Politeness and Multimodality in Korean and Japanese
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Date
2020-09-24
Authors
Kim, Hyun Ji
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This dissertation work aims to explore multimodal strategies of politeness in Korean and Japanese by investigating 7 hours of spoken and visual data produced by Korean and Japanese speakers. The analysis particularly deals with ways of controlling density of lexical information, use of kinetic cues and manipulation of gestural space in deferential and non-deferential situations. To begin, the first study examines how speech in interactions with a status-superior and a status-equal differ in the quantity of honorific lexemes, honorific sentence-ending particles, formal case-marking particles, mimetics, Chinese-origin words, pronouns, fillers and backchannels. Statistical tests revealed that use of honorifics and other lexical items that are related to formality and politeness increase in deferential situations. On the other hands, the general quantity of lexical information given to the addressee did not significantly differ in deferential and non-deferential situations. Second, in the study on kinetic cues of politeness, it was found that deference and intimacy can be embedded by manipulating multiple types of nonverbal behavior involving manual gesture, head movements (nodding and shaking), erect body posture, eye contact and self-touch by looking at the frequency in formal and informal situations. In general, both native speakers of Korean and Japanese more actively and animatedly moved their bodies in intimate situations compared to deferential situations. An additional analysis further revealed that Korean and Japanese speakers use smaller gestural space to produce manual gestures when interacting with a superior than when interacting with a friend. In conclusion, this study contributes to developing methodological approaches of research on politeness by demonstrating that politeness-related verbal and nonverbal behaviors can be quantitatively examined. Furthermore, the statistical results indicating particular verbal and nonverbal patterns of (im)politeness support the perspective that politeness is a social practice of members of a community that share similar moral orders. Lastly, the findings that show how (im)politeness is complicatedly expressed in verbal and nonverbal ways can also have significant educational implications in that this research has brought to the forefront the issues in classes of Korean and Japanese where the focus of (im)politeness instruction has been placed mainly on honorifics rather than the true multimodality of (im)politeness.
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Keywords
Japanese Linguistics, Korean Linguistics, Multimodality, Politeness, Sociopragmatics