In this study, speech level, hedge and topic initiative were investigated at discourse level for the conversation between first-meeting persons in their thirties and between friends in Japan and Korea. In addition, comprehensive study were performed ...
In this study, speech level, hedge and topic initiative were investigated at discourse level for the conversation between first-meeting persons in their thirties and between friends in Japan and Korea. In addition, comprehensive study were performed by analyzing the relation among these linguistic behaviors in order to understand the overall linguistic behaviors and characteristics of communication in both countries. In detail, to investigate linguistic behavior more comprehensively, the usages of speech level, hedge and topic initiative were investigated with respect to age difference, gender as well as degree of intimacy. The results from this study are believed to serve as the fundamental data to help in the smooth communication and mutual understanding among students studying the Korean language and the Japanese as a second foreign language. The detailed results were suggested as follows.
(1) speech level
Speech level were investigated in the aspect of sentence-final speech level and speech levels in total utterance. For Korean, since age difference between conversion partners was reflected in polite forms, non-polite forms and respectful (or humble) forms at sentence-final speech level, the linguistic forms of higher degree of politeness were used for the conversation with elder person, which imply that linguistic behavior of Korean conforms to sociolinguistic norms and conventions. For Japanese, on the contrary, the usage of polite forms was highest between persons of an age and that of Non-marked utterances highest for the conversation with elder or younger talking partners. This tendency in Japanese was thought to reflect the intent to avoid hierarchical relation and to decrease psychologic distance caused by age difference, and this can be interpreted as the consideration toward conversation partner.
In addition, in Japanese, the usage of Non-marker utterance between friends turned out higher than between first-meeting persons and polite forms was frequently used between friends. These two findings are most distinct characteristics differentiating from Korean. This research shows that Japanese tends to use more strategic language compared with Korean.
(2) Hedge
Hedge was investigated in the aspect of ① use or non-use of hedge in a utterance ② the frequency of hedge per utterance ③ coincidence between each speech level and hedge. Results were summarized as follows. The use ratio of hedge in Japanese was higher than in Korean both in the conversation between first-meeting persons and between friends were highest. In addition, for both language, the use ratio of hedge in the conversation between first-meeting persons was higher than that between friends. The use ratio of hedge was high when talking with elder person for both languages, in particular, this tendency was noticeable in the conversion between Korean men. Considering that hedge smooths conversations by mitigating the strength of conversations, above results can be interpreted as that younger person shows consideration to elder person by using more smooth expressions. For both Korean and Japanese, the ratio of coincidences of hedge with non-polite forms was highest in the conversation both between first-meeting persons and between friends, which implies that non-polite forms with hedge show consideration to conversation partners although non-polite form itself is of a low polite forms as a linguistic form.
(3) Topic initiative
Topic initiative was investigated in the aspect of ① the frequency of topic initiative in total conversation ② the coincidence between topic initiative and speech level ③ the coincidence between topic initiative and hedge. The results were summarized as follows. The overall frequency of topic initiative was reverse-proportional to the age of conversation partner in both countries irrespective of gender, which implies that age, a hierarchical relationship, was reflected in topic initiative. In the viewpoint of speech level, the ratio of polite forms was higher in the first-meeting conversion when initiating new topic in both languages. The usage frequency of non-mark utterance in Japanese was relatively higher than in Korean while the ratio of polite forms in Korean was higher than in Japanese. The frequency of topic initiative in the conversation between first-meeting persons was higher than that between friends. The usage ratio of hedge when initiating new topic in Korean was much higher than in Japanese for both conversation between first-meeting persons and between friends, which can be interpreted as the strategy to mitigating hierarchical relationship arisen from topic initiative by using the coincidence with hedge.