Review of sociolinguistic studies on the terms of address in Korea

Lee Jeongbok

대구대학교 한국어문학과 교수

leejb@daegu.ac.kr

Abstract

Terms of address and honorifics have been dealt with importantly in the sociolinguistic studies in Korea. The purpose of this paper is to examine the results of sociolinguistic research focusing on the Korean address forms. We look at the main flows and characteristics of the studies, and then review the representative research dividing them into several subtypes. Based on these discussions, we present the direction for the sociolinguistic study of address forms. The sociolinguistic study of address forms in Korea has been in full swing since the 1990s. Recently, there have been increasing attempts to study the use of address form independently from honorifics, and the social awareness of the importance of address forms in Korean use has increased. While early sociolinguistic studies of address forms focused on family titles, there have been many studies on status titles, address forms in internet space, and comparisons between Korean and other languages’ address forms. By studying the address forms from a sociolinguistic point of view and method, we could achieve the qualitative development more clearly than the previous studies that were carried out by identifying and structuring the list of titles. This article reveals the various usages of titles in the social context, and grasp the speaker's intentions, strategies, and conflicts related to the use of them. However, there have been some issues that need to be paid attention to or resolved in future research.

호칭의 사회언어학적 연구 검토

이정복

대구대학교 한국어문학과 교수

초록

Vol. 40 No. 4 (2022.12)

Journal Abbreviation j. Korea Saf. Manag. Sci.
Frequency Published four times annually in March, June, September, and December
Doi Prefix 10.14353/sjk.
Year of Launching 1993
Publisher The Sociolinguistic Society of Korea

Indexed/Tracked/Covered By