Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2009 Descriptive study of Korean e-mail discourse Jaegu Kim Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Kim, Jaegu, "Descriptive study of Korean e-mail discourse" (2009). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3488. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3488 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF KOREAN E-MAIL DISCOURSE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics by Jaegu Kim B.A. Dongguk University, 1993 M.A., Long Island University, 2000 May 2009 Table of Contents List of Tables.……………………………..………………….…………...……………………. iii Abstract………………………………………………………….…………...…………………. iv Chapter 1. Introduction ……….…………………………….…………………………………. 1 1.1 The Research Question …….…………..…………..………………………………. 1 1.2 Language and Culture...…..………………….……….……………………………. 1 1.3 Korean in Comparison with English…………………………………..…………….. 4 1.4 HC/LC and Confucian Social Hierarchy………………………………………….. 4 1.5 Honorifics …………………………………………………………………………… 8 1.6. Pronouns and Avoidance of Second Person Pronoun …………………………... 9 1.7 The Tasks of This Study .………………………………………………………… 15 Chapter 2. Korean Language and Culture …………………………………………......…… 17 2.1 Language and Culture ……………………….…….…...………………………… 17 2.2 Korean Culture in Comparison with American Culture ………………………. 21 2.3. Korean Language and the Structure of Honorifics.....………………….....…… 31 2.3.1 Lexical-suffix Patterns of Honorifics……...…………………………… 34 2.3.2 Personal Pronouns………………………………………………………. 34 2.3.3 Address-reference Terms…………………………………………...…... 38 2.3.4 Nouns, Predicates, and Particles……………………………………...… 41 2.3.5 Subject-and Addressee-honorific Suffixes..……………………………. 42 2.4 Computer Mediated Communication–E-mail Discourse……....……………….. 50 Chapter 3. Methods………………………………………………………………………........ 57 3.1 Experiment……………………………………………………………………….... 60 3.1.1Method and Data Collection…………………………………………..… 60 3.1.2 Results and Analysis……………………………...……………………... 63 3.2 Application………………………………………………………………………… 86 3.2.1 Method and Data Collection……..……...…………………………..….. 86 3.2.2 Results and Analysis…………..……………………………………..….. 91 Chapter 4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..… 120 4.1 [+age], [+distance], and [+nunch’i] in Use of Korean Language……………….120 4.2 Examples of Nunch’i Avoidance through Using English by Koreans………….123 References…………………………………………………………………………………….. 134 Appendix A: Abbreviations………………………………………………...………………... 139 Appendix B: Questionnaire………………………………………………………………..… 140 Appendix C: E-mail Data…...…………………………………………………………..……. 143 Vita ..………………………………………………………………………………………….. 184 ii List of Tables 1. Korean Pronominal Terms…………………………………………………………………….37 2. Address-Reference Terms……………………………………………………………………..39 3. Nouns, Predicates, and Particles………………………………………………………..……..42 4. Korean Four Speech Levels………………………...…………………………………..……..44 5. Situation 1: Asking a senior professor for an extension [+age]……………..……..……………………...63 6. Situation 2: Asking a friend to come to a library with a class note [=age]…………….……………...73 7. Situation 3: Asking a younger friend for help in moving [−age]……………………………..………......80 8. Korean E-mailer Age Groups………………..……..………………………………................................……...88 9. An example of different performance of nunch’i…………….…..……….….….……….……………………...96 10. Nunch’i used by [10-20] age group to other groups…………………………….…..…………………………..99 11. Nunch’i used by [21-25] age group to other groups………………………………..……………………….….101 12. Nunch’i used by [26-30] age group to other groups……………..…………………….….....................102 13. Nunch’i used by [10-20] age group to other groups……….………………………….…….…………….….107 14. Nunch’i used by [36-40] age group to other groups…………………………………………………………..111 15. Nunch’i used by [41-45] age group to other groups……………………………..……..…...……………...116 16. Nunch’i used by [46-100] age group to other groups…………………..….….…..………...................118 iii Abstract This study is an examination of a corpus of computer mediated Korean discourse (i.e., e- mail), based on a folk-cultural category, nunch’i. Nunch’i is actively involved in linguistic feature use in terms of [+age] and [+distance] of human relationships. Many Koreans think that the world has an inherent hierarchy according to age. This idea has been reflected through nunch’i, a culture-specific system for maintaining harmonious social relationships especially between [+age] and [–age] people. Nunch’i has a function of foresight, in that it is part of the way that people read the situations and the faces of addressers and addressees. Like oral and written language, Korean e-mail discourse shows that when a younger writer communicates with an older recipient, s/he perceives nunch’i and then uses grammatical and lexical forms to communicate deference. The experiment was based on one occasion and three different social relationships, and between one sender and three different receivers. Fifteen Korean participants were asked to send three e-mails: to a senior professor, an equal aged close friend, and a younger aged close friend. Results of the experiment in e-mail language use show that there is a normative honorific system between [+age] and [–age]. However, the results of the experiment did not completely overlap with the findings in the application, which involved real-life e-mail data. The application shows that the normative honorific system can be modified by the level of [+distance] relationship between the addresser and the addressee. Thus, if a younger addresser does not perceive the pressure of nunch’i in a close relationship with an older recipient, the younger addresser does not change his or her language forms honorifically. Therefore, the results of this study argue that Koreans vary their Korean language use in systematic but not always traditional ways. iv Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 The Research Questions Studies of computer-mediated discourse constitute a relatively new field, and e-mail is one of the venues that have been actively studied only in recent years (Bjørge, 2007; Graham, 2007; Hatipoğlu, 2007; Chen, 2006). E-mail discourse is expressed in written form according to the nature of spoken language, so it can be a good source for researchers to study cultural features in language. Indeed, researchers (Bjørge, 2007; Chen, 2006) have found important cultural factors in language and language use in studies of e-mail discourse. This study focuses on the discussion of lexical and grammatical features of Korean language use in a corpus of e- mails written in Korean with the following research questions: (1) Is Korean nunch’i culture connected to the use of Korean language based on [+age] complex in Korean e-mail discourse? (2) Do the results of the current experiment support the assumption that Korean nunch’i cultural behavior and the usage of Korean honorifics are significantly related to each other according to [+age] difference? (3) Is the assumption still supported by application to the real-life data in this study? 1.2 Language and Culture Culture exists in a close relationship with language, in that culture helps the users of a language govern and define the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted; indeed, cultural patterns and customs are sometimes explicitly encoded in a language. Communication can be difficult when conversationalists do not share the same knowledge of the subtle rules governing conversation. Nonnative speakers often fail in using a foreign language because they do not recognize the target culture reflected in the linguistic patterns of the language typically used by native speakers. 1 Kaplan (1966) claims that neither logic nor rhetoric is universal because rhetorical logic is culturally constructed. Rhetoric varies from culture to culture and over time within a given culture. According to Kaplan‘s analysis, the oriental (Asian) writer is likely to circle around a subject, showing it from a variety of tangential views, but not looking at it directly. For that reason, Japanese or Korean speakers prefer to go around and around a point, which can be frustrating to U.S. speakers of English with their preference for getting to the point quickly. The English rhetorical style is just as frustrating to East Asians, such as Korean and Japanese, who do not understand why Americans have to be so ―logical‖ all the time (Harris, 1986). Kaplan‘s claim (1966) is that all English writers have a linear rhetorical structure, and that all other languages such as Romance, Russian, Semitic, and Oriental have digression in their rhetorical structure. Bander (1983) supports Kaplan, claiming that differences exist because each culture has its own special way of thinking. In specific application to English as Second Language (ESL) learners, he advises that in order to write well in English, a student should