Differences in the Use of Honorific Styles According to Social Status and Solidarity of the Listener in the Family, School, and Workplace: Analysis of Responses from Discourse Completion Test Using Generalized Linear Mixed Model
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of social factors on the use of honorific language by discourse completion test. Participants complete a short discourse by filling in their responses in conversations that may occur in families, schools, and workplaces where the social status and solidarity of the listener is predetermined. Honorific styles of sentence endings of their responses are analyzed by the generalized linear mixed model. The results show that social status and solidarity are statistically significant factors in the use of honorific styles, but their effects are dependent on the discourse situation. The ratio of using honorific styles gradually increases as the formality of situation increases (i.e., family < school < workplace). Interestingly, when the solidarity is low at the workplace, the ratio of using honorific styles is consistently high regardless of the social status of the listener. These results show that the use of Korean honorific styles is pragmatically changing according to the discourse situation.