경애(Yu Kyong-Ae) 한국영어학회 2008 영어학 Vol.8 No.4