• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.635-644
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• 2020

This paper examines the types and functions of politeness in German communication and how politeness strategy can be realized. 'Politeness' is not a grammatical terminology in German, but it can be found in many places in grammar. The criteria for politeness are not only organized according to the rules of the language system, but the boundaries are ambiguous because non-language factors affect communication. Politeness is an important strategic element as well as social value. The polite expression first appears in the grammatical level of invariant with the form of address according to the familiarity between the conversational parties, verb modus, and modal particle. Modal particle with familiarity is considered to be a positive politeness strategy that limits the listener's speech by weakening or avoiding face threatening act. Modal verbs is classified as polite expressions that do not impose a psychological burden by not forcing the listener to make a direct request. The results of this study are therefore expected to suggest a rationale for empirical research on politeness in German communication.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

This paper investigates whether listeners perceive a different level of politeness when the duration of the Korean sentence-final auxiliary particle '-yo' is varied. A total of 10 Korean sentences were manipulated by lengthening and shortening '-yo' by 10%, 20%, and 30%. The participants included native Korean speakers and Chinese and Japanese learners of Korean (n=10, respectively). They were asked to rate the level of politeness of the stimuli on a 9-point scale. It was found that Korean listeners perceived decreased politeness as the duration of '-yo' was shortened and increased politeness as it was lengthened. However, Chinese and Japanese listeners did not perceive a different level of politeness from the manipulated sentences. This finding suggests that it is important to teach L2 speakers that the duration of the auxiliary particle '-yo' plays a role in Korean listeners' perception of politeness.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.53-80
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• 2011

The study examines how Koreans' politeness is realized in a speech act, request. The main focus is to explore underlying rationale and influence involved in their performance, not just the comparison of difference in politeness realization between native and nonnative speakers of English, as previous studies did. The study employs the DCT, an attached politeness scale questionnaire, and interviews. Twenty nine university students participated in the study. Interchangeable reading of the three data yields some interesting and valuable insights. The participants heavily rely on a few formulaic expressions to express politeness, such as interrogatives with modal verbs, please and excuse me as a politeness marker. They want to use honorific address terms that is literally translated into English, and have a belief that there are honorific words in English as in Korean. The study refers to the participants' voice on indirectness, nonverbal messages, and expressions with different connotations between English and Korean.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.98-103
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• 2024

This paper revisits politeness expressions in English, exploring their linguistic characteristics and the underlying social dynamics they reflect. Grounded in pragmatic theories, politeness is examined as a phenomenon shaped by societal norms, wherein language users navigate the delicate balance between efficiency and maintaining positive social interactions. Through an analysis of various linguistic devices such as modal auxiliary verbs, progressive and past tenses, depersonalization, and the use of hedges, the study elucidates how speakers endeavor to mitigate potential burdens on listeners and foster smoother communication. By understanding and employing these linguistic strategies, English learners can better navigate the nuances of politeness expressions in the English cultural context. This exploration underscores the pivotal role of politeness in interpersonal communication and highlights its significance in facilitating effective interaction among language users.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.93-119
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• 2009

Internalized Confucian cultural scripts trigger meta-pragmatic thinking in Korean communication. Commonly shared cultural knowledge acts as a powerful constraint upon the behavioral patterns of each participant and this knowledge can be strategically manipulated to avoid confrontations. The strategic use of address reference terms utilizes cultural values as a face-redress mechanism to achieve situation-specific goals. This paper offers a view of Korean address reference terms that rests on four revisions of politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1978, 1987). First, the notion of discernment - or 'wakimae' - as a culture-specific mechanism is reanalyzed. Secondly, culture-specific values as another R (ranking of imposition) variable are introduced. Thirdly, a reevaluation of the notion of positive face (respect) is discussed. Finally, the address reference terms in combination with other honorifics by the speaker that can be strategically applied either to threaten or to enhance the face of the hearer is observed. Because Confucianism is embedded in Korean cultural identity, teaching cultural values integrated and their roles in situation-dependent politeness is required in order to understand interactional nature of politeness occurring from particular discourse contexts.

• MALSORI
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• no.45
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• pp.15-22
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• 2003

This study is a kind of a preliminary study to develop naturalness of dialog TTS system. In this study, as major characteristics of politeness in Korean, temporal(total duration of utterances, speech rate and duration of utterance final syllables) and F0(mean F0, boundary tone pattern, F0 range) features were discussed through acoustic analysis of recorded data of semantically neutral sentences, which were spoken by ten professional voice actors under two conditions of utterance type - namely, normal and polite type. The results show that temporal characteristics were significantly different according to the utterance type but F0 characteristics were not.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.33
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• pp.331-358
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• 2013

This paper looks into several aspects of linguistic behaviors attested in Korean and American English corpora. A special attention is paid to the areas of politeness phenomena, terms of address, power and solidarity, practice of flattery, and closely-related non-linguistic behaviors such as tipping and gift-giving conventions. An analysis of the data reveals that Korean society remains very much superior-oriented, non-egalitarian, non-democratic despite the pride and sense of accomplishment among the populace that the nation has achieved a satisfactory level of democracy. In particular, the following facts in Korean and the Korean society are exposed by an examination of the data: ${\bullet}$ There is a notional gap of positive politeness ${\bullet}$ Superiors enjoy an unfair advantage in the power and solidarity system ${\bullet}$ The terms of address system is set up to make a clear distinction between levels and the terms of address, in turn, dictate norms of expected behavior ${\bullet}$ The notion and practice of flattery heavily favors superiors ${\bullet}$ Non-linguistic acts of gift-giving and tipping are consistent with the examined social interactions As a result, all the benefits, emotional as well as material, are garnered by superiors. These facts may reflect the real Korea that people are used to being comfortable with, a pre-modern, feudalistic society, something akin to its kin in the north. We may proclaim that we aspire to a more democratic society. However, it appears Koreans, deep inside, may have been seeking a powerful dictator all along. These findings help provide a partial but insightful clue to the political puzzle: why Koreans grew uncomfortable with an egalitarian and democratic president and could not save him, but instead replaced him with a succession of a corrupted businessman and the authoritarian daughter of a former dictator. The flight to democracy has stalled in midair, not quite making the grade yet. There is plenty of linguistic evidence in Korean.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.19
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• pp.271-293
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• 2010

Japanese Give and Receive Verbs are divided into "YARU", "MORAU" and "KURERU". These are influenced by the subject, speaker's viewpoint and meaning. Three verbs are used in a different way depending on who is the giver and who is the taker. I analyze "YARU" and "KURERU" Verbs used in TOUSEISYOUSEIKATAGI. It focus on politeness, gender, and meaning when combined with 'TE'. As an expression of politeness, 'Yaru' is to give to a person of lower social status or an animal or plant. 'Ageru' is to give to an equal ora person of lower social status nowadays. However, 'Ageru' which is treated as elegance of the language remained expression of respect, 'Yaru' is used when the receiver is a person of lower social status and equal social status in TOUSEISYOUSEIKATAGI. 'Kureru' is used when the receiver is a person of lower social status and equal social status, 'kudasaru' is used when a person of higher social status gives the speaker something in TOUSEISYOUSEIKATAGI. Women speakers use 'oyarinasai' 'oyariyo' 'ageru' 'okureru' and men speakers use 'yaru' 'kureru'. Speech patterns peculiar to men are 'kuretamae' 'kurenka'. If the verbs are joined to "TE", they obtain abstract meaning as well as a movement of things. They express some modality for action of the preceeding verbs. The modality has the following meanings ; good will, goodness, benefits, kindness, hopeness, expectation, disadvantage, injury, ill will and sarcasm. In addition, 'TE YARU' expresses the speaker's strong will, 'TE KURERU' expresses the speaker's request.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.39
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• pp.433-460
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• 2015

This paper was analyzed the politeness and the expression of ending sentence in family conversations in the virtual language of cartoon characters. Younger speakers have a tendency to unite sentence-final particle to the polite form, older speakers have a tendency to unite it to the plain form in the historical genre. But younger speakers and older speakers unite sentence-final particle to the plain form in other fiction genres. Using terms of respect is determined by circumstances and charactonym. Comparing the translation of conversations with the original, there were the different aspects of translated works. When Japanese instructors are used to study Japanese as the instructional media, they give a supplementary explanation to students. 'WA' 'KASIRA' that a female speaker usually uses are used by a male speaker, 'ZO' 'ZE' that a male speaker usually uses are used by a female speaker in the virtual language of cartoons. In the field of the translation, it is translated 'KANA' 'KASIRA' into 'KA?', 'WA' 'ZO' 'ZE' into 'A(EO)?', 'WAYO' 'ZEYO' into AYO(EOYO)'. When we use sentence-final particle in the virtual language of cartoon, we need to supply supplementary explanations and further examinations.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.51-66
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• 2001

This paper compares different uses of downgraders by Korean English speakers (KES) with those by American English native speakers (AENS) in their requestive e-mail. Three different situations in which social power and distance were controlled were set up to examine and compare the participants' politeness strategies in requestive e-mail. It was found that the KESs' use of downgraders appeared differently from the AENSs' use qualitatively and quantitatively across three situations. The AENSs used downgraders almost three times as more, resulting in a much more mitigated and polite effect in requests. The AENSs' requests were mostly modified by syntactic modifiers, such as aspect, tense, conditional, and consultative devices. On the other hand, the KESs' requests were modified mostly by politeness markers and conditionals in a limited number of requests.