-
Essay / Korean Language Essay - 1319
Language is an important tool for people to express their thoughts and emotions through communication. When a language is used, certain variables will affect a person's way of speaking, such as gender, age, social class and geographic region, etc. Lakoff (1973) claimed that women discriminate more accurately in naming colors than men do. Colors like lavender, beige, aquamarine, etc., women can express them more clearly than men. In simple terms; in color vocabulary, women can distinguish different colors accurately and narrowly. This is because women and men do not speak in the same way even if they experience the same thing. In every language community, women and men speak differently for social and cultural reasons. (Holmes, 2013) Gender differences affect the way people speak and this article aims to discuss the characteristics of female speaking in Korean. More specifically, it mainly focuses on how Korean women speak in daily life through the use of unique features of Korean. In South Korea, people were deeply influenced by Confucianism introduced during the Joseon Dynasty. “Confucianism is reflected not only in the way Koreans think and behave, but also in the way the Korean language functions in terms of vocabulary and grammar. » (Song, 2005) Under the influence of Confucianism, men are superior to women in terms of social status and women are submissive to men. In the male-dominated society, women prefer to use overtly prestigious forms and men prefer to use the vernacular form in order to distinguish the social status between women and men in the Joseon Dynasty. Although Confucianism has less influence in today's South Korean society, we can still find some characteristics when women speak. "Some forms and expressions are middle of paper... grammatical or lexical forms. To conclude, Korean women tend to use tag questions, indirect words and expressions, and negative expressions to avoid being conclusive and try to avoid dominating the entire conversation and showing concern about the recipient's feeling. To some extent, these characteristics of feminine language in Korean seem to be considered a polite conversation strategy, but characteristics such as usage. of honorific titles are only a deference to grammatical or lexical forms Although Korean women tend to use questions, indirect words and expressions, and negative expressions, this does not mean that they do not use them. vernacular forms Therefore, we still do not know whether Korean women actually use less vulgar and more polite forms than Korean men. Undoubtedly, more research on women's language in Korean needs to be conducted to better understand it..